As thirty-four year old McGwire prepared to play his first full season with the
Cardinals expectations ran high. Unlike Roger Maris before him, he was expected to
challenge the home run record in 1998. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on his chances in their annual baseball preview. Cardinal manager Tony La Russa said he believed that no limits could be placed on him and that he "could hit 70". Though stating that a perfect season was needed if he was to hit sixty-two, McGwire certainly didn't disappoint as the season begin. He hit a grand slam in the first game of the season , March 31, and then connected on ten more in the month of April. He had an even better May with sixteen homers. With twenty-seven home runs heading into June, America begin pulling for McGwire to break Maris' record as every newspaper and tv station reported his daily production.
June of 1998 will always be remembered by baseball fans for home runs but not
necessarily because of Mark McGwire. Chicago Cub outfielder Sammy Sosa shocked the
baseball world by coming out of nowhere to challenge him. Sosa had a slow start to the
1998 season but caught fire in June hitting a major league record twenty home runs in the
month. McGwire only hit ten and many began to wonder if the new home run king would be the Dominican Republic born Sosa instead. McGwire struggled to maintain a lead on Sosa as the season progressed. Scoreboards across the country began posting their home run totals with the same relevance as game scores. The media now started to focus on the battle and swarmed each with thousands of questions. The two acted more like friends than competitors, each joking and praising the other's accomplishments while showing a great sense of humility. Sosa's pursuit of the record also directed much of the press coverage off of McGwire and gave him a friend who was experiencing the same trials as himself. It was as if the circumstances had joined the two forever in history.
In the middle of August, a controversy was started when the media reported that
McGwire was taking androstenedione. Commonly called andro, it is a legal, over-the-
counter nutritional supplement that is one of a sequence of substances used to make the
male hormone testosterone. McGwire had been taking andro pills before workouts for
increased efficiency and a faster rate of recovery. Little is known about andro but many
believe that it gives an unfair advantage to the user and can be harmful, possibly making
his body unable to make testosterone naturally among other side effects. Major League
Baseball is one of the few major athletic associations that allows its players to use andro.
Another concern is that it can conceal the use of illegal steroids. McGwire admitted to
using the legal supplement but vehemently denied steroid use. The andro questions
eventually subsided as league management promised to look into an andro ban following
the season.
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