- “I was watching at home on September 8, the night McGwire hit number 62. It was magical. I had goose bumps. Then, when he went into the stands and hugged Roger Maris’s family, I cried along with the rest of America. Can you believe it happened against the Cubs, with Sammy watching? When they showed Sammy clapping in right field, and then hugging Mark near the dugout, I fell in love with baseball all over again. Only in baseball, a sport whose history is well known and cherished, a sport that moves slowly enough for all fans to appreciate the moment, a sport whose fans are so connected to the game’s past, could a scenario like this pack such an emotional wallop.” Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike;Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 76-79
- “Perhaps this is a good place to pose an obvious but easily overlooked question: Do steroids guarantee success? More specifically, can steroids turn a poor hitter into a great one? Absolutely not! There is no correlation between the ability to hit a baseball and the addition of forty pounds of lean muscle mass. If you can’t hit a curve at 180 pounds, you’re not going to be able to hit it at 220. A great hitter at 180 will still be a great hitter at 220, but no greater in terms of his ability to put his bat on the ball. What’s different is the increase in bat speed and leverage—and hence, in power—that accompanies the new muscle mass. And power is the ticket to the pot of gold. The home run is king.” Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike;Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 1353-1359
- “As for baseball’s history, my suggestion is to recognize and honor those who shattered the most hallowed record in sports, the individual season home run mark. No asterisks. No annotations. Simply salute McGwire’s 70 and Bonds’s 73 as products of strength, timing, talent, and a mind-staggering work ethic—because all those qualities were abundantly present when they accomplished their prodigious feats. But in honoring individual achievement, be mindful of the era. In his book Juicing the Game, Howard Bryant quotes Jeff Horrigan, a Boston Herald reporter: “There were no rules. Players are like children. They push everything as far as they can until someone stops them. Everyone did whatever they wanted…I blame the era, I don’t blame the man.”Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike;Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 1400-1406