McGwire earns place in America's heart

Jason Michael Barker

Isn't this homerun chase great?

Here you've got two men, Mark "Big Mac" McGwire and "Swingin'" Sammy Sosa, assaulting baseball's most sacred single-season record -- 61 homeruns. Think about that for a minute. Sixty-one homeruns in a single season. Think about how many things have to go just right for that to happen.

Now think about the pressure. You think Big Mac can go out for a Big Mac without getting mobbed? Nope. You think Sosa can swing by Starbucks for a mocha without getting swarmed? Of course not. And yet these two heroes go on about their business, hitting homeruns, dealing with the media, and captivating the nation.

Most of all, these homeruns are great for baseball. Just as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird saved the NBA in the early 1980's, McGwire and Sosa have brought baseball all the way back from the dark days of the 1994 player's strike. The fans are excited, the umpires are excited, and the players... well they're excited too.

When Mark McGwire belted number 61 on Monday, he ensured a place for himself in the history of our great nation. Five, ten, even fifty year from now, people will talk about where they were when he hit his historic blast. Where were you?

What will you remember about the moment? McGwire rounding the bases, pumping his fist in the air as he ran? The roar of the crowd as he tipped his hat in appreciation? McGwire's parents, as proud as any parents have ever been of their son. Young Matt (is that his name, Derek?) McGwire coming out of the dugout to greet his dad, the coolest dad on the planet? Or perhaps you'll recall the swing itself, which sent a small white spheroid into the annals of history.

[Sniff] Does anyone have a tissue? You'll have to excuse me, I think I've got something in my eye.

This is the biggest fix since the Black Sox 

Derek Zumsteg

Why not just put the ball on a tee and let Mac have at it? Why is that any different than having the scrubs of the Marlins and Red serve up pitches over and over again on manager's orders? This is a joke, a bad joke to distract us from the total lack of competitive balance in the sport -- or the fact that Bud Selig runs it. Either professional baseball is filled with total idiots, or it's a conspiracy. Or both.

Here's the evidence: if you pitch to McGwire, there's a 10% chance he takes you out of the park in dramatic fashion. There's a 36% chance he gets on first by walking or hitting a single (he doesn't ever double). If he gets on base by means other than steroid-assisted home run, there's only about a one-in-four chance he scores. So basically every time you walk Mac intentionally, you give up a quarter of a run. And every time you pitch to Mac, you give up just over a fifth of a run. Sounds like you should pitch to him, right? Nah. Because when you pitch him, he's likely to get on base anyway with the added threat of driving everybody home 10% of the time. I don't understand why anyone pitches to Mac with men on. It's just ridiculous. And baseball managers have paid staff who put together stats just like these for them to use -- but they're serving them up and losing games, for the sake of baseball's image.

MacGwire understands this. "It's part of the game," he once said, after a game in which they repeatedly gave him passes to first. Being a wise man, he doesn't say anything these days about being pitched to. And it doesn't make his steroid-assisted ability to hit balls real far any less impressive.

But the fact remains that managers are instructing their pitchers not to pitch McGwire because they want to win, but because they want to avoid angry sniping from the national media horde, columnists, and most of all, the thousands of local fans who came out for the traveling McGwire show.

I believe that the game of baseball is about winning, not about pandering to crowds to cheapen the pursuit of a hallowed record, and apparently I'm in the minority this year.