Why Sammy Sosa celebrated Mark McGwire's record-breaking home run with him

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Mark McGwire, standing almost a head taller than Sammy Sosa, wrapped his arms around the Cubs right fielder’s shoulders. They embraced, the crowd roaring and lights flashing in the background.

Baseball fans across the country watched that scene play across their television screens 22 years ago, entranced by the historical moment. Now, it’s the last clip in the trailer for ‘Long Gone Summer,’ again broadcast nation-wide. The ESPN documentary on Sosa and McGwire’s 1998 home run chase is scheduled to air Sunday.

“Sammy almost caught him,” former Cubs broadcaster Steve Stone told NBC Sports Chicago in 2018. “It was an enchanting kind of situation watching it day to day, watching it unfold, watching history in the making, and watching two guys doing something that at that point had never been done.”

The embrace came on Sept. 8, 1998, during the second game of a two-game series between the Cubs and Cardinals in St. Louis. Both McGwire and Sosa were eying the single-season home run record. McGwire had tied Roger Maris’s record the day before, hitting his 61st home run of the season. Sosa was just three homers behind him.

The Maris family attended the series, returning to St. Louis, where Roger Maris played in 1967-68, the last two seasons of his career.

“All the talk about the stars aligning,” Roger Maris Jr. said, “we go back to the stadium where we kind of grew up as kids, and then Mark comes back to break the record, and we’ve got Sammy Sosa in right field.”

Before the game, McGwire said, the Maris family let him hold Roger Maris’ bat.

“I held it, I hugged it, some of those things we do as baseball players to try to rub some hits on you and stuff,” McGwire said. “And then it happened.”

In the bottom of the fourth inning, McGwire drilled a line drive just over the left field fence.

“I think I said, 'He did it' about six times,” said Chip Caray, who was on the call with Stone that night. “And then I shut up, and we didn’t say a word on the air for another 10 minutes. We just showed all the stuff that was going on, on the field because there’s nothing that we could add to that.”

McGwire saluted the crowd as he rounded third. He hugged Cubs catcher Scott Servais before touching home and being mobbed by his teammates at the plate.

Sosa ran in from right field, and McGwire picked him off the ground with a bear hug. Sosa patted him on the back and ruffled his hair.

“I’m a big hugger,” McGwire said. “I don’t know. I just did what I thought naturally came to me, and what a tremendous time.”

The pair shared an elaborate hand shake and then hugged again. The cheers were deafening.

“Even if it was two lions fighting for the first place, it’s not only that," Sosa said. “There wasn’t any jealousy between us. You do your job, I do mine. If you fall behind, that’s OK. At least we both make history that year.”

To cap off the celebration, McGwire climbed into the stands and wrapped his arms around Roger Maris’ family. Roger Maris had died of cancer in 1985

What Roger Maris Jr. called the stars aligning, McGwire called “spiritual.”

“Things that the forces upstairs I think really controlled that were pretty unique,” he said.

Among other things, McGwire pointed to the fact that he broke Maris’s record in the bottom of the fourth inning, the same inning Maris set the previous record.

It’s now clear that performance enhancing drugs also played a part. McGwire told Stadium TV in 2018 that he believed he could have hit 70 home runs without the help of PEDs.

“My answer to him was, well why didn’t you have the integrity to try that?” Stone said. “And if you really could, why didn’t you?”

Even if McGwire and Sosa’s power-hitting feats have asterisks next to them, their moment together on Sept. 8, 1998 doesn’t. In the midst of a historical competition, the two celebrated McGwire’s accomplishment together.

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