By Rick Dikeman - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=490196

That was a great summer.  No matter what has been written since about what each of the record-chasers were or were not doing to their body or if they were juicing or not, that summer competition between two of baseball's best sluggers was exciting for baseball.

The record, 61 Home Runs in a season, by Roger Maris, was in reach.  The previous 4 seasons (94-97) all had players with impressive displays of power. 

In the 1994 season, a season cut short by 50 games, both Matt Williams of the Giants and Ken Griffey Jr. had over 40 hrs each.  The were on a pace to reach Maris's record when the work stoppage of 12 Aug 94 killed the rest of that season.

By Keith Allison - https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithallison/3615997488, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7721346

The next year, 1995, Albert Belle of the Cleveland Indians, hit 50 hrs.  As a side note, he was the first, and only one, to hit 50 hrs and 50 doubles in the same season. 

In 1996, the race for home run supremacy started to ratchet up in earnest.  Brady Anderson of the Baltimore Orioles hit 50 hrs.  If you had seen Brady, you should have started to suspect something was wrong, because I recall him as being a skinnier dude.  I mean, he wasn't a weakling, but he didn't look like a home run hitter like the rest of the hitters who were accomplishing the 50 hr feat.  In that same year, Mark McGwire, then of the Oakland Athletics, hit 52 hrs in only 130 games. 

1997 was the race before the race.  Ken Griffey Jr., hit 56 that year, battling McGwire for the home run title.  McGwire was traded halfway through the year from Oakland to the St. Louis Cardinals, and ended up with 58 hrs.

By Dave Hogg, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1505285

From left to right, the four bats depicted here are the bats used by Babe Ruth's 60th home run in 1927, Roger Maris' 61st in 1961, Mark McGwire's 70th and Sammy Sosa's 66th hrs, both in 1998.  McGwire officially hit number 62, breaking Maris' record on 8 Sep 1998.  They were playing Sosa's Cubs that day.

I got to thinking about this the other day when I read an amazing article by Grant Bisbee.  It is titled "The misremembering of McGwire-Sosa". (https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/9/5/17796186/mcgwire-sosa-homerun-chase-1998-steroids-media).

After the baseball strike in 1994, something was needed to generate enthusiasm again for the sport of baseball.  The race to beat Roger Maris was the cure for the lethargy that was present in the fans after that strike.  Baseball was back. With a vengeance. 

Let me know what you remember of those days in the summer of 1998.