A man among children: with one swing of a bat, Mark McGwire can touch 'em all; with one gesture, he touched us all

Sporting News, The, Dec 15, 1997 by Dave Kindred

Here's Mark McGwire in his little castle on a California island. It's an impossibly gorgeous December day. The big man is at ease on a couch, wearing a T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. Behind him, a harbor channel sparkles diamond blue. Docked at the pier a few steps away is his boat; its name is Four Bases.

For Mark McGwire, there's one question.

So, 61?

"People talk about 61 like, `It's your goal isn't it?' It's never been a goal. Can it be accomplished? I've never talked to Ken Griffey Jr. about it. But I'm going to speak for him. If we sat down, we'd say, 'Yeah, you know what? I think it can be done.'

"We were close to it We had bad Julys. If we did halfway decent in July, home run-wise, we're at 61 or over 61. Will it be clone? It has to be one of those years when somebody walks away from the game and goes, `I did everything I could possibly do.'"

But that kind of season, everything working perfectly -- has it ever happened?

"I guarantee you, ask any hitter, if you'd asked Ted Williams, he'd have said, `You know that .406? I could've hit .420.' Roger Maris might've said, `Hey, I could've hit 65.' That's how baseball is. That's what drives guys to work harder."

Here Mark McGwire allows himself a little smile, almost a smile of mischievous anticipation. He's morphing into Huck Finn hefting a 34 1/2-inch, 33-ounce stick. Somehow, with the red hair and green eyes, the big man has a little-boy look to him.

And he says of that hitter's dream season, "It's never happened. But, you know what? It could happen."

Amazing, what 58 home runs will do for you the year after you hit 52.

You become a person.

Not that Mark McGwire hasn't been a person.

But he's no media hound confirming his ego on an hourly basis. He prefers the work to the celebration. So we hardly knew him beyond the extravagant numbers he put up.

We saw the man only when we saw him cry

Amazing. He calls hitting a home run the most difficult act in all of sports. "Or more people would do it more often," he says. And then in two seasons he hits 40,000 feet of home runs. Hits them so hard that Sandy Alomar is glad one clanged off Cleveland's score-board. "Or else it goes around the world and hits me in the back of the head," the catcher says.

A Babe Ruth for the new millennium, McGwire hits rising line drives of such distance that outfielder Steve Finley of the Padres says, "I don't chase Mark McGwire's shots -- I admire them."

After he turned around Randy Johnson's heat and sent it 481 feet, McGwire circled the bases head down rather than admire the missile's flight. "I respect pitchers too much to show them up," he says. From the mound, the Mariners ace caught McGwire's eye in the dugout and touched his cap bill, power saluting power.

"Mark hits it farther with less effort than anyone ever," says Tony La Russa, who has managed McGwire in Oakland and St. Louis. "The arc of Ken Griffey Jr.'s swing has gotten bigger than when he hit line drives. Juan Gonzalez is a terrific power hitter, too. But you look at Juan's arc and look at Mark's -- Mark's is more compact, simpler.

"It's timing, and it's a gift not everybody has. He reaches the ball at the exact moment when he can max it out."

Amazing, he gives the Cardinals a bargain deal. The city loves him, he loves the city, and in 10 hours he does a three-year, $30 million deal. Instead of auctioning himself on the free-agent market and busting the bank somewhere, he takes $7 million a year. He defers $2 million so the team can use it for other players and gives away $3 million the next three years to his Mark McGwire Foundation for Children to help youngsters who can't help themselves.

For that singular act of faith, hope and charity, as well as for a singular season of excellence, The Sporting News honors McGwire as the 1997 Sportsman of the Year.

"The quantity and sheer power of Mark's home runs have put him in a class of his own, but his moving example of selflessness and loyalty have made him equally unique," TSN president James H. Nuckols says. "For both of these reasons he has helped us see the game differently and made it an exceptionally easy choice for us to name him as Sportsman of the Year."

Amazing, the athletic feats, the scoreboards dented. But then to witness on a daily basis a larger evolution at work: "More impressive than anything he's done on the field," La Russa says, "has been Mark's development personally. So much attention is given to the ball leaving the park that we don't see his completeness, the player, not just the hitter. And he's become a team leader by example and by voice. He's what a major leaguer is supposed to be."

He does all that hero's work with grace and modesty. Then at a news conference announcing his new contract, someone asks about his interest in abused children. He hesitates. How to answer? He doesn't know how to turn a life's experience into a sound bite.

How to talk about Polly Klaas, the 12-year-old girl whose 1993 abduction and murder chilled the Bay Area during McGwire's years with the A's. How to talk about the "missing children" sweatbands he wore in games. What does a man say about his fears born of divorce so soon after he became a father? How can he convey his girlfriend Ali Dickson's passionate involvement in the protection of abused children? All that inside him and no way to get it out.