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Check Out the Sosa/McGwire ESPN ’30 for 30′ Trailer That Was Just Released

Sammy Sosa White

ESPN/YouTube

Attempting to capitalize on the success of the Michael Jordan Last Dance documentary, ESPN will be airing another intriguing documentary on Sunday, June 14 about the Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire home run chase of 1998. Take a look at the trailer ESPN recently released for Long Gone Summer:


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Like The Last Dance, this is going to be another one of those documentaries which I can’t believe people under the age of 25 have no clue about. After the strike in 1994, the Sosa-McGwire home run chase was widely considered to have “saved” baseball and renewed interest in fans who had lost it due to the strike. Ironically, it airs during a time in which baseball doesn’t seem anywhere close to resuming play.

As an eight-year-old kid growing up in Chicago, the last two years of Michael Jordan with the Bulls and the Sosa-McGwire home run chase are basically my earliest memories of being a sports fan and I still remember the buzz that surrounded each and every at bat McGwire and Sosa had. I’ve been a White Sox fan and Cubs hater for about 20 years despite being raised in Cubs territory, but it pains me to admit that I remember cheering for Sosa at the time because I was eight and that’s what you did when everybody else was doing it.

Of course, the whole steroid thing tainted the accomplishments — McGwire hit 70 home runs that year which shattered Roger Maris’ record of 61 set in 1961, and Sosa eclipsed it as well with 66 of his own. Rather poetically, McGwire’s record breaking 62nd home run came against the Cubs in St. Louis:

Knowing what we know now, it’s hard not to cringe when Buck says, “it couldn’t happen to a better man” considering McGwire refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing in 2005 and then later admitted to taking steroids for nearly a decade, including during the 1998 season.


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