Columnist Dean Juipe: Less fanfare yet sluggers remain hot

Dean Juipe

Friday, Aug. 13, 1999 | 10:52 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

There is incredible, widespread, undeniable public interest in the home run exploits this season of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

There is.

OK, there isn't. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be.

McGwire and Sosa are, of course, in the midst of a second successive romp through the National League and toward still another revision of the best single-season homer totals.

Their problem, in terms of public recognition, is that they charted the identical course in 1998 and drew everyone's attention with a captivating run at a record that had stood since 1961. Both men wound up topping the previous standard -- 61 by Roger Maris -- and McGwire, of the St. Louis Cardinals, made it all the way to 70. They go head-to-head this weekend in St. Louis.

Sosa, of the Chicago Cubs, hit 66.

This season, through 116 games McGwire has 44 and is on pace to hit 61. Sosa, going into today's games, has 43 in 113 games and is on pace to hit 62.

If 1998 had never happened, the public would be going crazy -- just as it was a year ago when the frenzy spilled over into a full-fledged media assault on the two sluggers. They couldn't go to the bathroom without a camera or someone with a microphone in pursuit.

Every day, virtually without exception, there were features upon features relating to McGwire and Sosa and the pressure of surpassing the sport's most revered record. Given the circumstances they faced, each man handled the intrusion surprisingly well and stayed within himself. For McGwire that meant protecting his reserved nature as much as possible, while for Sosa it provided an even larger audience for his smiling facetiousness.

Yet they kept their focus under circumstances that had made previous record chasers wilt. Had they not been able to, neither would have made it beyond 60 as the pressure was truly intense and likely greater than can even be imagined.

This season, however, the two are in comparative isolation in spite of producing fantastic numbers with mediocre teams. If anything, given the fact the Cardinals are 58-58 and the Cubs 50-63, McGwire and Sosa should be given even more credit than they were a year ago. As it is, opposing teams have the luxury of pitching around them pretty much as they see fit.

Nonetheless, McGwire and Sosa are popping the ball out of the yard regularly and McGwire -- who recently hit his 500th career home run and had a stretch of 17 dingers in 21 games prior to last weekend -- is doing it without being on andro. To little fanfare, he has quit taking the muscle-building substance that is permitted in baseball but is banned in most other leagues, including the NCAA.

For all that was written and said about McGwire being on andro a year ago, very little has been written or said about his decision to stop using it. He hasn't said so, but the feeling is that he knew he was setting a bad example by taking something most sports leagues have found sufficient reason to prohibit.

Having bashed him a year ago for his quasi-legal drug use, it only seems fair to congratulate him for coming clean. It makes McGwire more of a hero, even if you find yourself reading and hearing a little less about him than you did a year ago.