BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…May 30, 1998, 25 years ago today:
In the Cardinals’ 3-2 loss to San Diego, St. Louis first baseman Mark McGwire continues the torrid, juice-aided pace that will make him baseball’s all-time single season home run champion. Big Mac hit his 27th homer in the Cards’ 53rd game, jumping well ahead of Roger Maris’ pace when he set the record with 61 homers in 1961. The previous record for home runs prior to June was 24, set the previous year by Ken Griffey Jr. of the Seattle Mariners.
The home run race between McGwire and the Chicago Cubs’ Sammy Sosa that summer captivated baseball and its fans, coming as it did three years after the 1994 strike that brought the sport to its knees and canceled the World Series. McGwire busted out to the early lead, but Sosa, who had just 13 homers at the end of May, made it a contest by slugging a big-league record 20 in June.
McGwire was serious throughout the season as he got closer to history, while Sosa professed to be just havin’ fun. At the end of August, both players had 55 round-trippers. And on September 8, the Cubs and Cardinals faced off in St. Louis, with McGwire having tied Maris with 61 homers and Sosa’s total standing at 58. It was that night McGwire clubbed No. 62 to become baseball’s new home run king, with Sosa racing in from his spot in rightfield to congratulate him at home plate. McGwire would end the season with an unfathomable 70, while Sosa finished with 66.
It would be 10 years before we fully realized that 1998 wasn’t a monument to baseball’s popularity, but rather the peak of what would become known as the Steroids Era. And in 2010, McGwire admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career. Sosa denies using steroids to this day — he once attributed his bulging biceps to Flintstones vitamins. But a New York Times report in 2009 named him as one of 100 major leaguers who tested positive during spring training in 2003.
McGwire’s record would last just three years — to be broken by Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants in 2001. Bonds’ 73 homers sit under a cloud similar to McGwire’s. Neither Bonds nor McGwire nor Sosa is in the Hall of Fame. Griffey led the American League in 1998, hitting 56 homers for the second consecutive year. Junior is in the Hall of Fame.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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