2 Sluggers Find Sweet Spot in a Sour Summer

It’s been a dreary summer. The stock market plunged, the presidency crumbled and terrorism resurfaced. Yet as they watch the St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and the Chicago Cubs’ Sammy Sosa chase one of baseball’s most cherished records, millions of Americans have enjoyed a media refuge--a rare moment of good old-fashioned entertainment.

“I think Mark sends Monica to the showers any time,” said columnist George Will, comparing the desirability of watching the Cardinal slugger versus the sordid spectacle playing out in Washington. “It’s a wonderful escape for us, and it really came at just the right time.”

As the Great Moment nears--the game when either McGwire, who has 60, or Sosa, at 58, passes Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs in a season--Americans of varying stripes agree that baseball, so recently caught up in scandals of its own, has given the nation a unique, late-summer gift. Attendance soars wherever each player appears, the Internet is crackling with gossip about both men and television is filled with breaking news about the home run chase.

The nation is riveted, says a diverse cross-section of writers, historians, philosophers, humorists and athletes. Yet there is broad disagreement about what it all means--and this is not surprising, given the sharp contentiousness of U.S. society in the late 20th century.

For some, the revived interest in baseball is a healthy sign, while others lament the sport’s immersion in hype and commercialism. The baseball saga has united the country, according to some experts, yet others find racism and hypocrisy in the varying portrayals of McGwire, who is white, and Sosa, who was born in the Dominican Republic.

Despite their differences, all of these experts note how much America has changed since 1961, when Yankee slugger Maris surpassed Babe Ruth’s legendary record of 60 home runs in one season. Those changes, sweeping and profound, may help explain why the spectacle means so much to us now.

“Roger Maris was one of the first stars of the new media age of television,” says historian David Halberstam, “and he was uniquely ill-prepared for this responsibility. Television was just beginning to dominate American living rooms, and Maris was an unhappy person, given the pressures on him to beat the record and the invasion of his privacy.”

Sports writers hounded Maris day and night, and his hair began to fall out. When the season was over, the Yankees rewarded him with a paltry $1,000 raise and the shy, reclusive player was furious, Halberstam adds.

Today, by contrast, McGwire and Sosa are well-schooled in the art of media interviews, and they have handled the yearlong pressures well. Television invades living rooms more than ever, and while some political figures are unwelcome, the two players have won over millions, said Will.

“You have Mark McGwire saying, ‘Isn’t this fun,’ over and over, and Sosa can’t get over how happy he is to be here,” the columnist noted. “And people are delighted. Hey, have a cup of coffee and stay for dinner!”

For Ron Cey, former Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman, the thrill of rooting for one or both men to beat Maris’ record has been a unifying experience for the country. “It’s more than a summer diversion,” he said, it’s a chance for baseball to reclaim its hold over our imaginations.

Americans are talking about the home run chase from coast to coast, and the national dialogue far surpasses what happened when Maris broke the record, according to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Then, many fans seemed to be rooting against the man who dared to challenge Ruth’s record, and he broke the mark on the final day of the season before only 23,000 fans at Yankee Stadium. Today, McGwire and Sosa play before sellout crowds.

“There’s a heavy focus on this everywhere you go,” Goodwin told ABC-TV’s “Nightline.” “But it also shows that the media can saturate the country with anything. A year ago it was Princess Diana, and a year before that it was O.J. Simpson. These days, many people get their conversation from what the media tells them the common conversation should be.”

And the chatter never stops. Once, August and early September were times when people took long, leisurely vacations and America lowered its blood pressure. Today, many fans have enjoyed the home run race precisely because it has allowed them to escape the irritating cacophony of daily news.

“I remember August,” humorist Calvin Trillin said wistfully. “It was a time when reporters felt it was safe to go to Martha’s Vineyard and write stories about democracy on beaches where day-trippers were not allowed.

“Now, they run into the president on the beach and he makes news they have to cover. With baseball, at least, you can enjoy the story.”

Some longtime fans, however, are not entirely thrilled by the 1998 season. Tom Goldstein, publisher of the Elysian Fields Quarterly, a baseball periodical, worries that the pursuit of individual records--and the attendant hype--has become more important than winning or losing.

“It’s not just baseball, it’s the whole culture we live in,” he said. “We’d all want to be there to see McGwire or Sosa break the record. But is it really because we’d want to catch the ball and be on television?

“We get caught up in celebrity and statistics instead of authentic experiences,” he said, adding that when Maris chased Ruth, many Americans were just as focused on a tight pennant race as individual exploits.

But others argue that baseball contributes to the national life precisely because of those statistics. In a world where so many problems are unresolved, the home run chase is refreshingly clear-cut.

“Sports is an area of life where things get settled,” said USC philosophy professor Dallas Willard. “Somebody wins, somebody loses. If there is any question, there is somebody with a striped shirt to settle it, and you can’t appeal that to the Supreme Court or delay it with lawyers.”

In today’s newspapers, he added, “every problem is hanging fire one way or another. But the home run statistic will become a new standard--and this is not just an abstract concept. It is something that is deeply felt.”

Baseball fans personally identify with these records, said Willard, who specializes in the ethics and sociology of sports. And that’s why some people reacted so angrily to the news that McGwire had been taking androstenedione, a legal but controversial strength enhancer. Was he cheating, or had the whole issue been blown out of proportion?

Cey was angered by the coverage, saying McGwire’s privacy had been invaded. Others see racism and hypocrisy in the press coverage.

“If Sammy Sosa was caught taking drugs that are thought to be performance-enhancing, he’d be run out of baseball,” said Oakland novelist Ishmael Reed. “And it would be the very same thing for a black man.

“The good-old-boy sportswriters of this country are guilty of a double standard. I’ve heard some say that McGwire ‘looks like someone’ who should break the record, and to me, that statement speaks for itself.”

Pundits weren’t debating racism in sports when Maris closed in on Ruth, and essayist George Plimpton finds solace in the memory of a more innocent time. Nowadays, he said, the worlds of sports and politics regularly collide, even if the home run chase gives us a momentary breather.

Consider the fans then and now who sit in the bleachers, waiting for a historic ball to come their way. On Oct. 1, 1961, Sal Durante, a shy young Brooklyn truck driver, sat in the right-field stands at Yankee Stadium, hoping that he might have a shot at catching Maris’ 61st home run.

The unbelievable happened, and after the game a tongue-tied Durante offered to give Maris the ball. Maris graciously gave it back to him; there is a newspaper photo of that dramatic moment, but nothing more.

Last week, 17-year-old Mark Pitt was in the bleachers in Miami to catch McGwire’s 57th home run. After the game, he offered him the ball and the big slugger took it and said thanks. Then, with television cameras rolling, Pitt told a press conference: “I did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky.”