Americans have embraced St. Louis Cardinals’ slugger Mark McGuire’s pursuit of his record-breaking 62nd home run with a fervor not seen since before 1994’s baseball strike dampened enthusiasm for the all-American game. Does it solve all of baseball’s problems? "Maybe not," says Rick Burton, director of the University of Oregon’s James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, "but it’s helped restore some of the shine baseball used to offer our society." The season-long home run rivalry between McGuire, who is white, and Chicago Cubs hitter Sammy Sosa, a black player from the Dominican Republic, who has belted in 58 homers this season, has become symbolic for a well-stirred American melting pot. In addition, McGuire’s commitment to his son, a Cardinals bat boy, has touched many Americans. "It’s a metaphor for the world we’d like to live in," Burton says, "a world in which friendship, racial harmony and family values are the norm." Burton, who teaches sports marketing in Oregon’s Charles H. Lundquist College of Business, notes that this race for the record book has provided welcome relief from headlines about President Clinton’s self-confessed "inappropriate behavior" and lurching stock markets at home and abroad. People are ready to look at sports again as an arena where good guys can provide heroic performances. McGuire and Sosa have grabbed America’s collective attention and either may be poised to become the next active athlete to rival retired basketball player Michael Jordan’s commercial appeal. SOURCE: Rick Burton, director, UO James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center; phone (541) 346-3297; e-mail <rburton@oregon.
uoregon.edu>.

—30—

#A-6016/Day