| | Tonight as I was flipping around television, I was reminded of
something very special: the summer of 1998. The other half
was watching "I Love New York" and the national championship football
game was sort of "who cares" to me... but aha!...
on Fox Sports Midwest, they were playing that game from September 1998
when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run... making him the (then)
all-time single season home run king.
The summer of 1998 was a great one. I had graduated from high
school, was preparing to start college, and the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa
home run race was in full swing. And it was fun! And it was
innocent! And it brought my generation of baseball fans back to
baseball. I was at Busch Stadium when Big Mac hit his 500th home
run in 1999 - and truly felt a part of history that day. But in
the years since, our image of Big Mac as Superman has tarnished.
The steroid cloud that hovers over the 1990s hovers heavily over
McGwire. And he hasn't done anything to help that image either.
But tonight, watching the post-game interview with Joe Buck and Mark
McGwire's parents and his son... it was communicated clearly that Big
Mac had carried Major League Baseball on his back during the summer of
1998 - and had done so with unarguable class. Joe Buck seemed
actually moved by McGwire's feat of surpassing Roger Maris' mark.
But today we question. We doubt. We disparage.
And this is all brought back to the front of our minds because this
year Mark McGwire is eligible for balloting for the Baseball Hall of
Fame. And he'll be lucky to get enough votes to stay on next
year's ballot. The mighty have fallen - but for good reason?
Mark McGwire hit 583 home runs during his career with the Oakland A's and St. Louis Cardinals - good enough to make him seventh
on the all-time home run list. Only Frank Robinson, Sammy Sosa,
Willy Mays, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Hank Aaron hit more.
Along with Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire was at the top of the baseball
world during the 1990s. But the sports media are working to help
us all collectively forget the 1990s altogether as the
"performance-enhanced era."
Even so, it's important to remember that Mark McGwire - who may or may
not have used steroids during the 90s - was likely not one of a few
players of his time using these substances. A lot of players did,
and they did so likely because these substances were not banned,
controlled, or tested for by Major League Baseball. Hitters were
juicing. Pitcher were juicing. Hell, probably the bat boys
were juicing.
Does that make it okay? Certainly not. Do I think it
diminishes the accomplishments of the great players of the 1990s?
Not when taken in perspective.
We can't judge Big Mac or the other great players of the 1990s by our
standards of today. We have to judge them by the game as it was
played on the field when they played. The 1990s happened.
We were there. We watched. We were amazed. And when
Mark McGwire played, he did nothing that wasn't allowed at the time by
Major League Baseball.
So when the Baseball Writers cast their ballots for the Hall of Fame,
they should vote for Mark McGwire because he was the best of his
era. They should vote for Mark McGwire because he did things no
other player had done. They should vote for Mark McGwire because
he was a class act. They should vote for Mark McGwire because he
(along with Sammy Sosa, also since disgraced) brought baseball back as
America's pastime. He made it exciting again to fill up the
stadium. To cheer. To memorize stats. To be a
baseball fan.
We can't keep Mark McGwire out for things we can't prove.
It was baseball that allowed all of this to happen. In a sport with
no rules, no testing and no punishment for using the hottest substances
of the day, this was no tiny problem, involving a few obvious home run
trotters. This was the culture inside the game, just as amphetamines
were part of the culture in the 60s and 70s and 80s (and beyond).
It was baseball that allowed all this to go on, and it never
furnished us with any evidence whatsoever of who did what when. So we
hardly know anything concrete about what McGwire may or may not have
done. And that's the truth.
We know how his appearance changed. We know when his numbers
soared. We know he gave some horrible answers to some members of
Congress. We know he has vanished nearly as completely as Amelia
Earhart since he gave those answers.
But in reality, we hardly know anything about what anyone in the sport may or may not have done during those anarchic 1990s.
While perhaps there are very valid arguments why voters did not
check the box next to Mark McGwire's name on their Hall of Fame ballot
this year, I think it's too easy to vote against him. The media
mania has gotten the best of us. But tonight, watching HR #62 all
over again... I remembered why. If the Hall of Fame voters did
the same, they would remember too. And Big Mac would be the Hall
of Famer we all expected he would be.
- BKW
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| | Posted 1/8/2007 10:45 PM - 3 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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