Every once in a while, a player reaches mid-July with thirty home runs, and people start talking about Roger Maris. It has been thirty-five years since Maris broke Babe Ruth's record for home runs in a single season. In a sport whose lifeblood is statistics, Maris's 61 home runs in a season is the ultimate mark of slugging excellence. But inevitably, something happens in the occasional pursuit of that mark. Injuries slow a player down, the heat of August sets in, and if the pace continues, the media frenzy becomes unbearable.
Last year, Albert Belle became only the 12th man to break the fifty home run barrier. With this being the first season not shortened by strike since 1993, pundits were predicting that Maris's record was in danger of falling. Sure enough, many players started off on a Maris-like pace. Brady Anderson, Sammy Sosa, and Albert Belle hit homers early, and we started seeing projections. But the paces have all slowed, and the projections now are much less than 61. Except for Oakland’s Mark McGwire
McGwire poses the most serious threat to Maris's record since, well ... since he had 30 at the midway point of his rookie season in 1987 himself. He has been battling injuries throughout his career, and this year has been no exception. McGwire has missed 31 of his team’s first 127 games. But he continues to hit home runs at a historic pace. Through August 19, he had hit 42 homers in 316 at-bats, or one every 7.5 at bats. That’s the best full-season home run rate ever, beating the next closest (Babe Ruth’s 8.5 in 1920) by a large margin..
The Athletics have thirty-five games left on the schedule. If McGwire can stay healthy and average four at bats a game, he would hit 19 more HR and tie Roger Maris with 61 homers. It will be tremendously difficult for McGwire to maintain that pace and stay healthy for six more weeks. In a time when so much is wrong with baseball, and so much of our attention is focused on salaries and labor strife, it’s a relief that something happening on the field can distract as from all of that. It’s exactly what we need right now.
