From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Mark McGwire's shattering of baseball's regular-season home run record has companies around the nation lined up to sign him as a spokesman.

While most of these companies are willing to pay him millions to endorse their product or service, McGwire recently taped a series of commercials for free that will be groundbreaking in their own way: they're public service announcements dealing with the problem of child sexual abuse, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

This public discussion of a serious but secretive problem shouldn't come as a surprise to those who have kept up with McGwire's career. When he signed a three-year, $28.5-million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals last year, McGwire announced $1 million of his salary annually would go to his new McGwire Foundation for Children, established to boost child abuse prevention programs at selected institutions in St. Louis and Southern California, as well as to increase overall awareness of the problem.

The PSAs are the first public step in that direction. They will air during the playoffs and the World Series.

The commercials have two distinct messages, the paper reports. One message is for child victims of abuse, urging them to report the abuse to someone they trust; the other is directed to the abuser, asking them to step forward and admit their problem.

McGwire says he became aware of the problem of child sexual abuse after he learned a close friend had been abused. Since then, many people have confided their abuse to him during the baseball season.

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