He's Long Gone: McGwire Retires

By J.A. Adande

Nov. 12, 2001 12 AM PT

In a sport obsessed with statistics, Mark McGwire leaves baseball with no definitive number to call his own.

He announced his retirement Sunday in a faxed statement that said in part: “After considerable discussion with those closest to me I have decided not to sign [my contract] extension as I am unable to perform at a level equal to the salary the organization would be paying me. I believe I owe it to the Cardinals and the fans of St. Louis to step aside, so a talented free agent can be brought in as the final piece of what I expect can be a world championship-caliber team.”

His single-season home run record of 70 was topped by Barry Bonds’ 73 this year.

He finishes fifth on the all-time home run chart, with 583.

No most valuable player awards.

Where’s the number?

After all, it was a number that made him “The Man,” in the words of Sammy Sosa, his cohort in the Great Home Run Race of 1998.

McGwire’s pursuit of Roger Maris’ 61 brought him to the forefront of the nation’s minds that year.

Now he can only be remembered for those feelings he generated. He’ll be remembered for flash bulbs and fake stomach-punches and hugs from his son.

Me, I’ll think of him for what he didn’t do.

Or rather, didn’t get the chance to do. Injuries cost him so much time over the years.

If he stayed in the game, if his body didn’t betray him, we’d probably be spending as much time talking about Hank Aaron right now as we did Maris in 1998.

McGwire played in only 139 games in 1992, only 27 games in 1993. He played in only 47 games in 1994, a season cut short by the players’ strike. He missed about a third of the season in 1995.

A knee injury limited him to 89 games in 2000 and 97 this year, when he batted a puny .197.

If a typical season brought him 520 at-bats, I figure all of those injuries (plus the strike) cost him about 1,750 at bats. Based on his career rate of 9.42 home runs per every 100 at-bats, that would have given him an additional 165 home runs--enough to put him at 748. And counting.

Aaron’s all-time record is 755.

Instead of being the king, McGwire is an also-ran. His 583 homers put him three behind Frank Robinson, who occupies the fourth spot on the list. Although Robinson is a baseball great, the only player to win the MVP in both leagues and a pioneer as the game’s first African American manager, he doesn’t have the popular status as the top three on the list: Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays.

McGwire, who came along in this star-obsessed era, has a much higher Q rating than Robinson. Robinson used to come to Laker games and sit behind the baseline, left alone by fans. Do you think McGwire would have the same peace and quiet?

In part through circumstances far beyond his control, he already feels a like a symbol of a bygone era.

I was just thinking about how fun it was to keep up with McGwire in the summer of 1998. I would stop by airport television sets to get the latest update on McGwire. No introductions, no small talk, just asking the nearest customer: “Did McGwire hit one out?”

I compared that to the last couple of times I flew. Crowds gathered around televisions to see updates on the United States’ air raids over Afghanistan.

I miss the time when a couple of guys hitting baseballs was a national obsession.

I also feel as if I missed out--on all of those at-bats we never got to see.

There’s a sense of unfulfillment with McGwire’s career, much the same way there was from that Oakland A’s team he played for in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

It was a team that should have been a dynasty, but wasn’t.

They had the Bash Brothers, McGwire and Jose Canseco. They had Dave Stewart as one of the top starters and Dennis Eckersley as the top closer, a man who helped refine the role.

But they lost to Orel Hershiser and that patchwork lineup put out by the Dodgers in 1988 and were swept by the Cincinnati Reds in 1990.

The only time they did win a championship, in 1989, was in a World Series that’s best remembered for an earthquake.

So McGwire goes out, having a record-setting summer in 1998 and a good sequel with 65 home runs in 1999.

As for 61, that magical number we came to associate so closely with McGwire in 1998? It now represents the total number of home runs he hit in his final two seasons.

It represents the shame at thinking what could have been.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.

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Big Mac’s Marks

Where Mark McGwire ranks in major slugging statistics:

583: Career home runs, fifth all-time

70: Home runs in a season, second all-time

10.61: At-bats per home run, best all-time

9.42: Home runs per 100 at-bats, best all-time

.588: Career slugging percentage, eighth all-time

Home Run Leaders

Single-season: