McGwire, Mark D.
Baseball
b. Oct. 1, 1963, Pomona, CA
McGwire was named The Sporting News college player of the year in 1984, when he played for the U. S. Olympic team before entering professional baseball. The 6-foot-5, 225-pounder was used mostly at third base in the minor leagues and in a brief stint with the Oakland Athletics in 1986, but when he joined Oakland to stay in 1987 he was installed at first base.
A very strong right-handed hitter, McGwire was named rookie of the year after leading the league with 49 home runs, a record for a first-year player. He batted .289 and had 118 RBI that year.
Over the next four seasons, McGwire hit a total of 126 home runs, but didn't come close to his rookie total. In 1992, though, he had 42 home runs despite a heel injury that limited him to 139 games and 467 at-bats. Because of that injury, recurrent back problems, and the 1994 players' strike, he appeared in just 74 games over the next two seasons.
After hitting 39 home runs in only 317 at-bats in 1995, McGwire had his best all-around season as a hitter in 1996 with a .312 average, 52 home runs and 113 RBI, even though he had just 423 times at bat.
McGwire had 34 home runs for Oakland by the end of July in 1997, when he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. He hit another 24 in the National League, tying Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg for most home runs by a right-handed hitter in a season.
But he was just getting warmed up. He tied Reggie Jackson's record, set in 1969, by hitting 37 homers in the first half of the 1998 season. Unlike Jackson, though, McGwire kept up the pace, and he was joined by Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs. By mid-August, it was obvious that they would both break Maris' record of 61 for the season, barring injury. The question was, Who would get there first?
The answer was McGwire. He hit his 62nd home run on September 8 against the Cubs. With three weeks to go, though, he and Sosa were still in a race to see who would lead the league. Sosa hit his 66th on September 25 to go ahead, briefly. McGwire caught up with him later in the day. Then McGwire closed out the season with a flourish, hitting two home runs in each of the final two games of the season to reach 70, while Sosa remained at 66. McGwire also hit .299 with 147 RBI, walked 162 times, and scored 130 runs. His slugging percentage of .752 was second in National League history to Rogers Hornsby's .756 in 1925.
McGwire and Sosa were in another race in 1999, though it wasn't quite so dramatic. Again, McGwire won with 65 home runs to 63 for Sosa. He hit his 500th career home run on August 5 that year, in his 5,487th at-bat. No other player ever reached the 500 level in fewer at-bats.
Through his final two seasons, McGwire was troubled by injury. He hit 32 home runs in just 231 at-bats in 2000, but patellar tendinitis relegated him to pinch-hitting duty for much of the season. After knee surgery in the off-season, he still wasn't healthy in 2001. He had 29 home runs in 299 at-bats, but his batting average was only .187. In November, McGwire announced his retirement from baseball.
McGwire had his detractors, who suggested that his record-setting numbers were due to a juiced-up ball and inferior pitching. He was also embarrassed in 1998, when a sportswriter discovered that he was using an over-the-counter muscle enhancer, androstenedione. Although banned by the NCAA, the NFL, and the International Olympic Committee, andro wasn't prohibited by major league baseball. McGwire announced in 1999 that he had stopped using the substance.
Teammates and opponents, though, knew McGwire as a classy person who valued team victories above his individual exploits. He won applause when he announced, after signing his 1998 contract with the Cardinals, that he was giving $1 million to aid abused children in California and the St. Louis area. And, during spring training of 2001, he verbally agreed to a two-year, $30 million contract extension but never signed the agreement because he felt he couldn't perform up to the level the contract would call for.