Homer Unhappy

By BILL PLASCHKE

Aug. 23, 1999 12 AM PT

It has soared beyond the fence, out of the park, into a made-for-Lifetime movie where you don’t need to be Meredith Baxter to know what is going to happen next.

Mark McGwire hits a fly ball, raises his arms, the crowd roars, the fireworks blaze, home run.

Sammy Sosa hits a fly ball, slaps his hands, the crowd dances, an air horn blows, home run.

McGwire, Sosa, McGwire twice, Sosa, back and forth to the tinkle of Burt Bacharach, chasing history and each other again and again and. . . .

Cut! Cut! Cut!

I love home runs, I love McGwire, I love Sosa, I’d love to be able to blow kisses to my mom and not have her think I needed to borrow money.

But for the love of baseball, I want it to stop.

I don’t want them to break the home run record McGwire set last year.

I don’t want them to take one of baseball’s most magical moments and turn it into a parlor trick.

I don’t want to see more flash bulbs popping as if these guys are models, and the field is their runway, and they are the game.

The chase needs to end soon, to protect the shine on sports’ most famous individual record while slowing baseball’s unhealthy obsession with personal glory.

Start with the record.

Watching McGwire break it last year was as wondrous as watching it snow in June.

If it happens again this year, it will be as sexy as galoshes.

“Part of what made last year so magic was that somebody broke a record that had not been broken in 37 years,” said Bob Costas, NBC announcer and baseball’s unofficial conscience. “Now, for two guys to break it in successive years? The sense of surprise and wonder is gone. It’s not the same. It can’t be the same.”

This is a record with strength and style. This is a record that deserves better.

It was Babe Ruth’s record. It was Roger Maris’ legacy. It is McGwire’s once-in-a-lifetime summer.

The list of leaders is almost a sacred scroll, something that doesn’t deserve to be dragged around town like toilet paper on your heel.

“Now that we know it can be done, it’s like we almost expect it,” said Costas, who lives in St. Louis and understands this well.

“The other day I read a note that said, ‘McGwire went 0 for 3, and is homerless in his last 12 at-bats,’ ” Costas recalled, laughing in amazement. “C’mon. If anybody could hit a homer every 12 at-bats and have a career of decent length, he would break Hank Aaron’s record.”

You don’t want the home run record to be like the consecutive-save record, broken about every week, generally by some bearded fellow unrecognizable to anyone but his hunting buddies.

Then there is the 30-homer, 30-steal club, which had only five members in the nearly 100 years before 1970. Since then, it’s easier to list who hasn’t gotten in, with six new members in the last two seasons.

When Raul Mondesi interrupted the silence of the Dodgers’ collapse in the final days of 1997 to loudly celebrate his entry into the club, we should have known something was wrong.

Besides, if McGwire breaks the record again, whom is he going to run into the stands and hug? Himself?

And what will his son Matthew, a year older and wiser, do when McGwire crosses home plate and grabs him for another giant embrace?

“Take it easy, Dad, my buds are watching. Can we just, like, shake hands?”

Imagine the split personality of the postgame interview session.

McGwire: “Well, I am honored and thrilled to break the record of a man so great as Mark McGwire.”

Pause.

McGwire: “Thanks Mark. If anybody had to break it, I’m glad it was you.”

If the home run record stands, then maybe this growing emphasis on individual statistics will begin to subside.

The issue here is not merely what 70 home runs annually do to our record books, but what they do to our minds.

Take the usually smart, classy St. Louis baseball fans. Because of this constant record chase, many have been suckered into thinking their games are little more than organized batting practice.

Ask average fans there what they would rather see, a McGwire homer or a Cardinal victory. The old-timers will cringe at the average answer.

It’s not McGwire’s fault. He and Sosa are both team players. It’s the home run’s fault.

While Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau emphasized he did not agree with my stance on the home run race--”Even in consecutive years, it’s great for the game”--he acknowledged that the record is the tip of a dangerous iceberg.

“There is a growing emphasis on individual records in baseball, sometimes at the expense of which team won the game,” said Hirdt, executive vice president of baseball’s statistics service. “When records become the end, instead of the means to the end, then they are less valuable.”

It’s true that while I was overcome with emotion and awe while sitting in the press box on the night of McGwire’s 62nd home run last year, I had just as much fun covering Sosa trying to homer his team into the playoffs a few weeks later.

Of all the statistics surrounding last year’s home run chase, the most disturbing was that after McGwire hit his 50th in New York on Aug. 20, he was intentionally walked only once the rest of the year.

Perhaps the hottest hitter in major league baseball history, and everybody pitches to him?

“It was like opposing pitchers said, ‘This guy is going for the record, we owe it to him,’ ” Hirdt said. “This does not diminish the record in any way, but it is certainly interesting.”

Interesting, like the managers who would never dream of using their bullpen ace in the seventh inning of a one-run game with the bases loaded and the opponent’s best hitter up, even though that is obviously the turning point.

Why not? Because in that situation, their bullpen ace would not get a save.

Interesting, like the managers who will take out their young starting pitcher at the first sign of trouble after the fifth inning if their team is leading, even though he’s still strong.

Why? Because they want to make sure he can only be the winner, and not the loser.

The glory of home runs is apparently being felt for pitching wins in Boston, where last week Pedro Martinez arrived late for a game against Seattle, was scratched from his start, yet was still inserted just in time to pitch four innings for the victory.

Was it dramatic? No, it was calculated. Bryce Florie pitched the first 4 2/3 innings and, even though he was leading, 5-1, he was yanked for a reliever so he would not get the full five innings necessary for a win.

In comes Martinez with a 7-1 lead and the victory in the hands of the official scorer, who determines he is the most effective pitcher.

History will show that Martinez was the winner. Only those in Fenway Park that day will know that he had little to do with the win.

“Nobody talks a lot about it, but the issue of who gets credit for what is overwhelming who wins the game,” Hirdt said.

There are two great stories in the National League Central this year. One is the inspired Houston Astros. The other is the young Cincinnati Reds.

Yet the only two Central stories anybody is following are Sosa and McGwire.

It’s time they stop. Somebody pitch them inside. Somebody pitch them in the dirt. Somebody walk them. Or trade for a Dodger pitcher and let him walk them.

Then, in the seventh inning of the final day of the season, with everyone at least 10 homers shy of a record that will keep until most of us are gone from this Earth, America’s baseball fans can proudly stand and sing, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

You know how it goes. There are peanuts, Cracker Jack, a home team, a strikeout, plenty of rooting, and not one word about a dinger.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Master Blasters

Comparing Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

1999

Home Runs

McGwire: 50

Sosa: 51

Team Games

McGwire: 125

Sosa: 122