Road to regret?

As the Cardinals’ current first basemen prepares to play catch with the president, the Missouri lawmaker who helped name a portion of Interstate 70 for the team’s previous slugging first basemen continues to express regrets.

In a Chicago Tribune story Sunday, Ryan McKenna, a Democrat from Crystal City, says he wish he never carried the legislation designating a portion of the expressway “Mark McGwire Highway.”

McKenna, currently a state senator, was a freshman representative when he carried the bill through the State House a decade ago.

It’s not so much the allegations of steroid abuse, McKenna said, as the man himself. McKenna told the Tribune that, during Spring Training one year in Jupiter, Fla., he saw Mark McGwire and went up to introduce himself as the man who helped rename the highway.

McGwire’s response? From the Tribune:

“I’ll never forget it. He just looked at me and said, ‘I don’t give a [darn],’ and he turned and walked away,” McKenna said. “He just didn’t care. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have withdrawn the bill.”

Since then, several attempts to rename the highway have been unsuccessful, despite Big Mac’s indifference. In 2004, McKenna wanted to name it “St. Louis Cardinals Highway.” State Rep. T.D. El-Amin sought to name the roadway for John Bass, the former St. Louis comptroller and state senator.

While much of the attention this All-Star week will focus on Redbirds hero Albert Pujols, visiting scribes will have trouble not noticing McGwire Highway — it’s the road that will take many of them from the airport to downtown.