The Boys Of Summer In 1998: Mark McGwire And Sammy Sosa
Baseball, J. Tinsley — By J. Tinsley on March 15, 2013 at 10:40 am
My yard was everything to me growing up. It was my Madison Square Garden, where I dreamed of being “Like Mike” and on rare occasions nailed the game-winning bucket in games of two-on-two. My grandma would occasionally act as the human scoreboard, even counting down the waning seconds, never once giving me extra time to shoot when I’d hold the ball too long. Her response? “You don’t see Michael Jordan doing that, do you?”
It was my Texas stadium, where I’d throw touchdown passes like Troy Aikman, catch them like Michael Irvin and take interceptions to the house like Deion Sanders. My backyard was even the place where I picked up golf for all of two weeks.
Life in the late ’90s was a coming-of-age period. No other time was this more evident than 15 years ago in the summer of 1998. I was nearing my teenage years, and each day represented one day closer to adulthood (high school at that point). The Chicago Bulls had just won their sixth and final title, and any kid who grew up idolizing Mike, Scottie, Phil and the gang knew the run was over. It was somewhat of an introduction to life teaching us the lesson “nothing lasts forever.”
As kids at the time, we immediately looked for a new distraction in sports since basketball had ended and football was still a few months off. It came in the form of baseball. Everyone idolized names like Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, and since the Richmond Braves played maybe 30 minutes from my house, we all sided with Chipper Jones, Javy Lopez and the Atlanta Braves as our home team. Only that summer it wasn’t the Braves that commanded our attention.
Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were the sports story of the summer of 1998. At 12, I’d be lying if I said I was aware who Roger Maris was, but I knew 61 home runs was the mark and Mac and Sosa were on a full-fledged assault and rewriting history. To a lesser extent, Ken Griffey and Mo Vaughan were involved, too, amassing 50+ home runs themselves. But as the summer scurried by, it was evident this was a two-man chase. We all bought in to it. Chicks dug the long ball, and so did we so.
My backyard, thanks to a closed-in fence, became our Yankee Stadium. Home run derbies followed basketball and oftentimes became our only activity. We followed the game daily just to see what McGwire or Sosa tallied, praying they launched one (or two) into orbit. The result didn’t matter. We didn’t care if Sosa went 1-for-5, as long as the one landed somewhere in the Northside of Chicago. McGwire was infamous for 1-for-4 games with three strikeouts and a home run. Those represented victories to us.
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3 Comments
This post was dope. I remember thinking about that summer and how cool it would have been to be around both of those guys who were so different but in many ways the same.
MLB made way with “Chicks Dig The Long Ball” and these guys were the leaders of that movement.
I find the whole steroid outrage so bogus because the poster children (along with Bonds) in McGwire and Sosa quite literally helped baseball out of its doldrums caused by the 1994 strike. That chase was so fun, and those home runs so majestic, that I don’t give a damn what they were taking. It was flat-out fun.
Having said that, man, any of you folks who sour on baseball need to sit back and take in as many live games as possible, then start watching on TV. It’s one of the best things in the world to do, because the pace is perfect for those dog days of summer. I suggest you all turn on baseball on the TV.
The first paragraph – AMEN. Every damn syllable. AMEN.
The second paragraph – I’m trying to hit as many Nationals games as I can this year. I LOVE going to baseball games live. Watching on TV is where I struggle. I’m pretty sure myself and a buddy of mine are hitting Braves @ Nats on April 13.