Graham: Why Those Balls Are Flying Out of Big League Parks

Graham: Why Those Balls Are Flying Out of Big League Parks

BY DAVID KAPLAN
Rice News Staff
Sept. 17, 1998

Roger Maris bested Babe Ruth’s single season home run mark by one–on the very
last day of the ’61 season–whereas with Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, there’s
no telling what their ’98 totals will be. They’ve almost made it look easy. Are
Sosa and Big Mac in a league of their own?

Rice head baseball coach and former big leaguer Wayne Graham believes that McGwire
and Sosa are very special athletes, and he also thinks that conditions today are
more favorable for hitting home runs.

Players are more nutrition minded, Graham says, and, in general, they take better
care of themselves. Compared to previous decades, travel is much easier on athletes,
and, more importantly, players are getting bigger and stronger through weight
training.

He notes that players on today’s Rice baseball teams are as big as the New York
Yankees of the ’40s and ’50s. Many players in today’s major leagues can bench
press 300 pounds, whereas when Graham played in the majors in the early ’60s,
"probably no one could. In those days there was a bias against being muscle-bound."
The conventional wisdom was that it would slow your reactions, he says.

Graham does not want to take anything away from McGwire or Sosa, however. McGwire,
he says, is the only player to ever hit 50 or more home runs in three consecutive
years, and last year he hit 58. He believes McGwire may be the strongest ballplayer
ever and certainly one of the strongest players who also has a good swing. Graham
notes that Sosa weighed about 165 pounds when he entered the majors: "His
size and strength have increased tremendously."

McGwire and Sosa have both worked hard at their craft, Graham says. "McGwire
has a very efficient swing, which he didn’t have when he came up. He’s had to
correct a flaw." Sosa, meanwhile, has altered his batting stance and developed
a much better eye at the plate. Graham also believes that both men deserve credit
for handling the tremendous pressure that goes with pursuing the single-season
home run record.

The fact that McGwire takes the over-the-counter, performance-enhancing supplement
androstenedione should not diminish his achievement, says Graham: "He doesn’t
have any advantages other than genetic ones. This is a great accomplishment."

To Graham, baseball is an art and McGwire and Sosa are artists. "Whether
you’re an artist or athlete, emotion, passion and creative energy come into play,"
he says. And, it should be noted, "Van Gogh didn’t have to create with 50,000
people watching him, and nobody was trying to knock over his easel," Graham
quips.

Graham sees a similarity between McGwire and one of his former star Rice players,
rookie Detroit Tiger relief pitcher Matt Anderson, in that each is blessed with
awesome power. "I’m not sure if anyone has thrown the ball as hard as Matt
has," Graham says.

Before his 21st birthday Anderson was throwing the ball as hard as 100 miles an
hour, and he was recently clocked at an unbelievable 103 miles an hour. Anderson
is already very effective in the majors, but he still has some wildness, Graham
says: "To be an artist, to reach greatness, he’ll have to harness his energies
and discipline himself."

Reflecting on another very talented ballplayer, Graham believes that Babe Ruth,
who drank and partied ’til the wee hours, "was as supremely coordinated as
any man who ever lived. If he’d been around in today’s era of weight training
and had been dedicated, who knows what he would have done."

Graham is quick to note that to play baseball today, it’s not necessary to be
a Paul Bunyan. "The beauty of baseball is that you can be 5-foot-7 and still
play well," he says.

Along with talent, Graham finds in Sammy Sosa another important attribute: The
ability to see the fun and humor in all the home run hype. Noting that humor is
a valuable commodity in the sports world, Graham says he’ll often remind his Rice
ballplayers that "as intense as the game is and as much is at stake, don’t
forget to enjoy the process."