Enter Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. One was a redheaded hulk of a man, likeable but quiet, a classic slugger who harkened back to the baseball players of old. The other was an outgoing Dominican who spoke broken English and flashed his charming smile. They seemed like superheroes, and in 1998, the two would race to break what was considered an almost unbreakable record—Roger Maris’s 61 home runs.
Because McGwire and Sosa were each affable in their own way, the public entirely bought into the race for 61. Baseball officials and media—who had to have their suspicions—not only fueled the fire, they actually made excuses for the two sluggers. Stories about juiced balls and thin pitching rotations abounded, but nobody suggested that the homeruns were flying because of juiced players and thin drug policies.
Never mind that McGwire and Sosa (McGwire especially) looked as if they were a pair of tattered green pants away from being the Incredible Hulk, nobody ever mentioned steroids. In 1998, you could get steroids in pretty much any gym in America, but nobody raised the issue because the two hitters seemed like such nice fellows, and Sosa made endearing pointing gestures on the field.
As the battle went late into the season, McGwire’s Cardinals actually met Sosa’s Cubs, and a lovefest ensued. As McGwire launched the first pitch, he saw just barely out of the stadium—breaking the record—he circled the bases, and hugged every one of the Cubs’ infielders. After the Cards met McGwire at home plate, Sosa came in from his position in right field to congratulate McGwire. Everybody loved everybody, and nobody even hinted at the idea that anyone was cheating.
And of course, like someone who robs a jewelry store and wears a new diamond ring to work the next day, McGwire could not resist going on tour to show what a fabulous guy he was. After breaking the record, McGwire then proceeded to visit with Maris’s children.
As the years went by and baseball started to sort of pretend it wanted to clean itself up and get rid of steroids, suspicions began to pile up. Of course, suspicions were only that until a player either got caught in a test or got investigated by the government. Even players who tested positive had a fairly easy way out as the public has been very forgiving of players that simply own what they did. Andy Pettitte admitted his steroid use and went on to play a few more successful seasons. Roger Clemens denied his, and he will likely end up in jail.
Still, despite all the circumstantial evidence, the public wanted to believe that the home run chase had been legit. We promised not to look too hard or ask too many questions, and McGwire and Sosa would continue to be heroes—perhaps not the heroes they were, but certainly not the villains they would ultimately become.
This public-player pact lasted until 2005 when the busybodies in Congress decided they needed to clean up baseball. Why Congress would choose baseball from all of the problems facing the country nobody knows, but baseball it was, and Mark McGwire was called to testify.
Around this time, Sosa, who had always spoken English in a semicomedic fashion, forgot the language, and began communicating only through carefully worded statements released by his public-relations people. The once-affable slugger turned into a silent figure who never quite confirmed or denied his drug use.
McGwire, on the other hand, went to Congress and denied everything. This might have been plausible if the player, only four years into retirement, had not shown up looking like a skinnier version of Ron Howard from Happy Days. Once a towering He-Man, McGwire sat before Congress a shadow of his former self, a frail old man who acknowledged that steroids were a problem in baseball but denied ever having done them himself.
In denying the obvious, McGwire broke his and Sosa’s tenuous pact with the public, casting aspersions on not only the 1998 home run chase, but the entire group of ’90s home run hitters. Suddenly, every home run was cast into doubt, and any power hitter with even the vaguest hint of steroids scandal became an outcast.
Once heralded as saviors of the sport, McGwire and Sosa are now symbols of everything that has gone wrong with baseball. Instead of making the Hall of Fame, both will be lucky to get enough votes to stay on the ballot. Of course, while baseball was promoting these two as superheroes, officials almost certainly knew that they were most likely taking steroids, but it was clearly decided that the short-term gain was worth the long-term loss. Now, most ’80s and ’90s baseball records have the credibility of pro wrestling, or worse, competitive cycling.
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The XFL: Pro Football Plus Pro Wrestling Equals Ratings Disaster
New sports leagues have a success rate well below that of celebrity marriages, and most have even less longevity. In 2001, when wrestling promoter Vince McMahon and NBC (the then-network of Inside Schwartz and Emeril) launched the XFL, a new football league, the sports landscape already contained the corpses of countless failures. These include, but are not limited to, the United States Football League, the World Football League (not to be confused with the World League of American Football), the World Hockey Association, countless indoor soccer leagues, a variety of women’s basketball outfits, and the American expansion arm of the Canadian Football League.
Clearly, starting a sports league at all has historically been a bad idea. But taking on the National Football League, an organization that had systematically crushed its competition, seemed especially foolhardy. Still, in February 2000, fresh off losing its package of NFL games, NBC decided to back McMahon in the creation of a new football league.
McMahon, not only the owner and promoter of the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment), but also an active wrestling character, served as the face of the joint venture with NBC and held a February 2, 2000, press conference. Much like he did in his role as the evil billionaire chairman of the WWF, McMahon delivered an over-the-top wrestling promo that pushed the bounds of good taste.
The fifty-something multimillionaire with a weirdly jacked-up upper body promised the new league would be more violent than the NFL. He announced that there would be no touchbacks, more hitting, and fewer rules designed to keep the players safe. He also promised that cameras would be everywhere and that players, coaches, cheerleaders, sidelines, and locker rooms would be wired for sound. Players would all make the same salaries, with winning teams sharing in a bonus pool, and the eventual champion sharing in an even bigger pool.
The new league would also have even more ridiculous rule changes, including scrapping the opening coin toss in favor of a violent fifteen-yard dash for a ball, which would determine which team would get the first possession. Extra points were also dropped in favor of mandatory two-point conversions. The league also tried to allow defensive backs to hit wide receivers at will, but that rule was switched back to the NFL’s rule in week four because all the interference due to hitting made passing nearly impossible.
The league’s credibility was doubted from week one. Apparently, being the owner of a fake sport did not exactly qualify someone to own a real sport in the eyes of many fans. And while the on-the-field product looked real, it was hard for fans to get past the idea that at any moment, one player might hit another with a steel chair.
The XFL also introduced the idea that players ought to put sayings on their jerseys instead of their names. Like a leaguesanctioned version of Jim McMahon’s rule-flaunting headbands, the most famous instance of this new wrinkle was Rod “He Hate Me” Smart’s choice to put “They Hate Me” on his shirt. Since “They Hate Me” wouldn’t fit, “He Hate Me” became the catchphrase of choice.
Still, opening-week ratings were high, which NBC and McMahon mistook as fan interest instead of people tuning in to see just how big a mess the XFL would be. By week three, the numbers had plummeted, and the league was reduced to the promotion of halftime stunts including “going inside the cheerleaders’ locker rooms.”
Though the first season did ultimately finish with the “Million Dollar Game” championship—so-called because the winning team split $1 million—it was quickly canceled before season two. NBC and McMahon lost an estimated $70 mi
llion on the league, and McMahon lost any chance he may have ever had of creating a successful venture outside the wrestling business.
Worst Sports Leagues Ever
Isaiah Thomas buys the CBA. Formed in 1946, the Continental Basketball Association operated successfully until 1999, when it was purchased by a group led by former NBA great Isaiah Thomas. Though Thomas promised to lead the league to greater heights, he ultimately abandoned it to take a job coaching the Indiana Pacers, leading to the CBA’s eventual demise in 2001.
Vince McMahon creates World Bodybuilding Federation. This was McMahon’s attempt to duplicate the success he had with wrestling by giving pro bodybuilders outrageous characters to play. Unfortunately, while his wrestling characters used their outrageousness to get fans excited about their eventual physical confrontations, the men of the WBF didn’t fight; they simply stood and posed.
Two women’s basketball leagues started at the same time. The ongoing but money-losing WNBA and the American Basketball League (ABL) both began in 1997. Somehow, the founders of the ABL thought it was a good idea to continue their underfunded concept in the face of competition from a rival league supported by the NBA. Despite the fact that America had never shown it could support one, let alone two women’s leagues, both competitors somehow saw the light of day.
USFL attempts to take on the NFL. By playing in the spring and spending huge money on famous players like Doug Flutie and Herschel Walker, this upstart league, formed in 1983, hoped to take on its more established rival. At first the splashy moves (which included signing players away from the NFL) got the USFL attention, but the high cost of competing with the National Football League quickly became too much even for deep-pocketed owners such as Donald Trump. When the league folded in 1985, it sued the NFL for $1.5 billion and won, but a judge ordered damages in the amount of $3.76 million, which were not quite enough to bring the league back or recoup its many losses.
The WUSA forms. Founded based on the idea that interest in the 1999 Women’s World Cup translated to interest in a full-time women’s soccer league in the United States, this league was launched in 2000 before collapsing three years later. In retrospect, launching a full-time soccer league due to interest in the World Cup would be like creating a full-time luge league after the Winter Olympics.
CFL expands in the United States. Perhaps unaware of the failure of the USFL, the long-running Canadian Football League decided to add teams in the United States in 1993. Poor attendance and confusion over the bizarre rules, which included three down series and having twelve players on the field at the same time led to the U.S. division of the league closing in 1995.
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Minnesota Vikings Trade Everything for Herschel Walker: Mortgaging Your Future for a Star’s Last Hurrah
Like bragging that you slept with Elizabeth Taylor in 2005, instead of 1980, the Minnesota Vikings traded away their future for the rights to a nearly-finished Herschel Walker. To understand the true foolishness of the Vikings’ actions, one must realize that NFL running backs—even ones in superb condition as Walker famously was—have a very short prime. Most running backs burn out in three to four years, and even elite runners rarely last more than six as top players.
Before being traded to the Vikings, Walker had already logged many years as a pro, including a less-than-luxurious three-year stint in the USFL. Walker then played for Dallas in the 1986–1989 seasons before being sent to Minnesota. That meant that by the time Walker came to his new team, he had already logged six seasons as a top running back. It was not unreasonable to expect that he still had some tread left on the tires, but nobody would expect him to remain a top player for more than two or three more years.
That did not stop the Vikings from giving Dallas five servicable players and six draft picks, including two first round and two second round selections. These picks ultimately turned into which led to Emmitt Smith, Russell Maryland, Kevin Smith, and Darren Woodson—three perennial Pro Bowl players and one Hall-of-Famer.
To say Walker never led the Vikings to the heights he was expected to would be putting it mildly. Though he had made the Pro Bowl in two of the previous three seasons before becoming a Viking, Walker would never rush for one thousand yards in his two years with the team.
Dallas, of course, profited mightily from the deal acquiring much of the core of its eventual championship teams. The Cowboys even reacquired Walker for the 1996 and 1997 seasons where he served as sort of a utility player filling a variety of roles on offense, defense, and special teams. Currently, Walker is dabbling in mixed martial arts, the Dallas Cowboys have three Super Bowl wins since “the Trade,” and Minnesota continues to search for its first world title since before the NFL and AFL merged.
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Monday Night Football Hires Dennis Miller: Comedian Makes Games Not So Funny
Despite the National Football League being the most popular sports league in the United States and ABC being one of the biggest, most successful sports network in the country (the biggest when you add in that they own ESPN), ABC could not resist tampering with America’s most popular sport. Put more directly, even though viewers already love the NFL the way it is, ABC executives could not help themselves when it came to trying to make the game even more popular. But when all the sports fans already like you, the only way to become more popular is to try to reach out to nonsports fans.
Entertaining nonsports fans has long been the reason the Olympics garner so much viewership. Sure, sometimes the actual events offer compelling storylines, but if they don’t, the networks are more than happy to manufacture some. Curling might be the most boring sport in history—it’s essentially people standing over a giant puck while sweeping the ice with a broom—but add in a features package about how Canada’s team captain had to grow up being bullied for his lisp (to ratchet up the drama he would invariably be from Saskatoon, Saskatchewa) and you have instant drama.
Since the players did not change from week to week, ABC (which for countless years owned the popular Monday Night Football package) could not reach casual fans with player profiles or other personality features. Instead, the only way to bring in nonsports fans would be to introduce nonsports entertainment into the broadcast booth. They decided to do this by adding a comedian to the broadcast team—essentially to add some laughs and broaden the audience.
In theory, this idea made sense. A comedian jumping in with this occasional might make the prime-time games more palatable for the casual-viewing audience as long as the jokes were kept in the background and didn’t overrun the reason most of the audience had tuned it. The idea would have made even more sense if ABC had hired a mainstream comedian with mass appeal. Instead, they hired Dennis Miller.
Since he entered the public consciousness as the host of the “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday Night Live, Miller had been considered a cerebral comedian. Though that act brought him a loyal following, and it worked well as a counterbalance to SNL’s less-intelligent sketch offerings, it did not always play well on a wide stage. That was proven when Miller’s attempt at a late-night talk show failed as did a number of other attempts to turn the comedian into a television star.
As a comedian, Miller did hip intelligent material peppered with references that some of the audience did not always get. As a Monday Night Football commentator, Miller dropped the intelligent funny material and mostly made references that nobody got. You would think ABC was paying Miller by the obscure joke or that he had some elaborate bet with a billionaire who paid him huge sums to mention more and more ridiculous things with every passing game. Miller’s act was so hard to follow that Al Michaels (play-by-play) and Dan Fouts (traditional color commentator) mostly ignored him making the hard-to-follow jokes go over like lead balloons.
Miller was unpopular from that start, and his refusal to tell any jokes that most of the country could actually laugh at did little to make him more popular. Instead, websites popped up that explained the comedian’s references ,and Miller became the symb
ol for obnoxious highbrow entertainers who have no actual interest in entertaining their audience. In the end, ABC killed the Dennis Miller experiment after two years, though ESPN (by then owned by ABC and managing their sports division) would repeat the mistake by putting funny columnist and radio host Tony Kornheiser in the Monday Night Football booth. Though Kornheiser was less obscure than Miller, he was also not a comedian and not nearly as capable at making oneliners. Kornheiser can be quite funny in print, and his Pardon the Interruption pioneered a new kind of entertaining sports commentary, but his act did not play well as part of a threeman broadcast booth.
ESPN Hires Rush Limbaugh
Though they were smart enough to keep him out of the broadcast booth, ESPN once again tried to expand its audience for NFL football by making right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh a commentator on its Sunday afternoon NFL Countdown pregame show. Limbaugh, who makes his living saying controversial things, only made it a few weeks when he made the following comments about then Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donavon McNabb.
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