Word: homerically
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...productive major-league years. Think about it. You swing at a tiny ball thrown by a fellow who knows something you don't--where it will whiz past you and at what ferocious speed--and you hit it 350 ft. or more in the air. That is why the homer is baseball's most explosive event, an eruption of sex (the swing) and violence (the wallop) in a gentle sport. And that is why, of the 2,500 or so pitches a healthy player sees each season, so few are driven out of the yard. Once upon a time...
...home-run record as if it were a pitiful little Rawlings sphere? And, dammit, with so little suspense! Since 1961, hot stovers have debated whether Maris' feat, in a 162-game season, truly equaled Ruth's in a 154-game span. But on Saturday, when McGwire pummeled his 60th homer against Cincinnati, his team was playing only its 141st game. Sosa had a just slightly less preposterous 58 dingers in 142 Cubs games. By the time you read this, one or both of these sluggers may have made a fan's anticipation meaningless. They had to hit only...
...Sosa are likely to stay there, becoming the first non-Yankees to hold the homer record since 1919, when a Red Sox pitcher-outfielder named Ruth hit 29. They won't have diminished the Babe's achievements--partly because he was so much better than the best of his day. (In 1927, when Ruth smacked his 60, only one other player, Lou Gehrig, hit more than half that number.) And partly because baseball fans, the most traditional of mammals, believe deep in their atavistic hearts that then was better than...
...Number of times McGwire has been retired this year by Kevin Brown of the San Diego Padres, the pitcher who has retired him most often without surrendering a homer...
Sosa, by contrast, must consider taking a strategic walk, hitting to the opposite field to move runners over, avoiding the strikeout in run-scoring opportunities. For every situation in which good fundamental baseball dictates that trying to homer is unpalatable, Sosa must buy out of the race. McGwire observes no such constraints...