Chicago Cubs: Sosa-McGwire HR race has a sequel in 2019

21 years ago, Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs and Mark McGwire saved baseball with an epic home run race. History is repeating itself in 2019.

It was July 17, 1998. “The Boy is Mine” by Brandy & Monica was the #1 song in the country. Bill Clinton was the President of the United States.

Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit two home runs against the Los Angeles Dodgers to bring his season total to 42, while Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs clubbed his 35th of the season against the Florida (yes, still Florida) Marlins.

It was a historic year for all of baseball.

After 37 years, Roger Maris’s single season record of 61 home runs was in danger of falling. But it wasn’t just one player who was chasing the record. It was two.

The timing could not have been better for the game of baseball. Just four years removed from the players’ strike of 1994, the game was struggling to regain relevance in daily American life.

Attendance was down, ratings were struggling and fans were reluctant to buy back into a sport that less than a half decade prior had ripped their hearts out in August and ran off until late April.

But as the league turned a blind eye to the obvious steroid epidemic fueling the enthralling chase, fans returned to the game to follow the two monstrous sluggers in their pursuit of history.

And now, in the year 2019, it’s happening again.

As the calendar turns to July 19, Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich sit tied with 34 home runs each with 65 and 64 games remaining, respectively.

Again, the timing is impeccable.

Major League Baseball is at a crucial time in its history. Fans have been increasingly turning away from the game, while the National Football League has in many ways become America’s game.

For the fourth straight year, league attendance dropped from the previous season. Although television rights are more lucrative than ever, the league has done a good job of alienating fans with television blackouts, awful umpiring and pointless pace of play changes.

With the current Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire after the 2021 season, the game is again at enormous risk of fading from American relevance.

It’s long been said that those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately, it seems as if MLB skipped a few of its own history classes. But luckily, the 2019 Bellinger-Yelich home run race is a positive recurrence happening at a crucial time.

It’s also worth noting that Sosa and McGwire finished in first and second in NL MVP voting, respectively. Barring injury or a very significant drop off in production, it’s looking like Bellinger and Yelich will also end up fighting for first and second in the MVP contest.

But like the 1998 home run race, the excitement is not without controversy.

Given the drastic increase in home run production across the league, many have speculated that the baseballs being used today have been “juiced,” or altered in some way. Players have gone on record to swear that there’s something different about the balls in 2019.

Could it be that the league decided to juice the balls instead of turning a blind eye to players juicing themselves?

It’s hard telling, and something we may never know the real answer to much like many questions surrounding the performance-enhancing drug epidemic at the end of the century.

Either way, it’s just one more parallel to be drawn between the historic 1998 home run race.

Ultimately, Maris’s record was smashed by both McGwire and Sosa. Big Mac ended the season with 70 home runs, while Slammin’ Sammy finished with 66. Both of those numbers would be passed by Barry Bonds whose 73 dingers in 2001 remains the current record.

For what it’s worth, both Bellinger and Yelich are on pace to club 56 home runs this season. Though it wouldn’t come close to he single season record, it could certainly give baseball an extra reason for fan’s to turn the game back on.

Who knows, a few multi-home run games, and we could be looking at the possibility of both players finishing with 60+ home runs.

Just make sure Yelich stays away from Ryan Braun’s locker. Baseball doesn’t need another Congressional hearing.