CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: INTERNET RIGHT IN THE THICK OF MARK MCGWIRE'S HOME-RUN CHASE (COLUMN 98)

When the Cardinals are playing, the world seems to stand still when Mark McGwire comes to bat. Even people who don't know who's on first, wonder if Big Mac will break the record for most home runs in a season.

Peggy Scott is on vacation, so sports enthusiastic Mark Bliss will fill in.

Joni: I guess you could call this column a family affair. Mr. and Mrs. Click. I've learned a lot about sports after being married nearly two decades to a sports fanatic, namely my fellow columnist today. Frankly, I think you are even surprised by my interest in the home-run chase.

Mark: I'm not a fanatic. It sure beats watching Barney for the millionth time.

Joni: The Internet is blazing with news about McGwire. You'd think he'd already broken the record with all the coverage. Let's start at ESPN SportsZone.

espn.sportzone.com/mlb/programming/marischase.html

Mark: On this site you find articles about more about the race between McGwire (46), Sammy Sosa (44), Ken Griffey Jr. (41) and Greg Vaughn (39). Actually, I wouldn't put Vaughn in the same category. Most people view it as a three-person race.

Joni: It also shows that through 116 games, Roger Maris had 44 home runs -- neck and neck with our boy Mark. Click on the player's face and the home run bar lights up in different colors. Pretty slick.

Mark: You can also get a listing of every home run this year -- from Big Mac's first on March 31 against Los Angeles to Saturday's round tripper against the Cubs. It also tells what inning and how far it went.

Joni: What's the greatest home run of all time? Results of a poll offers several suggestions, mostly from World Series play. Almost 35 percent picked Kirk Gibson's home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. Who's he?

Mark: Obviously you weren't watching the World Series closely in 1988. I remember it well.

Joni: Is it no wonder our children's first words were Da-da and baseball? Let's go to another home-run chase site offered by CNN and Sports Illustrated.

www.cnnsi.com/baseball/mlb/1998/target61/

Mark: If you can get through the address, it's a pretty good site. It offers Sports Illustrated features, analysis and photos. It projects how many the leaders will hit for the year if they continue at the same pace. Right now, McGwire is the only one projected to break it. They project Sosa to hit 60 and Griffey a mere 57.

Joni: Let's check out This Week in McGwire home run history. You can read a kind of "out of the past" for McGwire. For example, Aug. 14, 1987, he entered the record books as the most prolific rookie home run hitter in history. He hit his 39th that day, finishing his rookie year with 49.

Mark: They also detail the 10 longest career home runs for McGwire. Seven have been in a Cardinal uniform. The longest to date is May 16, 1998. It went 545 feet, which is the longest measured dinger in Busch Stadium history.

Joni: The Cardinals have sure made a bundle off a bad team. We're going to the game Friday night, and hope to see a home run. We're not alone. The Cardinal Web site is generating 1.5 million page views a month. Probably 1.49999 million are from Big Mac fans.

www.stlcardinals.com

Mark: You can chart every Cardinal home run this season by player, inning, distance and more. You can also find out how many people were on base at the time.

Joni: You can also get your view of the field from your seats. Not bad. OK, let's see the Cubs' spin on the home-run chase.

www.cubs.com

Mark: Even the Cubs know how to spell sweep. They got swept by the Cards over the weekend.

Joni: Don't get too smug. The Cubs are quite a bit ahead of the Cards in the standings, and could well make the Wildcard spot in the playoffs.

Mark: Details, details. You can read about Sammy Sosa and his home runs -- he broke the "most home runs in a calendar month or any 30-day period in major league history" during June with 20. Hack Wilson, a former Cub, has the National League record for the most home runs in a season -- 56. That was back in 1930.

Joni: Information about Mark McGwire is suspiciously lacking. Enough already, let's link over to the Major League Baseball site.

www.majorleaguebaseball.com

Mark: The home-run race stats are on the front along with a rolling scoreboard of the most current games. You can also go directly to each team for stats. You can also link to live audiocasts for a number of games, including St. Louis. You can turn your computer into a radio, if you can't pick up the game locally.

Joni: Of course the Internet has plenty of fan pages for Mark McGwire as well. One well-done page is from a fan Mike Kaiser, who also shows off his drawings of the slugger. It's called Mark McGwire Central.

www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/7425/

Mark: There's several categories: profile, statistics, art gallery, picture gallery, 50-home club, Run for 61 and all-time career home run leaders.

Joni: It also links you to the St. Louis Cardinals web ring, which is a group of personal web sites on the Cardinals.

Mark: You can find out all McGwire's personal stats and awards. For example, he has a World Series ring with Oakland in 1989. He was also a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic baseball team. In Run for 61, it shows when Babe Ruth in 1927, Roger Maris in 1961 and McGwire in 1997 and 1998 hit each home run. You can single out the day they each hit their 10th home run.

Joni: What I like best about Mark McGwire is the fact he's so talented and so humble. That's a hard combination to find in the world of sports.

Mark: It's the name. Most Marks are just like that. What's your favorite baseball site? E-mail us at click@semissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams Bliss is a member of the Southeast Missourian online staff. Mark Bliss is a reporter and columnist.