Honestly, if you weren't there, it’s hard to explain the electricity that hovered over Busch Stadium II during the summer of '98. It wasn't just about baseball. It was about a city—and a country—collectively holding its breath every time a massive guy with red hair stepped into the batter's box. The 1998 St Louis Cardinals weren't actually a great baseball team in the standings, which is the weird part people forget. They finished 83-79. They weren't even close to the playoffs. Yet, that season is burned into the retinas of every sports fan because of a singular, monolithic pursuit of history that changed the sport forever, for better or worse.
Most people think of 1998 and see Mark McGwire’s forearms. They remember the flashbulbs. But the team was a strange mosaic of aging stars, budding legends, and a manager in Tony La Russa who was still trying to figure out how to make his "Moneyball before Moneyball" tactics work in the Midwest.
The Summer of 70: Mark McGwire's Impossible Year
You have to look at the numbers to believe them, even now. McGwire didn't just break Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs; he absolutely shattered it. He hit 70. Seventy! At the time, that number felt like something out of a video game. But the 1998 St Louis Cardinals season was defined by the Race. Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs was right there, breathing down Big Mac’s neck. It was a friendly rivalry, or at least it looked that way on camera, with the two of them hugging and laughing while they systematically destroyed National League pitching.
McGwire’s stat line that year was absurd. He walked 162 times. He had an OBP of .470. Think about that—he was getting on base nearly half the time he stepped to the plate, mostly because pitchers were terrified of being the guy on the wrong end of a highlight reel. He wasn't just hitting homers; he was hitting moonshots. He hit one off the scoreboard. He hit another that seemingly never landed.
The atmosphere in St. Louis was cult-like. Fans would show up hours early just to watch batting practice. That’s not a joke. People paid full ticket prices just to see a man hit practice pitches into the upper deck. It was a circus, but the kind of circus you never wanted to leave.
More Than Just Big Mac: The Rest of the Roster
It’s easy to ignore everyone else, but that’s a mistake. Ray Lankford was quietly put up an incredible season. People forget how good Lankford was because he played in the shadow of a giant. He hit 21 homers and stole 26 bases. Then you had a young Brian Jordan, who was basically a human highlight reel in the outfield, hitting .316 before he headed off to Atlanta the following year.
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The pitching? Well, that was the problem.
Aside from Todd Stottlemyre and a decent year from Kent Bottenfield, the rotation was a bit of a mess. Matt Morris was dealing with the injuries that would eventually define the "what if" portion of his career. The bullpen had some bright spots—Ricky Bottalico and Jeff Brantley were back there—but the team lacked the depth to compete with the 100-win Houston Astros in the NL Central. They were a top-heavy team. A Ferrari with a lawnmower engine in the back.
Why the Context of 1998 Matters for Today's Fans
We have to address the elephant in the room. The Steroid Era.
Looking back at the 1998 St Louis Cardinals through a 2026 lens is complicated. We know about the androstenedione found in McGwire's locker. We know about the Mitchell Report that would come years later. For a lot of purists, the 1998 season is "tainted." There’s this feeling that it was all a lie.
But if you ask a St. Louis local who was ten years old in 1998, they don't care about the chemistry. They care about how it felt when number 62 flew over the wall against the Cubs on September 8th. It was a moment of pure, unadulterated joy. Baseball was struggling after the 1994 strike. Fans were cynical. The 1998 season brought them back. It saved the sport's bottom line, even if it cost the sport its soul for a decade.
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The La Russa Factor
Tony La Russa was in his third year with the birds on the bat. His style was polarizing. He was the "Professor." He changed pitchers constantly. He batted the pitcher eighth sometimes just to mess with the lineup turnover. In 1998, he was managing a spectacle as much as a baseball team. Every post-game press conference was about McGwire. Every pre-game talk was about the record. Keeping a locker room focused when one guy is the center of the universe is a nightmare, but La Russa handled the ego-management aspect of that season brilliantly.
The Cultural Impact on St. Louis
St. Louis is a baseball town, but 1998 turned it into a baseball planet. The city's identity became synonymous with the long ball. Local businesses thrived. The "Big Mac Land" sign in left field became a landmark. It wasn't just a sport; it was the local economy.
There was a specific "vibe" to the city that year. Every radio station, every dive bar on Broadway, every conversation at the grocery store—it was all about the chase. When McGwire hit 62, the game stopped. Literally. He rounded the bases, hugged Sosa, and the world just paused. It’s one of the few times in modern sports history where the result of the game (the Cards won 6-3, by the way) mattered significantly less than a single swing of the bat.
Misconceptions About the '98 Squad
- They were a powerhouse: Nope. They finished 4th in the division.
- It was only McGwire: While he was the star, the team actually led the league in several offensive categories, showing a deep, if inconsistent, lineup.
- The fans knew about the PEDs: Some suspected, but mostly, the media and the public chose to look the other way because the story was too good to ruin.
The Pitching Woes That Held Them Back
If the 1998 St Louis Cardinals had even a league-average starting rotation, they might have made a run at the wild card. But the ERA for the staff was a bloated 4.50. You can't win a championship when your starters are giving up four runs before the fifth inning, even if you have a guy hitting 70 home runs.
- Todd Stottlemyre: 14-9 with a 3.51 ERA. He was the bulldog.
- Kent Bottenfield: Actually a revelation that year, winning 4 games in relief and spot starting before becoming an All-Star later.
- The Rest: A rotating door of arms that just couldn't find the strike zone consistently.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Baseball History Buff
If you want to truly understand this era, don't just look at the home run totals. Look at the "velocity" of the game.
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Watch the footage of September 8, 1998. Don't just watch the homer. Watch the crowd. Watch the way the Cubs players reacted. It gives you a sense of the "shared experience" that is missing from today's fragmented sports media landscape.
Check the splits. McGwire hit 420-foot flyouts that would be home runs in today's stadiums with the "juiced ball" or different park dimensions. The sheer physical force he applied to the ball was different than what we see now.
Visit the Cardinals Hall of Fame. If you’re ever in St. Louis, the museum at Ballpark Village has an entire section dedicated to this. Seeing the actual jersey from that night puts the scale of the man into perspective.
The 1998 St Louis Cardinals didn't win a World Series. They didn't even make the NLDS. But they did something much harder: they became immortal. They represent the peak of a specific kind of American excess—bigger, louder, faster, and more dramatic than anything that came before. Whether you view it as a golden era or a dark chapter, you can't tell the story of baseball without starting in St. Louis in the summer of 1998.
To get the full picture, compare McGwire's 1998 stats with Roger Maris' 1961 season. You'll notice the walk rate for McGwire was nearly double. Pitchers in '98 simply refused to throw to him, which makes the 70-home run mark even more insane when you realize how few "hittable" strikes he actually saw that year.