{"id":453873,"date":"2026-02-07T05:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T05:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/453873\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T05:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T05:13:12","slug":"mark-mcgwire-returns-to-the-athletics-as-a-special-assistant-to-player-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/453873\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark McGwire returns to the Athletics as a special assistant to player development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former slugger Mark McGwire is back with his first organization, rejoining the Athletics as a special assistant to player development.<\/p>\n<p>He played at least parts of 12 seasons for the then-Oakland Athletics and was a nine-time All-Star. McGwire was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1987 after hitting 49 home runs, at that time the record for a first-year player. He also was an instrumental part of A&#8217;s teams that went to the World Series from 1988-90, winning it all in 1989 by sweeping the Bay Area rival San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n<p>The A&#8217;s inducted McGwire into their hall of fame in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>McGwire was traded to St. Louis in the 1997 season, and he went on to break Roger Maris&#8217; single-season home run record by belting 70 in 1998 during a chase with the Chicago Cubs&#8217; Sammy Sosa. Their competition reignited interest in baseball, but both became tied to the sport&#8217;s steroid scandal that tarnished their reputations and has kept them out of the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n<p>After his playing days, McGwire went to serve as bench coach for San Diego (2017-18) and as a hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers (2013-15) and Cardinals (2010-12). <\/p>\n<p>The A&#8217;s are about to play the second of at least three seasons at a Triple-A ballpark in West Sacramento, California. They are scheduled to move to Las Vegas and play in a $2 billion 33,000-person capacity stadium beginning in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former slugger Mark McGwire is back with his first organization, rejoining the Athletics as a special assistant to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[4818,13090,363,99],"class_list":["post-453873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-athletics","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}