Saturday, April 03, 1999
McGwire hits RFK Stadium roof in b.p.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In the 38-year history of RFK Stadium, no one can remember anyone coming remotely close to hitting a home run off the roof's concrete facade, more than 100 feet above the playing field.
Mark McGwire did it during batting practice Friday.
“It's not even fair watching him hit the ball,” Montreal Expos third baseman Shane Andrews said. “It's unbelievable. You look for the ball to land at a normal spot ...”
McGwire kept the ball in play during the game, going 1-for-3 with a single, leaving teammate Fernando Tatis and Montreal's Wilton Guerrero and Rondell White to provide the homers as the Expos beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-4 Friday.
A crowd of 20,465 witnessed major league baseball's return to the nation's capital for the opener of a two-day spring training series. While many were there to gape at McGwire, others saw it as an early look at their potential new hometown team.
Area groups are poised to purchase and move the financially troubled Expos to the Washington area if the team goes on the market this summer. The fan reception drew mixed reviews: McGwire, for example, thought it was good crowd for a Friday afternoon, while Cardinals manager Tony La Russa wasn't too impressed.
“If people were excited, there would have been 30,000 here and 40,000 tomorrow, to be honest,” La Russa said.
In anticipation of a McGwire show, organizers had painted three seats white high in the upper deck to mark the spots where Washington Senators great Frank Howard hit his most towering shots.
But McGwire went one better with his pre-game cuts, bypassing the seats altogether and hitting the actual roof twice — once on a ball just foul, then again with a fair ball about 15 feet to the right of the left-field foul line.
“Been here a thousand years, and never seen that,” said Charlie Brotman, the Sena tors longtime public address announcer.
Several journalists who covered the Senators in the 1960s agreed that no one had ever before hit the roof, but McGwire shrugged it off.
“It's batting practice. That's the way I look at it,” McGwire said. “I'm swinging the bat and letting the ball go wherever it goes.”
McGwire was only inches from doing what has always been considered unthinkable: Hitting a ball completely out of the stadium.
“So you want me to?” said McGwire, who then shook his head and added: “It's never enough, is it? It's never enough, for anybody.”
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