Are These Guys Sluggers, or Just Lucky Swingers?

As Mark McGwire, George Bell, Dale Murphy, Eric Davis, Jack Clark and other abusers of baseballs continue to park the ball out of the ballpark, I cannot help but be reminded of the movie I made.

It was called “The Slugger’s Wife,” starring Michael O’Keefe as Slugger and Rebecca DeMornay as Wife. Written by Neil Simon, directed by Hal Ashby and produced by mistake, it was the story of a young Atlanta Brave outfielder who challenged Roger Maris’ single-season record for home runs. It played at a theater near you for, oh, at least six days.

I worked as an extra on this film and was nominated for worst supporting actor. Like De Niro, I gained the 50 pounds the part called for, so that’s why I look fat. Which, in turn, later cost me the Cruise role in “Top Gun.”

In “Slugger”--we Hollywood people love to condense titles to one word--I played a sportswriter who covered the slugger on his bid to break Maris’ record. In the credits, if I remember right, I am listed as “Creep Taking Notes.”

For everyone planning to rent the video cassette, and I know there must be thousands of you, be forewarned that I am about to reveal the ending. Slugger wallops one out of the Atlanta park, it hits Chief Noc-a-Homa on the scalp, and Slugger breaks Maris’ record. Two weeks later, of course, he wants his contract renegotiated and goes to arbitration.

I have been thinking about this movie a lot lately, because I have this terrible feeling that I am about to relive it in real life. For the first time since Three Mile Island followed “The China Syndrome,” history is about to imitate art.

Somebody is going to challenge Maris’ home run record, and I am going to have to cover it. I keep thinking that my boss is going to send me to the All-Star Game a couple of weeks from now at Oakland, then just leave me there because McGwire probably will already have 30 or 40 home runs.

The trouble is, even a writer-actor as versatile as myself can’t be in two places at once. What if, come September, McGwire is hitting his 59th homer on one coast, Murphy is hitting his 58th on the other coast and Bell is belting his 60th in Canada?

Worse yet, what if it isn’t September, but August?

Speaking for myself, I would like to be there on the night somebody hits his 71st home run. They placed an asterisk next to Maris’ 61st because it came in a longer season than Babe Ruth’s 60 homers did. I don’t know what punctuation they will place next to 71 homers. Maybe a question mark.

They say the baseball is more “lively” this year, that it has “rabbit” inside it, that a bunch of seamstresses in Haiti are amusing themselves by sewing hares inside the horsehide. At the factory, just before Duvalier left the country, the baseballs used to turn to him and ask: “What’s up, Baby Doc?”

The balls are so lively, I saw a player hit one 400 feet with an autograph.

There are so many homers these days, grand slams ought to be worth only three runs. Home runs are hopping and multiplying. Commissioner Peter Ueberroth is becoming Commissioner Peter Rabbit. Even the stitches have turned red with embarrassment.

The Yankees and Blue Jays just played a game that ended 15-14. McGwire just mashed five taters in two games. Bill Madlock had a three-homer day. Quick, somebody, sign Dave Kingman. He could hit 20 out of the park using his hat for a bat, which, come to think of it, I wish he would.

Nobody in either league has hit even 50 home runs since George Foster got 52 in 1977. Nobody in the American League has hit 50 since Maris got his 61 in ’61. Either today’s baseball has some bunny in it or the players are using aluminum bats and sprinkling steroids on their Wheaties.

I only wish Maris could be around to see all these people chasing his record. Nobody came close to his record while he was alive. Nobody except what’s his name, the wife’s slugger.

What next?

Wade Boggs hits .500? Don Mattingly hits in 57 straight games? Pete Rose gets his 5,000th hit? Ron Karkovice hits one out of the infield? Could be, could be. These baseballs go flying, baby. These aren’t baseballs, these are spaceballs.

All I know is, on the night McGwire and Bell hit their 62nd home runs, a major studio signs Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines to play them in the movie, and filming begins two weeks later in Haiti. I’ll be the one in the background, second seamstress from the left.