Jayson Stark's Weird Take on the 1998 Home Run Chase

Stark is a pretty legit baseball mind/writer. It's rare he appears on FireJay (although I did enjoy writing this unfunny post about him way back in the blog's infancy). But I think I have to call him out for one part of this A-Rod article. What he says is so strange that it sticks out like a sore thumb and serves as a glaring distraction from his point.

At times like this, I always tell the story of what it was like to follow Mark McGwire around in September 1998. I saw this man hit 17 of his 70 home runs that season. I saw records topple. I saw powerful numbers rise and fall.

But more than that, I measured the feat I was watching by who else showed up to catch the show. And by that I mean Bruce Springsteen. And Bruce Hornsby. And Barbara Walters. And MTV. And "Good Morning America." And many, many others just like them.

Springsteen- a pretty legit inclusion. Everyone else on that list- what? Hornsby had peaked in relevance about ten years earlier. Walters was more relevant then than she is now, but still. MTV? Who gives a fuck about MTV in the context of sports? Unless they're throwing a rock n' jock celebrity softball game, I sure as hell don't. I have no idea how you could possibly gain access to lists of people who attended baseball games more than ten years ago, but if you could, I bet a five minute scan of it from Cubs and Cardinals games played the fall of 1998 would yield at least ten more relevant names than Bruce Hornsby or Barbara Walters.

I guess Stark probably made this list based off of celebrities/networks/shows he actually interacted with that fall rather than just celebrities/networks/shows he heard were in attendance. Still really hurts his article, in my opinion. "A-Rod... steroids... tainted records... holy shit, did you know Bruce Hornsby was there when Sosa hit his 64th home run in 1998? That's when you know your sport is getting big: when Hornsby starts watching."

Bruce Hornsby. What the fuck?