The Associated Press
For Mark McGwire and other sluggers, the race to catch Roger Maris sped up Sunday.
McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr. and Greg Vaughn -- all trying to break Maris' record of 61 home runs -- each connected at least once. And they did it a dizzying rate.
Just minutes after Chicago's Sosa hit his 50th home run, giving the Cubs a bright spot in an otherwise dismal 13-3 loss to Houston at Wrigley Field, McGwire launched No. 53 for the St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh. McGwire was still talking about his shot with reporters when Sosa homered again.
Sosa's 51 homers are the second-most in club history and left him trailing McGwire by two.
"Really, that's really cool," McGwire said of the chase. Sosa, who hit both homers over Wrigley Field's ivy-covered walls, was also excited about his chances in the home-run derby. "I'm still having a good time and tonight I'm going to go home and have a couple of glasses of wine with my wife," he said. "I still have 30-some games left. Let's see what happens."
Still, the Cubs' outfielder admits to feeling a bit of pressure. "I'm not going to lie to you. Lately, I've been swinging a little bit out of control. I was impatient the last couple of days," Sosa said. "People see the way I swing but it is the same. The only thing I did I was more relaxed and tried to make contact. When I try to pull everything, I get out of control. I told myself to slow down and be patient."
McGwire acknowledged after hitting his 50th last week he has a legitimate shot at baseball's most storied record, but he wishes people would quit conceding it to him.
"I'm not close to it yet," he said. "It's a long ways away." McGwire's homer Sunday was his sixth in five days and left him eight short of tying Maris. It also rated him the rarest of ovations -- a curtain call on the road.
"They kept clapping for about a minute, so I ducked my head out and gave them a wave," McGwire said. "I hope the Pirates didn't mind. I wish everybody in baseball could feel the reception I'm getting."
McGwire helped lure fans to Pittsburgh's first consecutive regular-season sellouts since moving into Three Rivers Stadium in 1970. But fans who bought tickets for this afternoon's game with the Pirates will probably be disappointed, though -- McGwire plans to take the day off, the second game he would skip off in a four-day span.
As McGwire moves closer to the record, Pirates starter Jason Schmidt says every opposing pitcher realizes he might soon be in the record books, too.
"Jon Lieber and I were talking about that," Schmidt said. "We're part of history. This will be with us for the rest of our lives, but I don't care. He's such a great guy, everybody is excited." McGwire's homer was the 440th home run of his career, the 22nd most in major league history, and left him two homers behind Dave Kingman, his favorite player as a youngster.
Sosa's two solo shots came in a 13-3 loss to Houston. The Cubs lost ground in their bid for the NL wild card.
"The home runs don't matter if we don't win," Sosa said. "All I'm trying to do is help us win and make it to the playoffs."
"I think a lot of things have happened for Sammy right now at the right time," Cubs manager Jim Riggleman said. "He's 29, and traditionally that's about the age that players play their best. Everything that he's doing, he has worked hard to get to this point. "He's going to be getting more and more attention, but he has handled it great. He doesn't want the focus to be on any one individual. He's genuinely obsessed with us getting into postseason play." Vaughn reached his career high with his 42nd homer, a 455-foot shot in the third inning of San Diego's 13-11 win at Milwaukee. The blast was the longest homer at County Stadium this season.
Griffey hit his AL-leading 43rd home run in Seattle's 3-2 win over the White Sox. His two-run shot off John Snyder (4-2) tied the game at 2 in the fourth inning.
Griffey had not homered in his previous 32 at-bats and has homered just twice in 89 at-bats in August.
"I'm on a cut-throat pace," Griffey joked.
Both McGwire and Sosa have 32 games left to make history.
"We are trying to make the playoffs and Mark's trying to break the record. I got my money on Mark," Sosa said. "He's the type who can hit five or six in two days."
McGwire became just the third NL player to hit 53 or more homers in a season, joining Ralph Kiner (54 in 1949) and Hack Wilson, who hit a league-record 56 homers in 1930.
This marked the third straight year that two major leaguers reached the 50-homer mark, and the sixth season overall. The last time two NL players did it in the same season was 1947 when Kiner and Johnny Mize tied for the league lead with 51 each.
While the home-run chase has fans paying attention to more than one game at a time, other records were being set: San Francisco's Barry Bonds became the first player in major-league history to hit 400 home runs and steal 400 bases.
Bonds achieved the record after homering in the Giants' 10-5 win over the Florida Marlins Sunday. He has 400 home runs and 438 steals in his 13-year career.
