A longtime SI baseball writer reflects on Mark McGwire's aversion to fame

by Ron Fimrite

During spring training of 1988 in Arizona, I was assigned to do a story for Sports Illustrated on the San Francisco Bay Area's phenomenal young first basemen, Will Clark of the Giants and Mark McGwire of the Athletics.

Talking to the ebullient Clark was a piece of cake. Then entering his third major league season and clearly enjoying his newfound celebrity, Clark rattled on convivially at dinner about an infinite variety of subjects, chief among which was himself. He called my wife, somewhat to her displeasure, "Mom," and solicitously suggested we commence eating before she succumbed to hunger pangs. He commented enthusiastically on the competence and anatomy of our waitress and hailed passersby in that curiously falsetto voice of his. For years after that night, he continued to address me, as few athletes ever have, as a boon companion. Will Clark knew his p.r.

The McGwire interview was an entirely different matter. McGwire firmly rejected my offer of a dinner on the then-generous SI expense account. He refused to allow any photographs to be taken of him with his wife and five-month old baby son. And he would talk to me only at the ballpark, and there only at the finish of that afternoon's game. Bristling at the imposition of so many restrictions by a 24-year-old in only his second season and resentful that he was obliging me to remain, contrary to my custom, until the conclusion of a meaningless spring-training exhibition, I awaited our meeting with considerable misgivings.

It was growing dark when he finally arrived at our agreed-upon rendezvous in the A's dugout and it was clear to me I'd now miss the jolly cocktail hour at the Pink Pony restaurant a few miles away in Scottsdale. Much to my surprise, however, McGwire greeted me warmly, apologizing for the austere conditions he had set forth in the otherwise laissez-faire atmosphere of spring training. He merely wanted to protect the privacy of his family, he explained, and I agreed this was an admirable objective. Who, after all, wants a bunch of Nosey Parker reporters and photographers prowling about the family scatter?

I already knew something about McGwire's respect for family concerns since, in an extraordinary rookie season, he had skipped his final game to be at the bedside of his wife, Kathy, at the birth of their son, Matthew. In doing so, he had passed up a chance to hit his 50th home run, a feat never before accomplished by a rookie and one at that point reached by only 10 players in the history of baseball. As it is, McGwire's 49 homers were 11 more than any rookie had ever hit. That he would eschew a chance for 50 under even these admittedly high-priority circumstances left less domestic fans and fellow players aghast with disbelief.

"That kid doesn't even know what it means to hit 50 home runs," grumbled then-teammate Reggie Jackson, whose best-ever output was 47. "He doesn't know or care that he'd be up there with Ruth, Foxx, Greenberg, Mantle and Mays. It's a damn shame."

But McGwire cared more about seeing his son enter the world than joining the immortals. The ironic part of it was that he and Kathy were even then experiencing marital difficulties and would soon be divorced.

His reluctance to discuss his private life was understandable enough, but what was more amazing to me that afternoon was the diffidence with which he talked about what then appeared to be and now certainly is a Hall of Fame career. He told me he didn't really expect to hit as many as 49 home runs again and that he was severely discomfited by the fame that had been thrust upon him.

"I still can't believe what I did," he said, as I vainly searched his young features for any suggestion of insincerity. "It really took a toll on me ... I never wanted to be in the public eye ... I was always the kind of kid who liked to sit in the back of the room and just blend in ... Now, everybody knows me as Mark McGwire, the baseball player. The thing is, I don't want to be just a baseball player. I want to be myself ... There are times when I've said to myself that I wished I hadn't done what I did last year. Why, I'd think, did it have to happen to me?"

It was nearly dark when we finished talking and, finally recognizing that I was in the company of a most unusual person, I'd completely lost interest in joining the merry crowd at the Pink Pony. The fact is, I've never forgotten those revelations from this reluctant hero and I often wonder what inner turmoil he must now be enduring when, from all evidence, he is about to become the greatest single-season home run hitter of them all. "It's so unreal," he said earlier this year, still very much in character.

Reggie Jackson would never understand emotions so at odds with achievement. The Babe certainly wouldn't. And I'm not at all certain anyone would except Big Mac himself. I do know that when and if he breaks the record, he'll have both my heartiest congratulations and, recalling our conversation that darkening afternoon of a decade ago, my heartfelt sympathy.