Why I won't watch Sosa and McGwire in 'Long Gone Summer'
As much as I miss baseball this summer, I'm not going to watch ESPN's 30 for 30 "Long Gone Summer" on Sunday night. It tells the story of the 1998 home run battle between the Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals. Credited then with "saving baseball," those two caused damage that still lingers and leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many fans.
Both McGwire and Sosa were linked to performance-enhancing drugs through Major League Baseball testing, the Mitchell report or other sources, and that stain had kept both from joining others with similar lofty numbers in baseball's Hall of Fame.
Oh, sure, we cheered Sosa's 66 dingers that led the Cubs to a 1998 playoff spot. But Sosa hit .182, struck out four times, and didn't hit any homers or drive in a single run, as the Atlanta Braves outscored the Cubs 15-4 to sweep the National League division series three games to none. Even when Sosa was good, fans knew something wasn't right with our slugger who won the 1998 Most Valuable Player Award.
White Sox fans remember Sosa as a skinny, 6-foot, 165-pound right-fielder who stole 32 bases, hit 15 homers and struck out 150 times, while compiling a .233 batting average. Cubs fans remember Sosa as the bloated slugger who had three years with more than 60 homers, and surpassed "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks as the team's all-time home-run leader with 545 homers to Banks' well-earned 512. As the team's all-time strikeout leader, Sosa was much more dominating, compiling 1,815 strikeouts to easily best runner-up Ron Santo's 1,271.
Sosa was the star attraction during his 13-year career with the Cubs, which ended when he ducked out early on the last game of the 2004 season - without his boom box, which was demolished, apparently by a teammate.
The year before, Sosa was suspended for eight games after it was discovered he was using a corked bat. In a column about Sosa the cheater, I noted, "Whether discovered or not, cheating always leaves a stain, a lingering doubt about who a person is, an ever-present chink in the character that neither money nor fame can erase."
In 1998, the only time I gave Sosa a paragraph was after reporters asked him about the "pressure" of competing amid all the media attention.
"Pressure is when I was back home cleaning shoes," said Sosa, who had to shine shoes and work in a factory as a kid to help support his family in the Dominican Republic. That seems to be the only positive thing I've ever said about Sosa, who never worked his way into my heart as did many other Cubs' players.
Watching games with my dad always led to talks about the flaws in Sosa's game. "He missed the cutoff man," my dad said often about Sosa's throws from the outfield.
Dad also thought Sosa was a selfish player, more concerned about home runs than winning. Dad thought Sosa should put his head down and run hard to first base instead of taking his trademark hop on any long fly ball. I still agree with Dad.
The cloud of performance-enhancing drug rumors hangs over Sosa, McGwire and other players of that era. San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds made a mockery of all the records when he joined the freakishly enhanced fraternity and smashed 73 homers in 2001.
Still, some credit Sosa and McGwire with "saving baseball," which had seen attendance drop 20% after the strike that canceled the end of the 1994 season and shortened the 1995 campaign. But ESPN points out that attendance actually was creeping up in 1996 and 1997 before the Sosa and McGwire show was essentially a steroid shot to fan interest. Attendance dropped again in 1999.
The idea that "Chicks Dig the Longball" and the emphasis on home runs changed baseball in a way that still shows today. Gone are the days of speedy leadoff men and pesky batters at the top of the order getting singles, complete games by starting pitchers, and two-hour broadcasts. Today's game is more about homers, walks and strikeouts. That might be the way to win, but it's not as much fun to watch as a parade of balls in play.
So I don't need to watch a documentary about 1998 beefed-up sluggers. However, if ESPN wants to show the Cubs' final game that season when Sosa went hitless and struck out twice as magical ex-Cub Greg Maddux, who played the game the way it was meant to be played, led his Atlanta Braves to an easy 6-2 victory, I'd watch that.