70 Home Runs: 'It's Absolutely Amazing'

Mark McGwire hit his 69th home run of the season Sunday. (Reuters)

By Thomas Boswell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 28, 1998; Page A1

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 27 – The greatest sustained six-month spectacle ever put on by any man in baseball history is over now. Busch Stadium is empty, the St. Louis Cardinals' season finished, and everyone, even Mark McGwire, has finally gone home. The residue: Amazement, exhaustion, joy. When, again, if ever?

This summer of Big Mac theater, which encompassed sport but touched far more, couldn't last forever, much as millions wished it might. In a sense, however, McGwire's 70 home runs – including two today – will burn brightly for generations, at the least; genuine mythology, born full-blown before our eyes, lasts as long as tongues can tell.

With two homers in his season finale against the Montreal Expos, to match his pair of blasts on Saturday, as well as one homer on Friday, McGwire has gone beyond expectations, beyond rational baseball possibilities and into his own magnificent sports twilight zone.

"My dominant feeling?" said McGwire after those five home runs in his last 11 at-bats. "I can't believe I did it. It's absolutely amazing. It blows me away. ... It's unheard of for somebody to hit 70 home runs. I'm in awe of myself right now."

A sign in the upper deck here presumably had the final word on the Great Home Race of 1998: "Sorry, Sammy."

The great Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs, who has 66 home runs, has one more game – a one-game playoff against the San Francisco Giants on Monday night in Chicago to decide the National League wild-card race. In theory, Sosa could tie McGwire. He would have to hit four homers, equaling the single-game record. "Good luck," said McGwire. Many ballplayers might have said it sarcastically. McGwire said it cheerfully, sincerely, in the spirit of their mutually inspiring race.

This final McGwire day had the usual high-fives, elbows bashes, gut punches, curtain calls and standing ovations. But, according to everyone involved, none of the normal forms of celebration sufficed.

As McGwire rounded the bases twice – after 377-foot and 370-foot drives into the left-field stands off a curveball from Mike Thurman curve and a 96 mph fastball from Carl Pavano – his teammates actually laughed. On No. 70, Kent Bottenfield said to Tom Lampkin, "I don't even know what to think." Both fell to giggling and head-shaking.

"You have to laugh or cry. You have to do something extraordinary," said St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa, who also broke new ground. "In 19 years, I've never kissed a player. But I kissed him."

Occasionally in sports, at long intervals, people accomplish feats, do deeds, eradicate long-standing records, in ways that so far exceed their own expectations – and our assumptions about the levels of human performance – that enormous numbers of people feel ennobled by what becomes a sustaining, inspiring shared experience.

The Olympic victory by the U.S. hockey team over the Soviet Union in 1980 was one example, as was Jack Nicklaus's triumph at The Masters at the age of 46. So was Cal Ripken Jr.'s consecutive-games streak, especially when he took his victory lap in Camden Yards after his 2,131st game.

Indelible as those achievements are, as well as the entire careers of world-renowned athletes such as Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, McGwire's enormous number – 70 home runs – is going to need some digestion. Even he is stumped. "I'm talkin' from the hip here. I wish I had two or three months to think about what I've done. I hope these are good answers," said McGwire, apologetic, appealing.

One question remains here, and it's in many minds: Has anyone in American sports ever done anything equally amazing, and comparably difficult, over such a grueling span and under so much pressure?

"If I combine everything I've seen in my baseball career – all the great achievements of all my players, and I've had some great ones – I compare all that to what Mark has done," said La Russa. "He's gone into the stratosphere.

"Moment after moment, from hitting a grand slam on Opening Day to break up a scoreless game, I just wish somebody could say it, or write it the way it should be," added La Russa, who has a law degree. "I've even written some things down. But it never comes close to the moment. So, I've given up."

That's just as well. No one doubt that McGwire's 70 in '98 will be a theme contest for decades. Baseball lends itself to a building-up of detail, a novel-like accumulation of narrative, like no other sport. For at least six weeks, McGwire has pulled entire families together – watching and discussing – his home runs, his saga and its meaning.

"I'm absolutely exhausted. It's felt like every eye in America was on me," he said. "I'm amazed that I stayed in my tunnel vision so long. ... It proves you can overcome almost anything with the strength of your mind."

McGwire's focus has actually improved when he needed it most. On Aug. 19, Sosa passed him, 48 to 47. That lasted for 57 minutes. Before that game was finished, McGwire had hit two home runs, moved back ahead, and he finished with 23 homers in his last 46 games. On Friday night, Sosa again pulled ahead, 66-65. That lasted 45 minutes. McGwire then hit five homers in less than 48 hours.

Ruthian? That adjective may not be enough any more. Maybe Mac-ian. McGwire hit his 70 homers in 509 at-bats over 155 games. When Roger Maris set the previous record of 61, he did it in 590 at-bats over 161 games. And when the Babe hit 60, he did it 540 at-bats over 151 games.

All summer, McGwire has told first baseball fans, then general sports fans, then, eventually, everyone who doesn't live in a cave, that he's just like us. His eyes are too weak to see his home runs land and his feet are so ugly he can't stand to look at 'em.

He's unlucky at love and has spent years with a therapist. Sometimes, injuries or the difficulties of the game drove him close to despair or retirement. Just seven years ago, he begged La Russa to bench him on the last day of the season so his average couldn't fall below .200.

Because he's presented himself as vulnerable and flawed, despite his tappered 6-foot-5, 250-pound frame, McGwire likes to say that he feels that "everybody tells me they feel like they hit these homers right along with me." But, surely, in the last three days of this season, he has separated himself from all of us – even his glorious alter ego in a Cubs uniform.

"I don't think of myself as anything special," McGwire said after this game. "I'm a normal person who has a talent to play this game."

That humility, and empathy for others, allowed him to cry in public a year ago as he donated $1 million per year of his salary to a foundation for abused children. It allowed him to share the glory of his 62nd home run moment with the entire family of the late Maris, hugging every Maris in the joint and whispering in their ears. It allows him to laugh at the idea of his life, saying, "Watching the real thing is better." Of multimillion-dollar endorsements, which he's usually shunned, he said: "We'll see. So far, none of them turn my crank. I'm not going to sacrifice my winter."

Spring training will arrive soon enough – though, McGwire knows, it will probably never be followed by another season like this. Perhaps the size of his achievement is measured by the fact that he can't even imagine duplicating his own feat. "Do I ever want to be in this position again?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't know."

"Give Sosa part of the credit for 70, too," said La Russa. "Sammy magic forced Mark to keep on grinding, right to the end."

At the end of the day, it was McGwire who asked himself the questions on many minds.

"Will 70 homers ever be broken? Could be. But I know how grueling it is. Will I be alive to see it? Maybe. If it is, I want to be there."

So would everybody else. We should live so long.