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Maybe that explains why none of the great sluggers since has been able to attain the titanic grace--unalloyed by sadness and while he still had time to enjoy it. At the bottom of the Depression, Lou Gehrig got there, but had to be wheeled in on his deathbed. Ted Williams, Depression slugger and war hero, wasn't fully enrolled until he retired. Joe DiMaggio made it into our hearts only at the grave of his beloved Marilyn. Mays: another retirement entry. Mantle: another deathbed.
More numerous are the power men who shone in unjoyful ages and in the half-light of provincial parks. Hack Wilson hit 58, but in 1930 Chicago wasn't ready to party. Ralph Kiner flattened balls, but did so in Pittsburgh, which is the Big City only if you're in Cincinnati...where Frank Robinson was huge, before he went to (equally frowzy) Baltimore. You get the idea: it's an uncommon man at an odd moment who can play in the league we're speaking of.
Which is why these guys just might hit. The stars may be lining up just right. McGwire brings to the task a bulky precision that is riveting. He hits moon shots. Griffey has a more modern cool of the stylish synchromesh variety that Michael Jordan brought to hoops. It's about Griffey's joyful acceptance of his personal power.
Maybe America is ready to love these sluggers as it loved the Babe. Now, as then, we are strong; we are rich. But even if there are harder decades ahead, maybe we'll look back on this as one of those moments when we were good--good enough to have American heroes, power heroes. We'll tell our children's children, "I saw it with my own eyes when he smashed that ball outta the park, into the street!" That was when God loved America and its game--and sent Big Mac and Junior to prove it.
Cramer, a Pulitzer prizewinner, is writing a book on DiMaggio.