Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports had an interesting column this morning about what is now known as the "Great Home Run Chase of 1998." He apologized for basically getting caught up in the hype.
Rosenthal said almost no one is marking the 10-year anniversary of No. 62 going over the fence because of what we now know about the kinds of drugs the players were using at the time, including Andro and steroids.
He brings up a point I think most of us were victims of -- we were more enamored with the McGwire and Sosa hitting the ball out of the park than we were what it (allegedly) took for them to do it. I got my first job in journalism during the chase. We had a front-page graphic every day detailing whether McGwire or Sosa hit a home run the night before.
ESPN had live cut-ins during their at-bats. That never happened before, and not again until Barry Bonds was chasing 755 home runs.
I think all baseball fans should consider apologizing. We forgot about clean play and embraced excitement. We wanted baseball to "matter" again in American culture. Baseball does matter again, but a big reason is because of the alleged and admitted drug-use.
