I predicted in early August that Mark McGwire would break Roger Maris’ home run record, but Sammy Sosa wouldn’t. Of course, they both did, McGwire with 70 and Sosa with 66.
What I found interesting, however, was the comparison of Maris, Sosa, and McGwire by month. From April to September, these were the totals for the three players:
Player - Apr-May-June-July-Aug-Sept
Maris 1- 11- 15 - 13 - 11 - 10 = 61
Sosa 6- 7- 20 - 9 - 13 - 11 = 66
McGwire 11- 16- 10 - 8 - 10 - 15 = 70
McGwire hit one in March (the season began on March 31) so I lumped that one into April. Maris’ 61st was hit on October 1, 1961, so I put that one in the September total.
As you can tell from the totals above, McGwire and Sosa passed Maris in April, and merely matched him the rest of the way. The record, in truth, was broken last April!
Here’s the table of home runs hit after April 30:
Maris 60
Sosa 60
McGwire 59
Will someone - McGwire, Sosa, Griffey or someone else - hit 71 or more next year? Heck no.
1998 is a year with conditions that won't come around again for a long time. It's an expansion year like 1961, with quite a few pitchers in the major leagues who wouldn't have been there a few years ago. There are two expansion teams, Arizona and Tampa Bay, and another team (Florida) that's easily worse than most expansion teams. McGwire hit seven homers against Florida. Detroit isn't much better, especially with their godawful pitching; Sosa played only two games against Detroit and hit two homers.
In 1961, the Yankees enjoyed a huge talent gap over the rest of the league. They were the richest team and could afford to sign almost anyone they wanted in the days before the amateur draft, and they also used the Kansas City A's like a farm team. In fact, Roger Maris came to the Yankees from Kansas City, as did Clete Boyer, Ralph Terry, and several others in horribly lopsided trades. The 1961 expansion widened this gap even further, as the Yankees won 109 games. There were several awful teams at the bottom of the pile. The Angels and Senators were both expansion teams, while the Kansas City A's were every bit as hopeless as the Marlins are now. So, 3 of the 9 opposing teams that Maris played against were not much better than Triple-A teams.
The National League expanded in 1962, and while the effect was not as pronounced, the Dodgers and Giants sat on top of the league far above the expansion Mets and Colts, and the horrid Cubs who finished behind the Colts. That was the year of Tommy Davis' 153 RBIs and Maury Wills' 104 stolen bases. Huge offensive seasons tend to happen when the gap from top to bottom is wide.
In the 1990s, the revenue gap between large-market and small-market cities has become a talent gap. The Yankees can afford to trade for Chuck Knoblauch to fill their hole at second base, while the Expos or Tigers get whomever they can find and cross their fingers. The talent gap between top and bottom destroys competitive balance, but also results in incredible offensive displays. We've seen this coming for a while, since 50-homer seasons and challenges at .400 have been happening more often since the strike year of 1994.
This year, what happened? Expansion made the talent gap even wider. The talent gap created a few superteams (Yankees, Braves) and a lot of bad ones at the bottom (Twins, Reds, Tigers, Pirates, among others). McGwire and Sosa, and Griffey and Vaughan and Belle, fattened up against these pitching staffs like Maris and Mantle did in 1961. The Expos finished with 97 losses and 41 games behind the Braves; McGwire hit 5 homers off them in the last three games! The home run explosion of 1998 was caused by a talent shortfall created by both the revenue gap and expansion.
The money gap, which results in a talent gap, between the top of the league and the bottom should narrow in the next few years. Baseball can't survive with the Yankees getting more local TV money than the Tigers get from all sources. The gap between rich and poor will narrow, and no team will win 114 games like the Yankees did this year or lose 108 like the Marlins did. Most importantly, the young pitchers will have one more valuable year of experience, and teams like Florida, Detroit, and Montreal will either be sold to deeper pockets or move into better revenue-producing stadia. The offensive explosion of 1998 was a one-year phenomenon that won't be repeated soon.