Word: sosa
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...single-season home-run record of 61 in 1961 (Can you see why we weep?), is being attacked on three fronts: McGwire, who had 42 homers as of Saturday (only a bit more than halfway through the season), has been joined by Griffey (39) and some guy named Sammy Sosa...
Even if it is McGwire who, as most people (including Griffey and Sosa) suspect, will set the record this year, it won't last 37 years, as Maris' did, or even 34, as Ruth's. Griffey is young, and the record is most likely to be his someday. He has one of the most perfect swings in baseball history: a long, smooth, straight, upper-body cut that makes McGwire's short, compact, hip-driven swing look like a shot put. Griffey's swing is the learned, refined movement of someone who grew up in major league dugouts. "Junior's never...
...most of his career, nobody thought of Sammy Sosa as a legend chaser. The amiable but erratic Chicago Cubs outfielder was better known for throwing to the wrong bases and stealing at impractical times. Same thing at bat: flailing wildly, the power hitter seemed to go for the fences with every swing. Result: last year he struck out more than anyone in the National League...
...that was last year. Fast on the heels of Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr., Sosa is the dark-horse candidate to shatter the single-season record for home runs. Thanks to a spectacular--some might say freaky--June in which he popped 20 home runs, a major league record, the Dominican native showed that he is finally harnessing his impulsiveness. As of Saturday, he had racked up 36 homers, just six behind leader McGwire. Sosa's batting record of .319 this season is a full .57 points higher than his career average...
...child in the Dominican Republic, he was occupied selling oranges for 10[cents] apiece and shining shoes for 25[cents] to help support his widowed mother, four brothers and two sisters in their two-room flat. When former Texas Ranger scout Omar Minaya spotted Sosa playing ball as a 16-year-old in 1985, Minaya recalls that the 150-lb., 5-ft. 10-in. kid, dressed in a borrowed uniform, looked both athletically promising and malnourished. Last year Sosa signed a four-year contract for $42.5 million. Beneficiaries of his generous spirit abound. His mother now resides in the third...