McGwire Sosa Bonds and MLB steroid generation
 

The 1998 season. In baseball, this season was once commonly referred to as "wealthmass." Nowadays, it’s considered a fraud. A season of cheaters swarming around the nest of what was once considered a clean-cut game of champions and honorable contenders. I remember the feeling I got in ’98 when McGwire and Sosa were chasing that record.
Every time they hit a home run, my mind wandered to a place where anything was possible. I imagined telling my kids and grand-kids about the year that McGwire and Sosa raced to the record, where I was when McGwire broke Roger Maris’ 37-year old landmark and how it turned my love of Minnesota Twins into an all-out fever. But it wasn’t just about home runs for me. It was about the other landmarks in the game.
Cal Ripken Jr. finally taking a seat, Barry Bonds becoming the first-ever player to join the 400-homer/400-steals club, the Astros adding a pair of outfielders - Moises Alou and Carl Everett - that would help turn the Astros into the NL’s most potent run-scoring machine, the emergence of Jose Lima, and Randy Johnson coming to Houston for two months in a last-second deadline trade with Seattle and watching as he handcuffed National League hitters into submission. In the end, the Astros won a franchise-record 102 games, but were knocked out by the San Diego Padres in the first-round, McGwire swatted 70 homers while Sosa knocked out 66, the New York Yankees solidified their dynasty, and the sport was saved. Or so we thought.