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ATTENTION STUDENTS: Take out your Number 2 pencils. It is time for a pop quiz. Here is the multiple choice question:
Suppose you are sitting in the left field bleachers at Busch Stadium on Sunday September 27, the final day of the 1998 Baseball Season. It is the bottom of the 9th inning when all of a sudden, Mark Mc Gwire comes to the plate and hits a long fly ball which goes over the wall, which wins the game, and goes into your glove. Thanks to the stadium security and your wits, you maintain possession of the baseball that Mc Gwire just hit.
What is the right thing to do: a) return the ball to Mr. Mc Gwire? or b)keep the baseball for your use, recreation and/or investment?
All right, pencils up: I'm sorry but all your answers are incorrect.
The correct answer is C, either of the above.
It has become novel for baseball fans and investors to speculate about catching the ultimate piece of sports memorabilia: the last Home Run of the season for the Major League Leader. The question becomes, what would you do with that ducat??
Sorry, folks, but why is this even an issue anyway?
My opinion: there is no right or wrong answer to this question. If someone wishes to return the baseball or prefers to sell it to the highest bidder-that decision rests entirely with the person who caught the baseball. Bluntly, it is his/her decision-not ours. Frankly it none of our business. But, OK, I'm a sport: let's speculate anyway.
Gateway City residents have been boasting that Cardinal Fans have graciously returned Mark McGwire's 61st and 62nd Home Runs. We proudly proclaim that the Red Bird Nation has more class than those Cub Fans who were pounding each other on the Waveland Avenue pavement to get their mitts on Sammy Sosa's historic Home Runs.
Three days after his historic catch, I interviewed Mike Davidson on WGNU. He caught Mc Gwire's Labor Day Home Run #61. I asked Mike bluntly why he gave the baseball back. Without hesitating, he simply replied that the baseball should go to Mark Mc Gwire and he gave it back to him. Mr. Davidson insisted he made the right decision.
We have read about and have seen the world wind tour of the Busch Stadium Groundskeeper who retrieved Mc Gwire's Home Run #62. This young man has spoken to the President of the United States, been the Grand Marshall of a Disney World Parade, and appeared with David Letterman on National Television.
Just a minute, St. Louis. Before we start using these illustrations as selling points for the Regional Commerce and Growth Association, don't think for one second that every St. Louisan would have returned those historic baseballs to Mark Mc Gwire.
After interviewing Mr. Davidson, the WGNU phone were lines jammed with comments questioning his decision making process. He, like the Groundskeeper, were chastised by most listeners. The callers were blaming everything from bad judgment to a media conspiracy about returning the baseballs.
The scene which occurred on the streets outside of Wrigley Field could have also occurred in St. Louis. It came down to a personal decision of who caught the baseball. Alexander Cartwright's Rules of the game: once a baseball goes out of play, either by way of a foul ball or a home run, it belongs to the person lucky enough to grab it.
In the September 9-15 edition USA Today Baseball Weekly, 20,563 responded to the question, what would you do if you caught the covet 62nd Home Run? 35.4% would sell the ball to the highest bidder-33.8% would return the ball to the player to hit the home run-12.4% would trade it to the player for autographed merchandise.
But despite what I would do, or what you would do, or what the polls say, there is only one vote that counts-the vote of the person who actually catches the baseball.
One last thing: There have been only three players in the past 50 years who have hit sixty or more home runs in a single season. Two of those three have accomplished the feat during 1998. Can't we simply enjoy and appreciate that baseball history is being written before our eyes?
Don't you really think the new home run record is more important than fantasizing and drooling about a souvenir baseball that, in all likelihood, won't involve you or your family??
Class Dismissed.
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