Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's race for home run history deserves a deep rewind
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- Home runs! Dingers! Moon shots! That’s all the country could think about when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa raced to break the single-season home run record in 1998.
Before entering that season, journalists predicted Roger Maris’ nearly four-decade record of 61 homers would finally fall thanks to the surge of power hitters in the league. McGwire and Seattle Mariner outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. were at the top of the list of candidates with a strong chance of putting themselves in the history books. Sammy Sosa wasn’t even in the conversation.
Although, once the season got into full swing (get it?), Sosa emerged with a run for the record books. The ‘98 season was a magical year where Major League Baseball re-captured the nation’s attention after losing interest following the league strike in 1995. Thanks to the beefy boys sending balls flying out of parks, baseball was back!
But to fully appreciate this moment in baseball history, we gotta rewind.
Written and produced by Joe Ali
Directed by Ryan Simmons
Additional editing by Charlotte Atkinson
Motion graphics and animations by Philip Pasternak
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One of my favorite baseball facts is that Sammy Sosa hit over 60 home runs in a reason three times, but didn't lead the league any of those times.
I also love that Sammy was the first ever to 66 and that's where he finished in '98. Was his single season best, too.
It was an insane feat
And that occurred in a 4 year stretch where the one season that he "only" hit 50 homers was the one where he did lead the league.
Sounds like the Drew Brees of MLB.
@@jeyfromnowhereand that was the only time all year he had the home run lead by himself. It lasted 45 minutes.
I’d say the unsung hero here is Ken Griffey Jr. he managed to keep up with these guys while staying legit
Couldn't have said it better
🤔
I really wish jr would have hit 62+ to have staked claim to the "asterisk free" record.
Steroids didn't help these players hit the ball better. They were all exceptionally talented. Griffey was one of the ones who didn't participate. MLB needed something to bring in casual people.
no way you spewed that sentence up and thought you were right@@AnthonyMcNeil
The home run race was so much fun to watch as a kid. Ignorant of the concept of steroids and just able to appreciate the feat for what it was.
Right I was 11 and just falling in love with baseball ⚾️
Watching the numbers race in the newspaper.. ah, nostalgia
Logic: Unfortunately, reality can often be disappointing.
If you assume any of them aren’t on steroids, or that it magically turns you into superman without absolutely insane work ethic and discipline, and you still have maybe a hair’s chance of making it, you’re still ignorant.
I was old enough to know the concept of steroids, I just didn't care. Older me cares even less. Sports are just entertainment.
I'm still always amazed at how Junior did almost as much raking as these guys without doping
94 season was his best chance he was on pace for 64 but season ended, just show how horrible the 94 lockout was
And Expos had an "All-Star" team and were totally screwed
Kenny Jay McGriffy wasn't clean son... that dude was known to do quite a bit of blow and take them Stacker 3 pills during games.... you know the pills I'm talmbout son? Big Riggin Cross CuontryTruckers and ER Doctors pop those things to stay awake 24 hours straight and Kenny was just poppin them things down like effin candy before and during games... dude was totes jacked up to his balls, bee whole and beyond boy!!!
Hahaha dude was jacked up to the wazoo but still loved the Kid!
@@DanielSong39 My sea men has been registered as a performance inhancing substance in most states that Billy Maze and Kenny G played in back then so...good chance he was chuggin' down some of my heated sea men on the regular son!!
The video is nothing more than a testament to Ken Griffey Jr.'s greatness.
Ken was jacked up on beenies, coke and meth every game so what's the difference boy? You take the uppers away from Kenny GJ and all you have is Andrew Benintendi.
I wouldn't assume anyone is clean.
@@Ycjedi I wouldn't either, but the information that is available indicates he is clean.
@@3411Chad The information available indicates that the elections was rigged son!! Barry Bonds did nine 11? What about tower 7 then son?! I'm just asking questions based on the information available to me.
@@3411Chadshould’ve took them tbh would’ve prolonged his body’s collapse when he was on the refs
I remember hearing ads for health stores in the late 90s that openly stated they sold androstenedione, and marketed it as "The same supplement used by MLB slugger Mark McGwire".
People knew McGwire was juicing and didn't care at the time.
Also, for all the Seattle Mariners fans watching: Current M's manager Scott Servais was the catcher for Steve Trachsel during that game.
I believe they were legally allowed by MLB at the time so he wasn't doing anything "wrong"
Andro was definitely not against any MLB rules at the time, as it was sold legally as an OTC. Other sporting bodies had classified it as an anabolic steroid, but that is irrelevant to this case.
Andro was not a steroid. It was a mild test "booster" which is not to be confused at all with exogenous testosterone injections which raise your total testosterone levels. "Boosters" only give a temporary boost to levels of "free testosterone" which lasts a couple hours and have zero effect on total test levels or levels of blood serum test. I've been a bodybuilder for over 20 years so I'm very familiar and educated on anabolics as they are as much a part of bodybuilding as a protein shake. What people need to realize is that steroids did not break that record, they simply gave an edge to guys that were already elite level athletes at the highest level of their sport. If it were just a matter of juicing up, than anyone could conceivably start taking them and hit 70 HR's. In that era it wasn't just Mac and Sosa, it was likely 80% of the league...pitchers included, and still only 2 men were able to hit 60+.
@@stevewilliams1176This is such an utterly horseshit take... 🤦 The home run rates would have been way, WAAAAAAAAY lower in the late 90's if no one had been juicing. Also Andro most DEFINITELY wasn't the only thing Mark was taking... There's a reason basically every baseball production stat exploded during the 90's. BALCO and others like it had basically every major player running steroid cycles, alternating with some test boosters (ala Andro/etc...) and HGH to recover after having got so shut-down. Rinse, repeat, get massive, and then slug balls like the world had never seen before (simply changing steroids everytime MLB would come up with a way to test for the latest anabolic hotness).
The only reason Mark was able to break a record nobody could for DECADES prior is that he had a MAJOR medical advantage that prior JUST AS TALENTED sluggers didn't. End of story. 🤷
@@Cooe. Did you even read what I wrote? I said about 80% of the league was juicing at that time yet only 2 guys were hitting 60+ HR's. The talent had to be there first. McGwire was a HR hitter already and like I said, added an "edge" by taking test and deca which allowed him to recover to play enough games to break a record he had been "on pace" to break multiple years of his career when one injury or another sidelined him. My only mention of Andro was stating that it was not a steroid (and it wasn't)...I didn't say anything about McGwire not taking anything else. Obviously he was. Again, I've been a bodybuilder for over 20 years....read between the lines there. That said, if it were strictly about PED's then several "sluggers" would have been threatening that record. The talent had to be there first. McGwire showed from his Rookie year on that when healthy he was, at minimum, a 50+ HR guy. Hell, had he not played in Oakland, the worst park in the Bigs to hit HR's in during those years, he may have hit 61 his Rookie season...completely clean. I've never, repeat, never said McGwire didn't use. I knew then he was juicing. I'm just saying his ability was already there to begin with...that part, along with steroid use, is undeniable. Also, just an FYI....HGH has no impact on test levels (you mention it regarding recovery from shut down). If a person is cycling exogenous testosterone, he would need a drug like Nolvadex to recover natural test production.
I remember watching this moment in my parents' bedroom watching on a mid-80s Zenith monitor turned television set. The sound and color wasn't working so I watched it in black and white without any sound. It was still incredibly exciting.
Who would have thought that almost 25 years later I would watch Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run of the season.
u mean Aaron Jury
I remember when ESPN was doing a NASCAR Cup Series race in Martinsville, VA, the NAPA AutoCare 500, during this battle, and they kept doing a split-screen every time Mark or Sammy went to bat. On the satellite feed version, you can hear Bob Jenkins, Benny Parsons, and Ned Jarrett rehearse some of their reactions, in case Mark or Sammy did sock one into the stratosphere. They goof on one where Mark flew out. They started congratulating him as if it was already gone...then it was caught, and they had to quickly backtrack it. Luckily the mistaken at-bat happened during a commercial break in Martinsville, so their mistake was never known about until the satellite feed version was uploaded on here a few years ago. Fun fact: Mark, along with a few other MLB players, briefly owned a NASCAR Busch Series team from 1998-99. It was numbered 8, and was sponsored by Clean Shower for some of its existence.
Do you have a link or time stamps? I'm kinda interested in hearing that call now. 👀
@@Toblehrone Honestly, I haven't watched that version in a while, so I'm not sure of the exact timestamp (or even an estimated one, as the split-screens only happen when they're on the air). So, if you're interested, and you've got a few hours to burn, you will have to search for it on here and watch the entire thing. (It is during a break, so you could just skim through the video until you don't see any on-screen graphics, then try to listen for it.)
Sosa held the solo record at 66. McGuire caught hit about 45 minutes later. Then hit 4 more homers while Sosa stayed put.
Technically Sosa never held the record as when he hit #66, that days games were still in progress. He would have only held the record if McGwire went homerless that night, which as we know he also hit #66......then 67 and 68 on Saturday and 69 and 70 on Sunday.
@@stevewilliams1176 Not sure what you mean by "technically." I don't think MLB would recognize that as his record even if it took McGuire until the next day to beat it. It is the single season home run record. I doubt they would count it if someone only held the record for part of the season. Though it has never come up that I know of to count a single season record holder for just part of a season. If they were to count that, I see no reason why holding it for a day would be any different than holding it for 45 minutes. Is there some rule I'm not aware of?
@@Sam_on_TH-cam McGwire hit his 66th the same night Sosa hit his. So they both finished that days schedules games tied with 66. My point his that Sosa was not officially recognized as the single season HR record holder when he hit his 66th because games were still in progress around the league, including St. Louis.
Sammy bleached his skin and white now.
@@jennyanydots2389he went from "Off the Wall" to "This Is It" in a pretty short span.
There was actually a 4th guy just on the fringe of the race: Greg Vaughn kept pace for the first month and a half and still finished with 50.
Baseball needs to bring back steroids.
Players need to destroy their bodies even more, just for my entertainment
Lol
I really wish every sport would allow it. Let’s see what the human body can do at the highest athletic level possible when professional athletes juice.
Imagine Lebron on TRT or Connor McDavid on HGH
It would be fascinating to watch
You mean the thing that denied Aaron Judge the plaudits he deserved for the record he earned or trivializing Pujols getting to 700? No thank you.
@@bdbdkdfotbrveiw It's about the human endeavor, not better living through chemistry. Different people respond to PEDs in different ways, so it doesn't determine the best athletes.
In retrospect it was like rooting for CVS versus Rite Aid
Me and my homies remember when Sosa was black
No way!!! 😂😂😂
I remember in high school, I had a teacher who is a die-hard Cubs fan and HATES the Yankees. When he gave us something to read in class, it actually was related to what we were learning in class, not just to tease us Yankee fans, steroids got mentioned when it came to the Yankees so one classmate said oh and Sammy Sosa. Then another said and he corked his bat and I said and he turned white. 🤣 He laughed it off though and said I don't care what you have to say.
Baseball has not and will not be this exciting ever again.
The single greatest season in sports history
I'm a Cubs fan, my dad's a Cardinals fan. I was watching this on TV in California while my dad was working security for a strip mall. He was in a Circuit City watching on a TV they had tuned to the game. I stood by our phone ready to dial his pager number. Ball is hit and sails over the fence. My dad's pager goes off and he lets out a breath of anger cos he just wants to watch the celebration. He looks down to see the two digit page I had just sent him. 62.
Did ur daddy ever beet yo ass in hard when them Cubbies beet the Cards? Good thing the Cards usually win that rivalry otherwise yo daddy prolly have beetin yo ass in too hard and start beetin them teeth right out ur stupid mouf boy!!
Great story
@@thegamebastard Did you get along with your dad? Me neither.
Admit it, this era of baseball was fun.
1993-2004 was the greatest and most memorable era in MLB history. So much happened during this era.
Ironically, the peak of the PED era
This is when I used to actually watch baseball... Now, it's just clips
That 1998 season was so much fun. As a kid witnessing all of this I could not get enough of it. It was by far the most entertaining season for me as a Lifelong Baseball fan
Great video. The HR race was fun to watch. But, The Mitchell Report and BALCO destroyed all of that.....
Yeah it did
Remember this like it was yesterday! Took baseball almost 20 years to recover after the steroid scandal bs.
Shohei ohtani will do that for a sport. He's the reason the game came back 100%.
Finally there's a superstar doing something that steroids could never allow him to do.
Otani could be taking all the steroids in the world, and it would not allow him to pitch and hit as well as he's doing right now.
This was the season that saved baseball in the wake of the '94 strike, but also made the sudden downfall sting that much harder when José Canseco dropped his bombshell.
It's also kinda funny how much the andro debate raged on when it was explicitly legal in MLB. Legal: yes. Good look for the sport: in hindsight, definitely not.
This 'record' will always have an asterisk next to it.
I'll bet if Maris was juiced the record would be in the triple digits.
The fact the opposing cubs players shook his hand tells you just how captivated everyone was for this.
I don't remember the rangers doing that for aaron judge
I live in Chicago and although I was young when this happened, I still remember the buzz. You could literally be at a store somewhere not even watching and someone would yell "Sammy's Up" which would cause everyone to stop what they're doing and huddle around whatever TV or radio there was.
This race, was when i was 6, was one of my first sports memories, and legitimately my introduction to baseball.
Yeah but, what was your first child abuse memory? That's what I think people up in here deserve to know about son.
Same age and same feeling!
@@patrickwaclaw You were abused as a child as well? Sexually?
I was 8 living in rural Wyoming. Even there, people were excited about Sosa/McGwire, enough for me to vivdly remember it and click on this video.
@@jennyanydots2389probably when he went to the synagogue and met the rabbi
Sosa was my favorite player as a kid, I (my dad) caught a foul ball hit by Sosa at my first ever cubs game when I was around 3 months old
This race brought people back into stadiums and care about baseball again. Both of these players deserve to make the hall of fame for it.
These races!! The hall of fame is a pit of despair full of joo's, races, and ugly whites who totes dead now anyway. I should be in HOF son!!
Given that the substances they were taking were legal, that they made it public, and that they had a generally good relationship with the media through all of it, yeah, absolutely. Their career numbers would also back up their Cooperstown case, even if their rejuvenation of the league didn't speak for itself.
MLB doesn't have to adhere to the same standards of the law as the federal or state government, they can hold themselves and its members to a higher standard if they want (they are a privatly, not state-run entity). MLB outlawed anabolic steroids in 1988. Andro and all the other substances they were using were known to be just different versions of the same thing... "performance enhancing drugs". As MLB sees it, just because they weren't aware of the substance in the time to ban it immediately, that doesn't mean the players didn't know what they were doing and why they were taking it. It's not a court of law, we don't have to play stupid and pretend they really believed that they were just taking those substances and gaining 50 lbs of muscle from a simple "nutritional supplement". That's idiotic. You can try and play the Donald Trump "but technically it's legal, right?" game but it just exposes you to be ethically compromised or at the least hypocritical.
This is something that's upset me about the whole situation for the last several years. MLB needed to get fans back after the 94 strike and did so after homerun production went up and you had a chase for a record. Sure, many of the players were using steroids (I've seen more than 80% thrown out there), but for the stuff that we know was getting used, afaict, it was legal at that time. But we got all high and mighty about steroid use, and instead of just saying "Hey, don't use steroids or you'll get in lots of trouble", it was decided to just ban an entire era from the Hall of Fame. So MLB profits off of all these guys that made baseball fun to watch again and the players get screwed for breaking rules that didn't really exist yet.
Griffey's role in this becomes downright heroic when you see it as one natty fighting against the surge of roiders
He wasn't natural son. Don't kid urself boy.
@@jennyanydots2389 Besmirching KG's legacy is unamerican, child.
@@wakkawakkagaming3710 The amount of Stacker 3's Kenny G Jay was throwin down in the locker rooms back in the day was un'merican boy!! Pretty sure he smokes a fair amount of crack too.
son@@wakkawakkagaming3710
@@jennyanydots2389 one of you two is certainly on crack
That homerun race was better than any series ever played
Criminal neither of these guys are in the hall of fame.
What a fantastic story... until you realized everyone was cheating and MLB turned a blind eye to it, ruining any credibility or childhood wonder that was still in sports (and they managed to do it again with the Astros!).
I think the whole steroid thing put a permanent disconnect into sports for me. Realizing it would always be disappointment from then on.
The Astros weren't the only team that did electrical sign-stealing, which has been done for over 100 years. The MLB brought in the most fans because of controversies; so, do you really think they're going to stop cheating. In sports, rules are dares.
I'm old enough to remember seeing this one live on TV, even though my teenage self didn't really care about the sport in general otherwise. I was dealing with high school and other typical awkward teenage stuff, but I still have the record of that moment somewhere in the old paper archives.
Yep, watched this game and had a McGwire poster in my room later on even though I was never a Cards fan.
OMG WTF you like, 93 YO or something boiiiii!?!?!?!??!?!? Totes prolly gots them gross balls in adult diapers thing goin on son!!
As a 9 year old , this was such an amazing time . I’m a dodger fan but I caught myself watching every cubs game on wgn and whenever cards were on
Did them beetings handed down by yo daddy make it any less amazing son?
This is the reason I became a baseball fan in 1998
There we’re an abnormally large number of kids from my junior high school at that game. Every year, after the first quarter, everyone who made honor roll received four free Cardinals tickets. There were a limited number of games that we could use them for but that Sept. 8 game was one of them because at the time nobody thought a September game between the mediocre Cardinals and mediocre Cubs was going to be an important game. And Quincy, where we were all from, is right on the border between Cubs nation and Cardinals nation. I think there were 20 or 25 kids from my junior high who saw history for free.
I know, cool story Holmes.
Lol
This season is one of my core baseball memories. 7 year old me watched more baseball that year than any other time in my life. Its when I became interested in the Red Sox, began hating the Yankees, and idolozed Big Mac. I still have his 70 HR season Wheaties box in my house. 1998 is one of the most important years in all of baseball history.
This is what made me fall in love with baseball and the Chicago Cubs.
the only thing missing from this masterpiece is the clip of them special guest starring on "The Simpsons" - 'dingers! dingers!'
Judging by the two different reactions to the attention they received; I'd say McGwire knew he was cheating the game and its legends, while Sosa didn't have such attachments because of the position of hardship he came from.
I would be fine with them amd others in the HOF, as long as there's an asterisk next to their names and an acknowledgement of the "steroids era" as an unfair, yet important period in baseball history.
That Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine commercial is my favorite baseball commercial of all time. Classic bit!
The home run race was the best time of my youth. I don’t care about anything else. It was awesome!
You're a races then I see
I loved it !!! I bought so much damm Mcqwire merchandise… (now worthless) but was fun and incredible to watch at every bar ,house party , club !!!
I loved Sammy Sosa as a kid
This video just further illustrated how ignored Barry Bonds was in 1998. He became the only player in baseball history to record 400 career home runs and 400 stolen bases, and he still holds that distinction today. Hell, Secret Base covered it in the History Of The Seattle Mariners classic series. But just like 1998, Secret Base ignored that fact here. If that was intentional, that was a great subtle move!
He was trash in 98 thats why. nobody cares about barry bonds hes a joke. Look at his rookie season and then last season. fing cheater, get the f out of here and it didnt really matter when he did it because it had already been done.
In fact, Bonds is the only member of the 500-500 club. He was actually 2nd among all active MLB players in career stolen bases at the time of his blackballing, er, retirement.
Yeah, the first decade or so of Bonds' career was really special. Unfortunately it's the latter half that gives a lot of people pause. Whereas McGwire and Sosa were using supplements that MLB hadn't banned, several years later Bonds juiced during and after the steroid crackdown. And whereas the pair in '98 were by and large friendly to each other and to the media, Bonds always seemed to have a bone to pick with somebody. Not to say that Bonds in his 30s wasn't an extraordinarily talented player, but his inflated stats come from a much more negative position than those accrued by McGwire, Sosa, or any of the other guys who were experimenting chemically in the late '90s.
@@dfp_01 I agree with everything you said, but I still don't think the BBWA should use that as just cause to not let him in Cooperstown, especially when you consider the fact that Cap Anson and Ty Cobb are still there
@@arizonawrestlinginterviews1040why what did Cobb do
that was a legendary call to jus a great moment
Still keeping 120 plus cards of Mark McGwire going back to A's in 1987 and 1988. Also have Cal Ripken, Ken Griffey Jr, RIP Kirby Puckett, Nolan Ryan and Kent Hrbek.
Rip Calken
I remember seeing the Cards play at Wrigley when I was about 6. I don’t remember anything about the game besides the beauty of 1000s of flash bulbs every time MM or SS came to bat. The twinkling started slow and built up to this crazy intensity until the catcher caught the pitch or contact was made. It was a surreal sight that I’ll never forget.
I think we’ve been more forgiving of Mac and Sosa because they were nice guys and signed autographs and talked to the press. When Bonds came along we knew he was cheating and he didn’t help himself by being a colossal tool.
Too bad we had the most overrated announcer in sports history on the call. As a St. Louisian, I'm sorry we gave you this man America. His father was just so good 😭
Whatever... Mcguires just a phat ass white boy from the bay area. He signed with St Louis on account of the strong closeted gay boy community son.
Buck is good. Hes gotten a lot better
@@TheHutchIsOn He's typing! This comment! NO FLAGS!
I dont care what anyone says, the entertainment, joy & profits that Sammy, Mark & other roids users gave the country at that time doesn't get the appreciation they deserve.
Im a life-long Cubs fan, and the what disgusts me most is how MLB and The Cubs threw Sammy (& Mark) under the bus once steroids in baseball were exposed.
The league made billions upon billions of dollars in profits due to multiple players that they KNEW were juiced up. The Cubs value continued to skyrocket and even the property behind Wrigley rose in value because the chance to catch a ball on Waveland Ave. Or see a homerun from an apartment patio became the most coveted seats in town. The league cordoned and still condones so much cheating, its gross how all the teams pretended as if their hands were clean
Hey, at least you got a championship and this is how business in sports works. That's just a fact of life sometimes.
Best I have seen in a while. Just awesome.
1998 was my favorite year to watch sports with this home run chase and the Bulls second 3 peat. Got to watch a few games at Busch stadium that year. Don't think anything will top it.
People must not remember Mark was an absolute beast before the steroids too. Was already smashing Homeruns and could hit the ball. Same goes for Bonds. Let them in the HOF. Maybe not McGwire so much as Barry. But both played a gigantic role in getting popularity and views back to the MLB. Selig sure loved the money they generated for the league but nope, no HOF for yall. Fuccing joke
Sammy was such a good sport about everything
Turns out he'd been beetin his dawgs teeth out they mouf every few months when the roid rage and the media came to be too much fo his dumb ass to handle proper and right. Sammy was goin through like 39 dawgs per years during those peak years son... so many roids, so much dissapointment, dude just couldn't take it when he went home at night... took it all out on them dawgs boy. Imagine peak roid rage Sammy just beetin a dawg to death with his bear hands.... Slammin Sammy could prolly take out like 3 or 4 dawgs at a time if he wanted to back then. He prolly can't even take on more than one of them dawgs these days.
Sammy "Samosa" Sosa
I have another idea for a Rewind in soccer; any chances you could show Manchester United's Eric Cantona and his infamous kung-fu kick toward a fan? It happened in January 1995.
As much as I would LOVE a football (soccer) video, I wouldn’t hold my breath for SB to upload another one for awhile. With them being American, footy videos are pretty rare to come by from them… But I will add a suggestion/request to make this a list…
Beef History: Mauro Icardi v Maxi Lopez
Womanchester Divided
Still a joke that MLB knew about steroids and just had these players take the blame to make themselves look good. Horrible.
Beef History: Lindros vs Flyers Organization
Overlap: Greatest College Football Coach (Saban) and the Greatest NFL Coach (Belichick) coaching in the same division
Untitled: Ken Griffey Junior
Rewinder: 2006 Orange Bowl 3OTs
Untitled: Jim Kelly
Collapse: Early 90s Bills
Untitled: Red Sox Players (particular Yaz)
Prism: Steph Curry and all those mid major players
Rewinder: The Catch By Willie
Rewinder: Hank Aaron and Bonds breaking the respective HR record
Untitled: Don Nelson
Fran Tarkenton would be another good one for Untitled if they don't already have one
@@dfp_01 i don’t think they do.
I remember the neighborhood bars were packed every night when McGuire and Sosa were close to the record. I was in one with the game on when McGuire got the record.
That homerun chase really was as magical as they say. As a high school kid and Cardinals fan, it was the highlight of my year. Thank you Mark!
yea u supported a drugie and a cheater.
As an ex-baseball player, I always said that it didn’t matter what PED these folks were taking, you still have to hit a tiny ball coming at you at 100mph.
Still requires skills and talent.
Also some are just naturally gifted to hit home runs strength does help but you still gotta have the talent
I don't think anyone is saying these guys don't have talent, they are just trying to be fair to the other guys who weren't using and didn't have an advantage
Remember when bonds did it better but white American didn’t really make a big deal of it like when mark did it? I do
Bonds was a monster💯
Looking back on this, I feel bad for bith guys (more so for Sammy than mark). Neither did anything so immoral that you can’t root for them. Like they didn’t beat their wives.
They brought sheer joy to the game. I don’t care how they did it. That’s a rabbit hole I don’t wanna go down. I accept them for who they are.
Sammy was a poor Latino kid who had to fight for everything he got. He had to experience issues that the all American white hero mark McGwire never had to. I’m not saying he was perfect but we should applaud his career.
Mark I do think is kinda pathetic, mostly because of how stupidly he believes steroids didn’t help his career and that he CRIED for lying and cheating. But the guy seems to be chill. And I do like the whole “Big Mac” thing. So he dosnt deserve the hate.
Baseball knew since day one what both of these guys were taking.
Till this day, the league shoots up its star players.
Friends of mine that play in the MLB have confirmed that they “medically” need steroids to perform…….💰💰💰💰
They always put the onus on the players for using steroids but never on MLB for changing the shape of the baseballs about 500 zillion times in the modern era. McGwire, Sosa and Griffey would’ve raked no matter what. Just so happened the league wound up the balls so tight in 98 it was like practically hitting a golf ball
I remember when the androstenedione scandal broke mid-season and then got hushed up immediately. Put me off the whole race. Thank you for including Shank's absolutely ludicrous column as an example of willful blindness.
@@MichaelMiller-wn8yh The supplements discussion was rapidly and completely overshadowed by the prevailing narrative - as exemplified by Shank's column - until the season ended.
See and this is why I wonder about Pujols, Aaron Judge, heck sometimes even ARod. Steroids, yes, have a lot of side effects, but even when some others don't take it and make HRs look just like their batting practice, are we just at the tip of the iceberg or is there something I'm missing?
Summer of 98 i was a high school graduate and all we talked about that yr me and my homeboys living in Baltimore County Maryland was the debut DMX album and the Sosa and McGwire HR race even local news stations in Maryland was talking bout that HR race and me my childhood friend and his father all watched the game at my friends house and we went crazy when McGwire tied Maris....and yea we all knew that it was some illegal activity going on but most of us didn't care i mean we was all in the moment matter fact millions of fans was in the moment and it went from being a sport to entertainment like an entertaining reality show
Did not expect to be this early lol
It's been a long time and there hasn't been another race for the record between 2 players. but there is the possibility that Judge and Ohtani can compete in the coming years. This year would have been a good opportunity but judge was injured, plus he already has the record in the AL.
Btw amazing video 👍
Make Baseball Juicy Again
Still no idea why pro sports bans substances that would help protect athletes from injury and help them recover faster..makes absolutely no sense
Mark was a great hitter and steroids made him amazing, Canseco and Sosa were nothing without steroids... there's a big difference. Then Barry Bonds got tired of being the best and not getting recognized, so he took steroids and blew everyone away.
It’s crazy how baseball used these guys to put asses back in the seats and then hypocritically castigated them when the truth (which we already knew) about their steroid usage became public.
Steroids werent banned until 2005 in MLB yet none of these guys got in the HOF….despite Bud Selig doing so…
Wondering if McGwire felt some guilt about the juice which is why he was feeling weird during the press stuff. Could be completely wrong just more so wondering
No. He was never a guy that liked being in the spotlight. LaRussa has talked at length about that. Mark was a "back of the room" type of guy.
…And they would live the rest of their days without controversy or having to face public scrutiny ever. The end. 😂
Say what you will about the steriod era in baseball.
The sport was almost dead. The sosa vs mcgwire race single handidly save the sport.
I was lucky enough to watch this race as a 9 year old, baseball obsessed kid. This was the most exciting time in baseball history, in my opinion. This was baseball at it’s best, and most fun to watch. I remember all the flashes going off to every pitch, whenever McGwire was at bat. People hate on steroids, but everyone was using it back then. And steroids don’t make you hit 50+ home runs in a season. It gives you a little extra umf, but that’s it. This was the best baseball there ever was.
I've never been a big fan of baseball but even I tuned in for this when it aired, was a pretty cool thing at the time.
this was not a deep dive
I grew up in this era, the '98 season was the first time I remembered paying attention to baseball, and the Home Run Race was the reason why. I can't tell you who won the World Series that year or the year after, heck I can't tell you much about '90s baseball in general, but I can tell you who Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are and how bright their stars shone for a kid growing up in the Midwest, where the Cubs v Cards games were on our TV every time they played.
Nobody hit bombs like Big Mac.. Dude was hitting missiles
I was 9 during the home run chase. Doping or not this was still one of the most exciting seasons to watch. And being an Astros fan I had to see these two a lot.
"...And they lived happily ever after!"
Took my kids to one game in Wrigley field. Sosa hit one, McGuire hit two that day. They both had around 50 home runs at the time.
Its a shame McGwire's #62 was his shittiest HR and messed up running the bases.
This was a magical summer of baseball. I doubt it will be duplicated again. I remember watching Bonds n Big Mac take BP in St Louis, effing amazing.
The single greatest season of baseball ever.
It may be mired in controversy due to steroids, it was the pinnacle of baseball during my lifetime.
What a time to be alive… being Dominican from uptown Manhattan, I was rooting for sosa #21 the summer of 98’…. 💪🏻⚾️🇩🇴🇩🇴
Got beat by McGuire the true king
@@mr.intamin1081True king? McGwire couldn’t hold Bonds’ jock.
@@mr.intamin1081 😂😂😂😂😂….. it was on hell of a summer…. 98’
@@andrewalden8364 In terms of hitting HR's, McGwire is the king. Highest HR/AB ratio of all time....a full at bat better than Babe Ruth. Mac hit 583 HR's in just over 6,100 at bats. Bonds had over 9,800 at bats. Taking McGwire's HR/AB ratio of 10.6 over the same total number of at bats as Bonds and it comes to 928 career HR's. In terms of overall player, that's not even worth debating as Bonds was a 5 tool guy and McGwire was a HR specialist....but that's the subject here: HR's. Longevity (and consistency) was the key to Bonds' HR total of 762. He played 22 seasons compared to 16 for McGwire.
Two minutes in and there's already been a few great turns of phrase
Such good childhood memories 🎉
As a Red Sox fan, I LOVED baseball in the late 90s early 2000s. The Sox kept fielding good teams that had the potential to break the curse then finally did. It was obvious that everyone was on steroids but we didn't care when there were home run races to watch. This to me was the golden age of baseball. Being back steroids please.
Yeah, MLB won't do it. With all that was going on with PEDs and Steroids in the world of sports and sports entertainment during the 2000s and 2010s, I don't think it's ever possible.
I was a Mariners fan but Nomar Garciaparra was one of my favorite players
Let us never forget that Sammy today looks like a chewed up piece of salt water taffy.
That was dope
Kansas vs. Memphis. The 2008 National Championship. Mario's Miracle deserves a Deep Rewind.
I cant even watch this now. Knowing they cheated and i got tricked in to caring about it sucks. Screw these two guys, especially for the Maris family having to watch this.
Seriously? How can their steroid use possibly effect you to that degree? The entire league was juiced, yet they were the only two that reached that level.
I'm surprised this one took so long to get to
I was at work, worked a gas station job at the time, heard it on the radio lol
Big Mac really did look Ike a side of beef in ‘98.
I remember that day when I was 10 years old…it was awesome