Timeless moment
37 years in the making, over in less than 3 seconds
Posted: Friday September 11, 1998 12:21 PM
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McGwire's feat puts him to the top of the list in this generation's great sporting moments AP |
By Jim Litke, AP Baseball Columnist
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The moment was 37 years in the making. It was over
in less than three seconds. The important part is to remember what happened
in between.
The game will need luck to see another night like this. Mark McGwire
wasn't around the last time a baseball player sent a home run this historic
streaking across a late-summer sky. But he was practically born for the
occasion.
Like Babe Ruth, McGwire grew up wanting to be a pitcher who proved too
natural a slugger to keep out of the lineup every day. Like Roger Maris, he
was always more comfortable in a dugout than the spotlight. McGwire
eclipsed both of them, ultimately, because he refused to succumb to doubts,
bad pitching, nagging injuries or myths.
Tuesday night's 341-foot drive was the shortest home run McGwire hit
all season. But for all the fearsome power generated by his swing, for all
the openmouthed awe his moonshots inspired, for all the controversy over
how he got so big and muscled, it counted the same as every one of the 61
that preceded it.
If all of those home runs were stretched end to end, like lengths of
rope, the distance would be impressive. Even more impressive is that
McGwire understood the real trick was binding them together.
That's what the fuss, finally, is all about. That's why Ruth and Maris
and McGwire mounted their streaks a generation apart, why opponents
gathered on the top step of the visiting dugout at Busch Stadium every
night of this homestand and applauded when a shot that could cost them the
game left the park.
Because while almost all of them have hit home runs, even 10 or 20 in
a single season, they also understand the evenness of effort required to
reach every signpost beyond that.
McGwire: "I just hope I didn't act foolish." AP | |
So even that when the bottom corner of the scoreboard that has been
reserved during this homestand to keep a running total of McGwire's homers
turned over Tuesday night with the No. 62, he never looked up. Maybe it was
because he didn't get into the game with a number in mind. Or because he
hasn't settled on one yet.
Somebody threw the number 70 out for discussion the other day, and
McGwire's answer was revealing: Why not?
He got to 62, after all, quicker than either Ruth or Maris got to 60,
with a steely-eyed discipline both would have admired and without many of
the advantages each of them enjoyed.
Lou Gehrig hit behind Ruth, Mickey Mantle behind Maris. That was why
Ruth was walked 138 times in 1927 and Maris a mere 94 times in 1961. Most
of this season, McGwire had Brian Jordan
watching his back. Tuesday marked the Cardinals' 145th game of the season;
the big redhead has already walked 149 times. As if to drive home the
point, Cubs pitchers gave him an intentional pass in the sixth and McGwire
could barely do anything when they walked him again in the eighth.
He said all along that getting the record depended on lots of things,
but the only one he ever mentioned was getting pitches to hit. McGwire
could have added complaints about being hounded by the media, about playing
half his games in a ballpark where the summertime air is sometimes as thick
as soup, about expectations that grew ever higher the more he succeeded. He
never did.
Instead, he pretty much hugged everybody he could find on that sweet,
sweet trip that took him around the bases, into his own dugout, back onto
the field and into the box seats where the Maris clan gathered to see the
record fall. McGwire hugged the Cub infielders, his 10-year-old son, Matt,
a gantlet of teammates, the Marises and finally, the entire city of St.
Louis.
"I just hope I didn't act foolish," he said. "This is history."
McGwire made sure of that by hitting a grand slam on Opening Day, home
runs in his first four games and barely pausing for a deep breath after
that. It is one thing to arrive at an achievement like this one by
coincidence, to find yourself in a big moment and deliver a big hit. It is
another thing to do it the way McGwire did, paving the road as you walk
it.
Near the end of the night, someone asked McGwire to imagine whether
anyone else might travel the same path. For a man who made his way to this
juncture so patiently, he answered with surprising speed. "I hope
my son grows up some day," he said, "and breaks the record."
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