Me vs. Mark McGwire

You may ask why I feel the need to cleanse myself in such a way. This is a good question, I offer you this as exhibit A.

The year was 1998, I was in the last semester of college, Bill Clinton was in the White House, I didn't know anyone who owned a cell phone and I had never heard of Al Qaeda or a blog. Life was good.

The place was East Lansing, I was working like a dog in an attempt to "finish strong" in my university studies. The wonderful home run race of 98 was going on between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, people of all ilks were again celebrating the national pastime. In my scholastic frenzy, nutrition was not high on my list of concerns and was trumped by convenience. This being said, there was a Taco Bell on the way from school to my house and another 1/2 block from that flop house where several of my friends lived, which served as my second home. I ate at Taco Bell a lot.

I think it was sometime in September, that I decided to do something to feel a part of this historic home run race that was playing out in front of the nation. I decide to start chasing Mark McGwire. What? you say. No I didn't take to the back yard with my fungo and try hitting the ball over the fence. I went more with something that at the time was my strength. Like I said before, I ate at Taco Bell a lot.

The way I look at it the Nachos Bell Grande is the Home Run of the Taco Bell menu. You guessed it, I started eating Nachos Bell Grandes in an attempt to catch Mark McGwire. When I started Big Mac was way ahead of me, but I didn't care, I had a heart of gold and a cast iron stomach. I was going to catch Big Mac.

It was really easy, actually. I would just grab a Bell Grande for lunch as I was going to class and then one on the way home for dinner. I didn't tell anyone about this until I got past the 10 mark, but then I took it public to my friends. This is when I really started to make up some ground on Big Mac. My friends, being the type that can recognized a great idea, jumped fully behind me. It was around this time that I at 6 Nachos Bell Grandes in a 36 hour window.

The whole time that I was doing this people would cringe upon hearing about my history chasing. They would say, "how can you do that to yourself?" Honestly, it didn't phase me one bit. It was sub par food, yeah, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. I mean, I once ate a whopper (note: I now have a standing boycott of Burger King) that had been sitting out on our living room table for 2+ days in the August. Once, for an entire week I ate nothing but a noontime meal of the #3 at McDonalds (note: I no longer eat non-breakfast at McDonalds) because I had no money and it was cheap and the super size will take you a long way. So really this little "Chasing History" thing that I was doing was not that big of a deal to me.

My friends and I dreamed up senecios where I would write letters to Taco Bell telling them of my story, they would love it and fly to East Lansing with their Taco Bell helicopter and tell me over a free Bell Grande that they wanted to feature me in a TV ad. The ad would be so well received that eventually I would replace that damn Chihuahua and be their spokesperson. The Jared of Taco Bell, if you will. In the transition commercial, I would have the pleasure of punting the little dog into fast food spokesanimal oblivion. We had it all worked out and looking back, it probably would have happened, if we'd just written that letter.

In the end, I didn't catch Mark McGwire. His head start was just too great. My final total was somewhere in the low 30s, 32 or 33 perhaps. I know that when you pro-rate the race between me and McGwire, I blew him away, no contest. But I wasn't bitter, especially in hindsight, now knowing that McGwire was using the steroids. I can truthfully say, I was not using steroids. Other performance enhancing drugs perhaps, but no steroids. I left that race knowing that on a level playing field I could eat more Bell Grandes than McGwire could hit dingers. And really, that is all I needed.

As time went by my attention to nutrition slowly grew to the point where I cared what I put into my body. Now looking back at my historic Bell Grande binge it isn't something that I would entertain again. But you can't change the past and I take pride in the fact that for a couple weeks in the early autumn of 98 there were few people on this earth that could put away a Nachos Bell Grade like I could.