Baseball Off to a Fast Start

Already, intimations of greatness swaddle this young season. It feels special, as if it were born under a bright star guiding wise hitters and pitchers bearing gifts. It’s April, days grow longer, and morning box scores spill over with fresh buds of drama and irony.

Are the Devil Rays better than the Diamondbacks, and if so, does it mean money can’t buy the best expansion team? Is the Mariners’ bullpen as bad as the Mets’ bullpen is good? How long until Rupert Murdoch Steinbrenners the lethargic Dodgers? How soon will The Boss call for Orlando Hernandez to be this year’s Hideki Irabu? Is the Cubs’ juggernaut unstoppable, and where does one apply for a guest appearance as seventh-inning vocalist? No longer do we ask if, but when, Dennis Martinez will pass Juan Marichal as the all-time winningest Latino pitcher. If Mo Vaughn stays mad at Dan Duquette, will Vaughn hit .400? We’ve always wondered how scary the Rockies would be with pitching, and now we’re beginning to see. Who the heck are those guys wearing Marlins uniforms, anyway? Is it my imagination, or are the Indians playing as if Game 7 were yesterday?

There are plenty of reasons 1998 promises to be a vintage season, judging by the first week of play, but let’s start with the biggest, all 6-foot-5, 250 pounds of him.

Has baseball seen anything like Mark McGwire since, well, Babe Ruth and Roger Maris? McGwire is the hottest item in sports, period, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods notwithstanding.

McGwire is so hot that baseball’s marketing specialists (former blacksmiths and typewriter salespersons) could not in their wildest dreams concoct a better vehicle to promote the game. St. Louis’ rich and colorful baseball tradition, harking back to Old Pete Alexander, the Gas House Gang, Bob Gibson, the tarp machine that ran over Vince Coleman, is reinvigorated by a slugger of mythic stature, a true-to-life Paul Bunyan. The Cardinals are drawing a bead on 3 million fans, just three years after drawing 1.74 million in the final year of the Anheuser-Busch ownership.

But McGwire’s impact truly is international, as he leads sportscasts and sports sections everywhere and creeps into the everyday conversation of fans and casual observers.

The amazing aspect to McGwire is he is living up to impossible expectations. Given the difficulty of hitting home runs and the variables McGwire can’t control, his season-opening flurry is all the more remarkable. He won the Cardinals’ opener with a grand slam, won the second game with a 12th-inning three-run home run, hit a two-run blast in the third game and provided the victory margin in the fourth game with a three-run shot.

After McGwire deposited a Mark Langston offering over Busch Stadium’s left field wall, Padres Manager Bruce Bochy observed, “He hits a baseball like no other human being. It takes off in a different way.”

Willie Mays, in 1971, was the only National League player before McGwire to hit a home run in the each of the season’s first four games. McGwire’s fourth was the 391st of his career, moving him ahead of Graig Nettles and into 28th on the career home run list.

A pleasant sidelight to McGwire is his mature acceptance of his own phenomenon. Though athletes tend to bridle and withdraw when confronted with the demands of mass celebrity, McGwire is able to step outside himself and appreciate why fans are excited, much as Cal Ripken did in 1995. McGwire seems to know he is an entertainer as well as an athlete, and that his assault on Maris’ record of 61 home runs is show business.

“It’s made baseball a little more exciting to think about it and talk about it,” McGwire says. “But if you really look at it, ever since I was a kid, what do you go to the ballpark for? You go to see somebody hit a home run or somebody throw a ball close to 100 miles an hour. That was the exciting thing when I was a kid, and I think it still is.”

Another compelling aspect in the run for 61 is that McGwire, despite his quick start, can’t put much distance between himself and Ken Griffey Jr., his primary rival. Junior hit three in his first four games, and even more remarkably, dropped a bunt single toward third in his first at-bat against the Red Sox last Saturday. Not only did the bunt catch Boston’s overshifted infield flat-footed, it may have signaled Griffey’s strategy to keep pitchers and defenses honest while preventing himself from becoming pull-conscious. He homered later in Seattle’s 12-6 victory, a game in which Mariners Manager Lou Piniella once again was taken on a white-knuckles ride by his bullpen. G.M. Woody Woodward reportedly was calling around for bullpen help after the 10-9 opening day loss to Cleveland in which the pen blew a 9-3 lead. The opening loss also raised questions about ace Randy Johnson (5 2/3 innings, 11 hits, 5 earned runs), who is coming off a mediocre playoff performance and is angry about the team’s refusal to give him a new contract.

The Indians are smoking, thanks to the young arms of Bart Colon and Jaret Wright, Omar Vizquel’s glove and the bats of Manny Ramirez and Sandy Alomar. Ramirez hit three home runs in his first four games and may be ready to ascend to the 40-120 level. Dave Burba, acquired just before opening day from the Reds for first-base prospect Sean Casey, beat the Angels, 6-2, and should settle the rotation problem. Manager Mike Hargrove is trying to shore up his middle relief with Jose Mesa while making Mike Jackson his closer. Middle relief already is re-establishing itself as an undervalued but significant factor. The Cubs unveiled Amaury Telemaco in a five-inning, one-run stint against the Marlins, and the Orioles again are thriving with Alan Mills, Arthur Rhodes and Terry Mathews. Perhaps the deepest pen belongs to the Mets, who blanked the Phillies for 14 innings on opening day, bringing in Greg McMichael, Dennis Cook, John Franco, Mel Rojas and Turk Wendell behind starter Bobby Jones.

“Middle relief and bench are the two areas clubs economize on,” TV analyst Dave Campbell says, “but if you have starters who can’t go deep in a game, middle relief is a necessity. It’s been fairly obvious since the Braves lost the ’96 Series that it doesn’t pay to scrimp on middle relief.”