by Nathan Halfpenny

Created on: May 17, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

It began in 1998. Baseball was a few years removed from the lockout damaged its image and struggling to get fans back into the seats. Attendance was way down and baseball, America's Pasttime, was discussing cutting a few teams from the league that were not making it on their own. Montreal was certain to go, surprisingly the Twins were in the mix as well. There was talk of cutting at least two but possibly up to six over the next few seasons in order to redistribute talented players in an attempt to increase levels of competition. This was a serious issue plaguing the front office and seemed all but an inevitability for the upcoming years. Enter Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. During the 1998 season McGwire and Sosa hit a combined 136 HR's and drove in a combined 305 runs. The two men were single-handedly saving baseball from disgrace. Fans were coming out in record numbers to see these two men hit. Excitement for the game grew across the country as people's faith in baseball was restored by the two men in pursuit of baseball's most coveted and esteemed record. Back in 1961 Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were in pusuit of the very same record. Maris ended up winning the home run crown for the season topping out at 61 (note the lack of an asterisc) as Mantle slowed down and missed some playing time toward the end of the year. That record had held strong for 36+ seasons no one ever really coming close, Mark McGwire had come the closest prior to this with 58 HR's the season before. Through the summer the debate was which one wold get there first and who would hit the most. They both ended up getting there McGwire accomplishing the feat, ironically enough, against Sammy Sosa and the Cubs in St Louis. McGwire ended the season with 70, Sosa with 66, baseball was back.

Fast forward 10 years and neither of these two record holders are even in the game. McGwire a virtual pariah in the sport for having lied to congress, his fans, the city of St. Louis, primarily during that 1998 season. Sosa after a corked bat incident in Chicago never really recovered despite a semi-productive last season with Texas. How is it that these two men who saved the sport barely a decade ago, are virtual outcasts now? Sosa, and McGwire you could say have pulled a Pete Rose, with overwheling evidence stacked against them, they continue to deny allegations. Rafael Palmeiro was the next to go, another member of the esteemed 500 home run club essentially ousted from the sport, when mere seasons prior,

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