Cardinal-Cub Final: McGwire 65, Sosa 63

Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa finished with a flourish Sunday, underscoring--if that was even necessary--their status as baseball’s preeminent power hitters in this era of power.

McGwire, who slugged a record 70 home runs to win last year’s original great race, won 1999’s sequel with a total of 65, two more than Sosa, who had hit 66 last year.

Each homered Sunday when McGwire’s St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Chicago Cubs, 9-5, in a game called after the top of the fifth inning because of rain. A Busch Stadium crowd of 47,998 saw what it came for despite the premature conclusion after a second delay of 84 minutes. McGwire homered in the first inning, Sosa in the third.

Both had dismissed the home run title as a goal, but McGwire acknowledged he was proud to have hit 65--while driving in a National League-leading 147 runs and collecting 148 walks--because he considers this one of his most difficult seasons given the expectations coming off last year and the fatiguing disappointment of the Cardinals’ 75-86 season.

He cited his mental strength, but said he was still “very surprised” to have been able to produce another historic season in which he and Sosa became the only players to have hit 60 or more homers in two consecutive seasons and McGwire ultimately finished with a career total of 522 for 10th place on the all-time list.

“My goal always is to hit 50 homers,” said McGwire, who has done it for a record four consecutive seasons. “[Hitting 50] tends to be portrayed as a piece of cake, but only two guys got there. Sixty-five blows me away. What I did last year blows me away.”

Sosa didn’t say he was blown away, but he did say he was “happy to have had two years like that in a row.” He said he wasn’t disappointed to finish second but happy to have shared the stage again with McGwire.

“He deserved it, he’s the man,” said Sosa, who had his own rooting section of dignitaries from the Dominican Republic Sunday, including the president.

“Bill Clinton came to see me in Chicago and I hit a home run,” Sosa said. “The president of my country came today and I hit a home run. It’s a motivation, and I’m happy to have done it.”

A reporter said to Sosa that Yeltsin was still out there, which drew a blank stare.

In the meantime, Sunday’s game may have been the last for Cub Manager Jim Riggleman, who is expected to be fired today, and St. Louis outfielder Willie McGee, a two-time National League batting champion and former most valuable player who is thinking of retiring at 40.

McGee has long been one of the most popular Cardinal players, and he received a rousing ovation when inserted as a pinch-hitter in the fourth inning and again when Manager Tony La Russa, thinking of a final curtain call, sent him to left field before the start of the fifth inning but then replaced him before the inning began, allowing the modest McGee to trot off to a second ovation from a crowd that lifted the club’s season total to 3,230,356, setting a franchise record for the second year in a row.

McGwire receives $1 for each ticket admission over 2.8 million, a little bonus for his significant influence on ticket and merchandise sales. This was his fourth home run title, and he became the first National League player since Dale Murphy in 1984-85 to win two in a row. He reached 70 last year by hitting five on the final weekend. He reached 65 this year by homering in six of his last seven games.

He was asked what it is like to be in that special hitting zone. He referred to the resigning National League president and said: “You can see Leonard Coleman’s name on the ball. Unfortunately, next year it will be somebody else’s.”