'It's Just An Unbelievable Feat'

McGwire Swings Into History With 61st Home Run

	Mark McGwire puts a bear hug around son Matthew, 10, who met him at home plate. (Nuccio Dinuzzio/Associated Press)

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 7—On his father's 61st birthday, Mark McGwire blasted his 61st home run of the season today, then pointed to his dad sitting in the stands as he crossed home plate.

A split-second later, now tied with Roger Maris for the all-time single season homer record, McGwire scooped up the St. Louis Cardinals' batboy — who also happens to be his only child, Matthew — and carried the 10-year-old back toward the dugout, punctuating one of America's sweetest sports moments.

"What I kept thinking [throughout the game] was, 'What a great birthday present for my father,' " said McGwire, who drove a fastball from Chicago Cubs pitcher Mike Morgan off the facing of the second deck of Busch Stadium inside the left field foul pole in the first inning. With his 430-foot blast, he matched the record Maris set in 1961 so swiftly that he has 19 more games to set a new mark so gaudy that, just a few years ago, it seemed unimaginable.

After the ball left his bat, McGwire threw his hands over his head, willing it to stay fair. He rounded the bases, pumping his fist once, then took four minutes of curtain calls.

"What a feeling that was, I tell ya. ... I don't think I'll ever let go of that moment," said McGwire, who tried to share it by pointing to the sky, tapping his heart several times then pointing to Maris's family in the stands. "I'd like to point to everybody in the whole world right now."

Sometimes, everything in sports comes together so perfectly that it almost defies belief. McGwire tied what is perhaps the most romantic and mythologized of all baseball records on a national holiday — Labor Day — when almost every U.S. worker could flip on the TV, undistracted by pro football, and watch the 250-pound redhead apply his own craft.

To make the moment richer, McGwire was competing head-to-head with his chief rival for sports immortality — the Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa, who has 58 home runs. As McGwire circled the bases, he shared a forearm bash with Cubs first baseman Mark Grace and then a high-five with third baseman Gary Gaetti and another bash with third-base coach Rene Lachemann. Meanwhile, Sosa stood in right field, smiling and applauding.

Both before and after this game, McGwire and Sosa talked warmly about their mutual admiration and their pleasure — bordering on glee — at battling each other, in a sportsmanlike way, over the next three weeks for the ultimate home run record. "Wouldn't it be great if we just ended up tied?" said McGwire. "I think it would be beautiful."

[Later, the Seattle Mariners' Ken Griffey Jr. hit two home runs against the Baltimore Orioles to increase his season total to 50 and give baseball three players with 50 or more home runs for the first time in history. See Story.]

For this one day, however, it was Sosa who gave McGwire a bear hug at first base after an eighth-inning single; McGwire reponded with a playful punch in the stomach. Perhaps fittingly, the Cardinals ended up beating the Cubs, 3-2, with McGwire's homer playing a crucial role while Sosa ended the game by striking out with a man on third.

In recent days, almost everything about this home run chase — which has become a national celebration, as well as a bit of a late-summer fixation — has been almost too idealized to credit. Maris's four sons were here and — thanks largely to McGwire's gracious references to their father — they've come to feel that they, and the late Yankee's memory — have gained something here, rather than lost a record.

"When he hit it, I felt like I'd been electrocuted," said Roger Maris Jr., 39. "I had goose bumps the size of baseballs in my body. Tears came to my eyes watching him go around the bases.

"I think he signaled to us when he pointed up to the sky as if to say, 'I know your dad is watching.' "

That, in fact, is exactly what McGwire said he did, and meant.

Even the fan who caught the ball, Mike Davidson, 28, of St. Louis, stunned many here by returning the ball — which might be worth a very large amount of money — to McGwire in return for a handshake and autographed bats and Cardinals jerseys.

"It would mean more to him and to baseball than [money] would to me," said Davidson. Then he told the story of a friend who had won the lottery "whom we don't hear from anymore," who had gotten little happiness from the money..

None of this surprises McGwire. "I believe in fate. Things happen for a reason," he said after hitting his sixth homer in six games and his 14th in a smoldering 20.

Today, McGwire was concerned that his son, who lives with his ex-wife in California, would not arrive by plane in time for the game. At game time, no Matthew. As the Cardinals came to bat in the first, "I went into the hole to get my bat. He was there," said McGwire. "I told him I loved him and gave him a kiss. The next time I saw him was at home plate."

In the aftermath of this game, McGwire's landmark home run seems to exist on two levels. To the casual sports fan, or even non-fan, it provided a day of celebration for the likable, generous McGwire as well as an opportunity to witness another chapter in baseball's arduous comeback since its popularity-crushing strike in 1994, which erased the World Series. Starting with Cal Ripken's shattering of the supposedly unapproachable consecutive-game record of Lou Gehrig in 1995, baseball has gradually regained its place as a great sport in good public standing.

For baseball fans, however, McGwire's blast had different, and multiple, levels of pleasure. The last three weeks of this season offer McGwire — or perhaps Sosa — a chance to set a record that could last as long, or longer, than Maris's 37-year-old mark. McGwire even mentioned the number 70 as "a nice round one" today, perhaps tipping his hand as to his goal.

The true meaning for this generation of fans, however, may be that McGwire has now — statistically, at least — passed Babe Ruth in many of the most basic measurements of slugging. Ruth hit 60 homers in 1927 in a 154-game season. McGwire has 61 in 143 games. If anything, it's Ruth who now has a bit of an asterisk. McGwire has not just out-homered Ruth in the Bambino's best year, but done it handily.

"Nobody can say you have to put an asterisk on it, can they?" said McGwire when asked about his reaching 61 in far fewer than 154 games.

McGwire also holds the record for most homers in two seasons (119) and three seasons (171), easily surpassing Ruth. In fact, if McGwire reaches 70 homers this season, he'd have averaged 60 for the past three seasons. For his entire career, the 34-year-old McGwire has fewer at-bats per home run than Ruth. And, in the past four seasons, as McGwire has homered once in every 8.2 at-bats, he has basically made himself — rather than Ruth, Maris, Hank Aaron or anybody else — the yardstick for power hitters in the next baseball century.

To add piquancy, of course, there is Sosa. If McGwire should slump or be injured, or if Sosa simply goes on a tear, it may be the less-renowned 200-pound Cub, not the Cardinal tape measure king, who ends up with the homer mark for the ages.

Just as Ripken's 2,131st game will always be remembered for his victory lap, McGwire's 61st may be recalled for the sight of him carrying his son in his arms.

"Matthew just gave a little chuckle," said McGwire, whose 62nd homer will have a hard time producing a richer moment. "He didn't have to say anything. His eyes said it all."

Staff writer Thomas Heath contributed to this report.

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

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