McGwire's 62nd Home Run and the 1998 Home Run Race With Sammy Sosa

Mark McGwire broke baseball’s single-season home run record on September 8, 1998, when he hit his 62nd home run of the year at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The drive off Chicago Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel passed the 61 home runs Roger Maris had hit in 1961. McGwire finished the season with 70, and Sammy Sosa of the Cubs, his rival all summer, finished with 66.

The 62nd Home Run at Busch Stadium

The record fell in the fourth inning with two outs. McGwire lined a pitch from Trachsel just over the left-field wall. At 341 feet, it was the shortest home run he hit all season, a detail that surprised people who had watched him launch balls well over 400 feet for months.

The setting added to the moment. The opponent was the Cubs, so Sosa was in right field when the ball cleared the fence. Cubs first baseman Mark Grace greeted McGwire with a half-hug and a high five as he rounded first, and after McGwire touched home plate, Sosa ran in from the outfield to embrace him. Members of the Maris family were in the stands. The Cardinals won 6-3 in front of 43,688 fans.

The ball itself never reached the crowd. Tim Forneris, a member of the Busch Stadium grounds crew who was attending law school, picked it up beyond the wall and gave it back to McGwire instead of selling it.

How the 1998 Home Run Race Built Momentum

Sosa was the surprise of the season. The Cubs outfielder had only eight home runs on May 22, then hit 20 in June alone, breaking the major-league record for one month that Rudy York had set with 18 in 1937.

From there, the chase became a daily national story. Sosa took the lead for the first time on August 19 with his 48th home run, hit against McGwire’s Cardinals. McGwire answered, and the two traded the lead through the late summer. Fans checked box scores every morning to see who had moved ahead.

McGwire tied Maris on September 7, Labor Day, with his 61st home run, a 430-foot shot off Cubs pitcher Mike Morgan. Readers can see where that holiday fell on the 1998 calendar and how the date of Labor Day is set each year. The record-breaker came the next night.

Timeline of the Chase

• June 1998: Sosa hits 20 home runs in a month, a major-league record.
• August 19: Sosa’s 48th home run gives him the lead for the first time.
• September 7: McGwire hits No. 61 to tie Maris.
• September 8: McGwire hits No. 62 off Steve Trachsel.
• September 13: Sosa hits his 61st and 62nd home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers; No. 62, off Eric Plunk, travels 480 feet.
• September 25: Sosa hits No. 66 off Houston’s Jose Lima, taking the lead for the last time.
• September 26-27: McGwire hits four home runs in the Cardinals’ final two games; No. 70 comes off Montreal’s Carl Pavano on September 27.

McGwire hit four home runs in his last two games to pull away. He finished with 70 home runs, 147 runs batted in and a .299 batting average. Sosa ended with 66 home runs, a league-leading 158 runs batted in and a .308 average, and his Cubs reached the playoffs before losing to the Atlanta Braves.

Why Fans Cared So Much in 1998

Major League Baseball was still recovering from the 1994-95 players’ strike, which had wiped out the 1994 World Series. Many analysts credited the 1998 race with drawing casual fans back to ballparks and television sets, although others argue the recovery had several causes.

The tone of the competition also mattered. The rivalry looked friendly in public, as Sosa’s sprint from right field to hug McGwire on September 8 showed. Sports Illustrated named them co-Sportsmen of the Year, and TIME, which chose Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr as its Men of the Year, named McGwire its Hero of the Year. Sosa won the National League Most Valuable Player award.

Androstenedione and the Steroid Era Questions

The celebration had a complication from the start. During the season, Associated Press reporter Steve Wilstein reported that McGwire was taking androstenedione, and McGwire acknowledged using it. The supplement was sold over the counter and was not banned by Major League Baseball at the time, although the NFL and the International Olympic Committee prohibited it. The federal government did not classify it as an anabolic steroid until 2004.

Questions grew as baseball’s drug problem became public. On March 17, 2005, McGwire appeared before the House Government Reform Committee and declined to answer questions about his past. On January 11, 2010, he told Bob Costas of MLB Network that he had used steroids during his career, including the 1998 season.

The admission shaped how voters judged him. McGwire’s highest share of the Baseball Hall of Fame vote was 23.7 percent in 2010, far below the 75 percent needed, and he dropped off the ballot after receiving 12.3 percent in 2016.

Where the Record Stands Now

McGwire’s 70 lasted three seasons. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hit his 71st home run on October 5, 2001, against Chan Ho Park of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and his 73rd two days later. That total remains the major-league single-season record. Bonds’s record-breaking October 5 game appears on the 2001 calendar.

For many fans, the summer of 1998 remains a double memory: the shared excitement of watching two sluggers chase a 37-year-old record, and the later evidence that changed how those numbers are read. The September 8 game is still the date most people mean when they ask when the Maris record fell.