Still Chasing, They Meet in St. Louis

Just when you’re thinking it can’t get any hotter--Mark McGwire lines a ball into the left-field seats justfoul, hundreds fall to their knees, wailing in the 98-degree heat--guess what?

It gets way hotter.

A city already walking around with wide eyes and raised hairs will awaken this morning to discover its very public enemy on the living room couch.

A major league home run leader wincing from the spotlight will step outside this afternoon to discover his very public rival in the other dugout.

Here hoping Mark McGwire was able to relax this weekend amid the 700 media members and hundreds of flashbulbs and rhythmic clapping that turn each of his plate appearances into fourth-and-long.

Because today, Sammy Sosa is in town.

Today, it gets seriously hotter.

“It’s gonna be bonkers,” Cardinal Brian Jordan said. “Take that back. It’s gonna be way beyond bonkers.”

It’s No. 60 against No. 58, check your pulse if you don’t know which is which.

It’s the large, serious home run hero against the joyous, prancing upstart.

It’s a playful punches against blown kisses.

It’s two games, two men, with as many as 16 chances for one to make history.

And it’s the St. Louis Cardinals against Chicago Cubs, two teams who would throw garbage cans at each other even if nobody was watching.

Perhaps the most cliche description in modern sports journalism is designating something as a “field of dreams.”

Sorry professor, but today and Tuesday, Busch Stadium is it.

“If you can’t be looking forward to these two games, then your heart is not beating,” McGwire said.

The last time they met, last month in Chicago, their hearts were beating together.

On a Wednesday afternoon game in Wrigley Field, Sosa homered to take the major league lead with 48 . . . then McGwire homered to tie it again . . . then McGwire homered in the 10th inning to take the lead again.

Afterward they parted ways, but the battle had been joined. In ballparks across the country, the constant thump-thump-thump of their relationship has remained the same.

Sosa hits one. McGwire hits one. Sosa hits one. McGwire hits two.

McGwire hits two more, and the race is over.

Sosa hits one, and the race is back on.

“We have been watching them, and they have been watching us,” Cardinal catcher Tom Lampkin said.

Half of this equation was verified the other day in a conference, when McGwire was asked how Sosa would react to McGwire hitting his 62nd homer. McGwire performed a perfect imitation of Sosa’s post-homer routine, right down to the tapping of the heart and blowing of the kisses.

“Everybody talks about this being a competition between two men, it is not,” McGwire said. “I just wish everybody would put that stuff aside and just enjoy this.”

But part of the enjoyment is that it is a competition. And yes, while perhaps they are not competing directly against each other, they each face a tougher opponent, that being history.

Which brings up the question that will be blowing around the next two days like that ugly warm wind off the Mississippi.

Will any of their teammates let that history happen here?

Will the Cardinals pitch to the Sosa, and will the Cubs pitch to McGwire?

And really, why should they?

“I’m just going to pitch to Sosa like I have all year,” claimed Kent Mercker, the Cardinal starter Tuesday. “If I had the time to think about all that stuff on the mound . . . I just don’t.”

No, he’ll think about it before he pitches.

He will think, as will every pitcher in both clubhouses, that it will be very difficult to shower in the same room with a guy when you have just cost him fame and fortune by helping his rival.

McGwire has gone through long stretches this season without seeing a strike. Yet now his teammates have suddenly decided to throw them to Sosa?

Sosa has often felt as if nobody but his teammates and Chicago fans have been supporting him. And now those teammates are going to be rolling out the carpet for McGwire?

It probably won’t happen. If he grooves one to the other guy, it will be too difficult for a pitcher on either team to live with himself in his dugout, his clubhouse, his city.

Think of the instant boos and public ridicule if it’s a Cardinal pitcher.

Think of the embarrassment if it’s a Cub pitcher, allowing McGwire to tie or break Roger Maris’ 61-homer record while Sammy Sosa is watching from right field.

Even Tony La Russa, while claiming that his staff will throw strikes because, “I don’t want to be hypocritical,” is prepared for the worse.

“I feel confident that if they walk [McGwire] a bunch of a times, we’re going to score a bunch of runs because of who we have hitting around him,” the Cardinal manager said.

Cub pitchers have the added excuse of the wild-card chase.

While Cincinnati Red pitchers with nothing to lose turned this weekend into a home run hitting contest--here’s the pitch, take your best shot--the Cubs could actually intentionally walk McGwire and nobody would blame them.

Jordan summed it up by saying, “We’ll probably go after Sosa like they will go after McGwire. We’ll pitch careful, they’ll pitch careful.”

So for the next two days, expect drama, excitement, inspiration, McGwire power, Sosa athleticism, good sportsmanship, good cheer, lots of things that will make it the neatest baseball experience since Cal Ripken once ran around a Baltimore brickyard giving high-fives.

Just don’t be surprised if this historic meeting of home run hitters fails to produce any historic home runs.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll be having too much fun to know the difference.