The Great Home Run Chase of '98

Similar to The Last Dance, I'm excited to watch ESPN's 30 for 30 tonight titled Long Gone Summer, which will chronicle the 1998 home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

Unlike the 10-part series on MJ's Bulls, this is a solo episode focused solely on that epic summer barrage of homers. Not a big time commitment!

I remember that summer fairly well. It was between the summer of finishing 8th grade and heading into 9th grade. The Yankees were on an epic tear, but that story was secondary to McGwire and Sosa's pursuit of 62.

The groundwork was really set in 1997, when McGwire hit 58 between Oakland and St. Louis. It was almost assumed he was going to make a big run at it in 1998.

Sosa was the one who caught everyone by surprise. While still an elite power hitter, he was coming off 36 homers in '97. In '96 he hit 40 in just 122 games, so it shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise. Still, to hit 36 and then hit 30 more on top of that in the next year? Yeesh. No one was predicting that.

We obviously know how this story ends and that the summer is tainted, but I look forward to once again traveling down memory lane and experiencing the chase. Similar to MJ's '98 Bulls, which coincidentally happened in the same year, there was a lot I forgot about the story, and I'm sure that will be the case here as well.

As for cards, McGwire and Sosa cards were on fire. Pulling a McGwire became the new "pulling a Griffey." I've held on to a few cards of each over the years, but nothing tops this:

I pulled this in a pack of Score from CVS. I think at the time Beckett had it in the $60 range. I'm sure it' can be had for a few bucks now, but I can honestly say it might be the best card I ever pulled from a pack...at least from a $.99 pack.

Back in 2011, I also was fortunate to get a McGwire TTM success. I maybe wish I sent a different card, but I was just coming back into the hobby and didn't have much of an inventory to send.

I don't have a particular amount of memorable Sosa cards. My favorite is probably this Leading Indicators from Finest, which changes color when you apply body heat to it from your finger.

I also like this one quite a bit - a 1999 Gallery Heritage Proof, although I have no memorable story behind it. It simply was thrown into a box of cards I acquired last summer on a social media marketplace. It's still in a screw holder as well, as at the time I'm sure it was a solid pull.

I guess what's cool about Sosa and McGwire cards are that during that summer, it was a big deal to pull cards of these two established stars. Now, that's not cool. It's only cool to pull cards of guys who maybe stars in six years if everything works out perfectly. It's the cool thing to pull cards of guys who have potential, and at their peak, we can only hope they have a sliver of the success that these guys had.

Nowadays, it's almost like once they are stars, their appeal fades, and the hobby focuses on the guys who may eventually become them if all works out perfectly.

What a weird hobby world we live in.