Only ghosts remain at McGwire's boyhood home in Claremont, Calif. Bits and pieces of a former life, things left behind. The pink and white chairs in the living room. The white wraparound couch. The blue wallpaper upstairs.

There are a few clues that he once lived here. The tub is extra large and the closet is a walk-in and the couch is a room-filler and the dining table is more suited for a battalion than a family.

"Everything is big," current owner Paul Martin says, laughing.

It should be. This is where John McGwire raised his five boys, including a baseball slugger, an NFL quarterback and a bodybuilder. He designed the place himself. When the McGwires moved about a decade ago, Martin bought it from them.

He points behind the sparkling blue pool, toward another relic from the days when McGwire on television meant home runs not testimony.

"The satellite dish was John's so he could watch all his kids," Martin says. "We just never took it out."

Nearby is a small putting green with three holes. Now, the flags are strewn about in disarray, but back in the day, the ultra-competitive McGwires had many a showdown out there. Often neighborhood kids, like Patrick Kirk, would join in.

"It was just brutal, the competition," says Kirk, now a lieutenant colonel in the Army. "We would hang out at his house. His mom was a phenomenal cook. She fed us like there was no tomorrow."

McGwire was around 5 when his folks moved here. On this quiet cul-de-sac, he read about his sporting heroes and dreamed. Kirk still laughs, remembering Mark running down the street one Christmas, yelling, "Pat! Pat! I just got a prescription to Sports Illustrated!"

They were all the same then. No stars or fans, no winners or losers, no heroes or cheats. Relationships were real. Life was simple, something out of a black-and-white sitcom. The neighborhood was full of kids, and they were the support group for a shy McGwire.

"He was a very private person," Kirk says. "He had a core group of friends that he hung out with that he felt comfortable with, that he spent time with."

Eventually, McGwire distanced himself from his old buddies. It started, friends say, when a member of that core group tried to capitalize off Mark's name. An already private man was realizing that trust and fame didn't often go hand in hand. The journey that ultimately led to the walls of Shady Canyon had begun.

"When that trust was betrayed," Kirk says, "he looked at that inner circle and said, 'How can I trust those guys?'"

The last time Kirk and McGwire spoke, when Mark was with the A's and both were home visiting their families, Patrick knew the bond they once shared was no more. His old friend was gone, a wary superstar in his place.

"I could even tell when Mark and I talked in the cul-de-sac, there was this feeling of keeping an arm's distance," Kirk says. "'Good to see you. Glad to see you're doing well.' But you know, it was strained. I feel bad. You hang out with these guys and you form a bond with them, and you think you'll never be separated."

With bonds broken and his family gone, there isn't much left of McGwire in the neighborhood anymore. The fan mail to his old address is down to a trickle. He hasn't visited his boyhood home since it was sold a decade ago. He probably doesn't know Kirk was in the Pentagon on Sept. 11. He doesn't know that his old putting green has seen better days. His junior high school, just a few blocks away, is closed.

Then there's the biggest loss: The pride the cul-de-sac felt at their native son's success has been tempered. Martin was watching when McGwire hit 70, and he was watching when McGwire went in front of Congress. The alpha and omega.

"That was so sad," Martin says. "And so unnecessary. I was sitting here, thinking, 'Just tell them what you did and everyone will think better of you.'"

The seasons are changing on Siena Court. One day, no one in this neighborhood will know anything about McGwire. Maybe they won't even know this is where he grew up.

That might not be too far away. Martin's wife, Pan, has Alzheimer's, and earlier this year, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

"Not much time," he says softly.

The Martins stand inside the garage, just outside the door to the house. There's still a piece of freezer tape that the McGwires put up, letting people know that the button that looks like a buzzer actually raises and lowers the garage door. The next owners might never know who put it up.

He smiles. She does, too, but her eyes are vacant. Paul Martin understands the past is gone for his wife, and he understands that all we are, in the end, is a collection of the things that happened to us.