McGwire's successor is out there
Posted: Wednesday September 09, 1998 10:36 AM
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If McGwire could name the person to break his record, it would be his son Matt AP |
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- No matter how this season ends, Mark McGwire
knows the kid who will hit one more than he did is probably out there
already. He even has a kid in mind. "I hope my son
grows up, becomes a baseball player and someday breaks the record," McGwire
said. In truth, baseball will need luck and all the Matt
McGwires it can find 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, he 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. The moment was
37 years in the making. It was over in less than three seconds.
"I've been talking about this since January and I get to 61, and it's one
swing away," he said. "The next thing you know, I hit a ball that all of a
sudden disappeared on me." McGwire didn't sneak up on the
record so much as demolish it. That was the truly amazing thing -- how
normal he made the spectacular seem. 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. That's because all of them know the kind of power it
takes to hit a home run. And some of them know the consistency needed to
hit 10, 20 or even 30 in a single season. But until McGwire came along,
their only reference for a package with this kind of power AND consistency
resided in the dusty books of baseball history. Now they know
what it looks like firsthand. McGwire worked his way back from the kind of
injuries that have driven some players out of the game. He outlasted slumps
that made others walk away. He didn't get into the game with a number in
mind. 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.
And why should he? 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. 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.
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