Sosa Intent on Staying in the Maris Home Run Chase

The forgotten man will not go away.

Mark McGwire hit No. 61 Monday to shake free from Babe Ruth and pull even with Roger Maris, but he better be ready to run all the way to the wire. Sammy Sosa still lurks only three home runs back and he plans to chase the big redhead to the pearly gates if need be--and beyond.

“It’s not over yet,” Sosa said. “I see him during the game at first base and I told him, ‘Congratulations, Now don’t go too far. Wait for me.’ ”

A few hours before the game, the two shared a stage beneath the right field stands in Busch Stadium. In the same way each passing game makes it increasingly clear McGwire is The Man when it comes to hitting home runs, the side-by-side appearance made it equally clear that Sosa is the much funnier man of the two.

For what seemed like the hundredth time in the past few days, McGwire was asked to imagine the kind of pressure Maris endured at the tail end of the 1961 season as he chased Ruth.

“I think back and I really feel for what he went through, for all the negative stuff that was going on in his life. I wish it didn’t happen,” McGwire said. “Hopefully, the day that I die I can, after seeing the Lord, I can go see him and Babe Ruth and talk to them.”

Leaving just enough of a pause for the solemnity to pass, Sosa interrupted, “Hey, don’t forget about me.” It absolutely cracked McGwire up.

Fortunately for both of them, heaven can wait. Unfortunately for Sosa, being the better comedian did not stop his team from losing ground Monday.

His day started with a standing ovation from the hometown fans--an honor so rare it practically curled his toes inside his cleats. But it ended almost as chillingly, when Sosa struck out with two out in the ninth and the tying run on third, whiffing on a 97-mph fastball from Juan Acevedo.

“Just a tough day,” he said. “It’s not every day you are going to be a hero.”

That’s another funny thing about the chase. At every stop along the way, McGwire is the one celebrated as the hero, the one asked about being a role model. It happened again Monday and to McGwire’s credit, he didn’t shrink from the responsibility.

“If somebody wants to link me with those heroes, I’m very proud to be associated with that. I hope kids do look up to me like that,” McGwire said. “It means a lot.”

But Sosa is every bit his equal in the hero department. And he traveled a much tougher road to get to this point.

McGwire grew up in Southern California with every advantage, the son of a dentist, in a family packed with great athletes. Sosa grew up in a family of eight kids amid crushing poverty in the Dominican Republic. His father died when he was 7 years old. He sold oranges and shined shoes on the streets and carried his meager earnings back to his mother every night. When Sosa finally did get around to playing the game that would make him rich, his first baseball glove was a milk carton turned inside out.

Today, he gets laughs every time he lapses into that classic “Saturday Night Live” routine about “baseball been very, very good to me,” but to Sosa, the line is more than just comic relief.

So even though the race to No. 61 has been decided, use a pencil when you write in McGwire as the single-season home run leader. He and Sosa have close to 20 games left, and whatever else Sosa has yet to learn about baseball, he knows plenty about staying power.

It wasn’t an act all during the chase when Sosa said he hoped McGwire would get to No. 61 first. Just as Sosa wasn’t acting Monday when he clapped inside his mitt after McGwire’s shot cleared the fence in left. Sosa comes by his humility honestly. He once shined the shoes of George Bell, another Dominican player for whom he would be traded 15 years later, and he laughs at the coincidence still.

But Sosa didn’t get to the bigs, or to 59 home runs by the first week in September without learning how to hit with two strikes against him. Unlike McGwire, he will have to go the rest of the way carrying a ballclub contending for a wild-card spot on his back. Yet, considering where Sosa began, no load seems all that heavy.

As he turned back to pull a shirt out of his locker, somebody asked whether McGwire’s 61st would change the push and pull of their race.

“Today is over,” Sosa said. “Tomorrow, maybe, is going to be my chance.”