Word: mcgwire
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...major-league baseball's 123rd year, are two men--Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa--suddenly destined to cream the 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...
...some scrupulous folk, the news that for the past year McGwire has taken doses of androstenedione (which is either a muscle enhancer or Viagra in vitamin form) will forever place an ethical asterisk next to his achievement. Andro is legal in baseball--partly because the mouse men who run the game are unwilling to wrestle over drug policy with a balky and powerful players' union--but banned in other sports; last week the NFL suspended Paul Wiggins of the Pittsburgh Steelers for sampling andro over the summer. (Sosa was recently seen "hiding" a bottle of Flintstones vitamins in his locker...
...belt taters while defiling the temple of his body. He indulged in illegal drugs (alcohol during Prohibition) and occasionally the illicit honey of a hooker's caress. No one seemed to mind. The Babe was a swaggering kid, a genius and a naif, having fun being the best. McGwire took some time reaching that state of athletic nirvana known as "the groove." For his good and the game's, he seems to be there...
...will take some time for the long-ball Luddites to accept that these are the good old days--the days of damn Yankees, of pitching phenoms like El Duque and Kerry Wood, of a glorious Griffey, surely of the mad bombers McGwire and Sosa. We may have to wait 20 years--when, say, Matt McGwire, now 11 and a weekend bat boy for his father's team, threatens to hit 100 homers in a season--for reality to set in. Then the geezers will sigh and say, "Ahhhh, remember the glory...
...should Trachsel fear Zachary's fate--footnote to a broken record--maybe he could console himself with a less rare, but no less precious piece of history. Photographer Crimson I LOVE YOU, MAC:MARK MCGWIRE and SAMMY SOSA share a moment...