McGwire One-Ups Sosa

Give Tony Gwynn a most valuable player award ballot and he would split his vote between Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals.

It isn’t diplomacy, Gwynn suggested, but legitimacy.

“They’ve carried the game,” the San Diego Padre right fielder was saying Tuesday night. “They’ve taken it to a new level and they both should be rewarded.”

There are rewards and there are rewards.

As has become the pattern for the two competitors in the home run race, a crowd of 37,995 at Qualcomm Stadium gave Sosa standing ovations each time he batted Tuesday night--”The home team is really the visiting team when Sammy comes up,” said Gwynn--but the Cub right fielder would again become the tortoise to McGwire’s hare.

The Cardinal slugger took the home run record he had set a week earlier--and which Sosa matched Sunday--to a new level when he blasted his 63rd in the first game of a doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates in St. Louis.

Sosa, who was in the batting cage here at the time, ultimately remained at 62, going homerless but not hitless as the Cubs rallied against Kevin Brown for a 4-2 victory.

Brown (18-7) had struck out nine, given up only four hits and was leading, 1-0, when Sosa singled to open the seventh. Mark Grace followed with his career high 17th homer and the Cubs scored four runs in the inning--all Kevin Tapani (19-7) needed as he outdueled the more renowned Kevin and matched Tom Glavine’s National League-leading win total.

The victory--with Rod Beck getting the final two outs for his 47th save--gave the Cubs a half-game lead over the New York Mets in the wild-card race and proved costly to the Padres, who fell two games behind the Atlanta Braves in the battle for the NL’s best record and home-field advantage in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Sosa, who had struck out four times Monday night, grounded out twice before delivering his key single. He struck out in the eighth against Brian Boehringer and struck out in the ninth against Scott Sanders.

The crowd, of course, was hoping for the best of both worlds--a Padre victory and Sosa homer.

It hooted each time a Padre pitcher delivered a pitch out of the strike zone, and moaned in disappointment when Sosa delivered that mere single.

When Mickey Morandini, batting ahead of Sosa in the Cub lineup, was at the plate with two out in the ninth, the crowd chanted “we want Sosa” and cheered loudly when Morandini walked.

Sosa, however, went down on three pitches against Sanders.

Gwynn said he understood the crowd’s reaction.

“This is history,” he said. “People want to be part of it. I mean, it’s exciting to me to be part of it. The atmosphere last night [with a crowd of 50,384] was awesome, electric. The only time I’ve seen anything like it was when Pete Rose broke the hit record.

“Heck, there were scalpers in the parking lot and people lined up for tickets at 8:30 in the morning. Nothing like that happens in San Diego unless it’s the playoffs.”

Asked about the MVP, a hot issue, Gwynn said he had seen the ballot criteria and, if unable to split his vote, would have to give it to Sosa on the basis of a better overall year and his value to a possible playoff team.

However, Gwynn said: “Suppose one of them ends up with 64 and the other with 63? How do you choose? Why should one of them be penalized? Sometimes the game isn’t fair.”

MVP? Home run title? Sosa smiled and said: “Fellas, I have 62, that’s good enough. My responsibility is to take my team to the playoffs.”

In the process, of course, he has 10 games left and is likely to end up with more than 62, although he is one for nine in this series while employing a new bat--”Sometimes it takes a couple days to get comfortable”--after giving the one with which he hit his 61st and 62nd homers on Sunday to the Hall of Fame.

Sosa was breaking it in during batting practice when he saw McGwire slug his 63rd on the big screen in right center.

What did he think?

He looked into a camera, smiled broadly and said, “That a boy, Mark.”