1998: McGwire Reaches 70

On This Day in Sports: September 27, 1998

On September 27, 1998, Mark McGwire hit his 69th and 70th home runs in the final game of the regular season at Busch Stadium. His last-inning total against Montreal made him the first major-league player to reach 70 in one year and completed a record chase that had dominated the summer. McGwire hit two home runs in the game. Mike Thurman allowed No. 69. Those details establish the result and its setting, but the day’s importance came from the larger historical pressure surrounding the competition and the people who carried it through.

McGwire had passed Roger Maris at 62 on September 8 while racing Sammy Sosa, who finished with 66. A late surge kept pushing the record higher even after the central chase had been decided. Carl Pavano allowed No. 70. The opponent was Montreal. Together, those points show how preparation, rules, institutions and public expectations shaped the circumstances before the decisive action began. They also separate the documented background from later legend and retrospective interpretation.

McGwire homered off Mike Thurman and then connected against Carl Pavano in his final at-bat. The second drive reached the left-field seats, and the crowd celebrated a round number that only weeks earlier had seemed unimaginable. McGwire finished with 70. Barry Bonds surpassed the record in 2001. The immediate result therefore involved more than a single score or statistic: it changed a record, championship, career or institution and gave contemporary audiences a clear reason to understand that the moment was unusual.

Barry Bonds hit 73 in 2001 and replaced McGwire’s mark, while revelations about performance-enhancing drugs reshaped assessments of the era. Even so, the 70th home run remains a defining image of baseball’s extraordinary and controversial 1998 season. Seen from today, the event remains useful because it connects a measurable sports outcome with the systems around it—teammates, opponents, officials, venues, media and rules. The outcome was not inevitable, and its meaning did not end when play stopped. Preserving the exact date and qualifications helps explain why later generations still return to it. It also prevents a famous image or headline from replacing the fuller story of what actually happened. The best sports history holds achievement and limitation together, showing both the performance itself and the conditions that made it possible. That broader view preserves context without taking attention away from the people who performed under pressure. In that sense, September 27, 1998 still offers a focused view of how athletic excellence, public memory and institutional change can meet in a single day.