Greatest American Heroes

Who Will Save Us Now?

This week marks the 10 year anniversary of the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase that captured the hearts and minds of every American.

When these two heroes started making headlines as they approached the immortal record of Roger Maris in 1998, America was in a state of turmoil. Race relations were at an all time low after the cancellation of the Cosby Show just 6 years earlier, and US-Caribbean ties were frayed when hurricane relief funds just trickled down to the wind-ravaged Dominican Republic.

We were just two years removed from the Olympic bombing in Atlanta, which inflicted minor injuries on a dozen tourists, and the well-loved 1998 Nagano Winter Games were now a distant memory. On top of all of these problems, abnormally average hot summer temperatures had Americans on edge.

America needed a hero. We got two. Mark McGwire, the lovable teddy bear from California, and Sammy Sosa, the kind slugger from the Dominican Republic arrived on the scene to rescue us. Despite being on different teams, of different races, and from different nations, these two heroes help us through the struggle. As the home runs started to pile up, these two took us on their backs, showing America that people of different races could be friends. They taught us to love people from other nations, and most importantly, they showed us that the results of baseball games were meaningless. It was all about personal accomplishments.

It was a stroke of good fortune that the Cubs and Cardinals would meet that September. The Cardinals were in the heat of a pennant run towards the playoffs, yet when the Cubs were in town, this took a backseat to breaking the hallowed record of Maris. As Sosa and McGwire exchanged home runs, they would embrace like lifelong friends during the game. High-fiving and hugging each other with each backbreaking dinger which could mean McGwire's Cardinals might now miss the playoffs. The game was more to these two than the final score. The game was there to show the press how friendly two players could pretend to be towards each other in the name of world peace. I applaud them.

As most of you know, both of these heroes not only broke Maris' record, they saved America.

Unfortunately, as America was now able to move forward into the future because of them, the press started to betray them. As years passed, allegations of drug use ran rampant, and after the infamous Congressional hearing a few years ago, these two's reputations were forever tarnished. But as an American, I hope time can heal these wounds. I hope America will remember where they were 10 years ago, when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were there for them. They were there when no one else was. As a nation, we should take heed to what these gentlemen said during their testimony and follow their own advice. When McGwire repeatedly said "I'm not here to talk about the past", and Sosa proclaimed "I don't speak English", they were quite prescient. Americans should not talk about the past; we need to move forward, and grow as a nation. And if it weren't for the true heroes of the military protecting our freedom, maybe we couldn't speak English, either. We could be speaking German or Japanese, if things turned out differently.

In closing, I hope every American will look back on these gentlemen on this 10 year anniversary, stand up, and give them a round of applause. They deserve it.