The Cardinals still have the Big Mac seating section at Busch Stadium. It’s a familiar spot on the ballpark landscape. Upper deck, left field.
When I see it, I don’t think of hamburgers. I think of home runs – specifically those rocketed by Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire during the late 1990s.
Come to think of it, perhaps this was the origin of the “smash” burger, which would be in line with Big Mac Land.
McGwire smashed 135 home runs over his first two full seasons as a Cardinal. From the time he made his Cardinal debut after being acquired from the A’s at the 1997 trade deadline, McGwire demolished 159 pitches that soared or sizzled for home runs. He did that in only 1,204 at-bats.
My friends, in case you are not doing the math on this right now, I can help: as a Cardinal in 1997-1998-99, Big Mac rocketed a home run every 7.57 at-bats. McGwire went deep, McGwire went nuclear, and Cardinals fans went bonkers. And it was like that inside every ballpark he played in during that time.
I covered McGwire’s quest to set a new MLB single-season home run record in 1998. And everywhere the Cardinals traveled, the fans in every market were waiting for him outside the ballpark – lined up hours in advance just to get inside to watch McGwire take batting practice.
I once met McGwire for a drink at a popular Chicago watering hole during the 1998 season. I was inside waiting for him, and I could see him outside on the sidewalk … but he never even got to the door. Spirit-infused patrons from various saloons on the block saw McGwire making his way to the chosen hangout, and bull-rushed him. They went crazy. No violence; just pandemonium. McGwire He disappeared into a massive pack of intoxicated fans, made a couple of quick moves to escape, and fled the scene. Me? I stayed in the joint and drank with an umpire.
It was a show, a circus, and wildly entertaining. In the summer of 1998, McGwire was the Savannah Bananas … before the Savannah Bananas came into existence.
Big Mac and Wrigley Field representative Sammy Sosa traded blows all season, and McGwire won the famous Home Run Derby by a count of 70 to 65.
Steroids?
What steroids?
Androstenedione?
What the hell is that?
As Sosa told a group of reporters (including this fella) in the Cubs home clubhouse one day in ‘98, he didn’t know anything about steroids. He told us he was unfamiliar with them and added, “The only thing I take is the Flintstone vitamins.”
Sammy laughed. He knew that we knew. But in the summer of 1998, no one cared. People lie about that now, but I know better. This was a non-stop show, an endless barrage of blasts, one bomb after another, one thrill after another.
Yeah, sure, these phonies found a form of baseball religion later when it was convenient to strike a moralistic pose by waving the baseball bible (the Sporting News?) while shaming fans who had a joyous experience in 1998.
Isn’t that special!
But a lot of these same holier-than-thou lecturers had a fantastic time watching Sosa-McGwire make baseballs disappear into the clouds, or into the night, or launched onto city streets, or made a splash landing in a bay or a river.
Giants slugger Barry Bonds must have gulped huge quantities of those Flintstone vitamins in 2001 while battering poor, defenseless major-league pitchers for 73 homers to break McGwire’s single-season record.
While doing a little research for this column – and ultimately it will be about the 2025 Cardinals – here’s what I found:
From 1996 through 2006, an average of 11.8 hitters cranked 40+ home runs in a season. From 1996 through 2001, the average was 13.8 hitters per season with at least 40 home runs.
During the era, those Flintstone vitamins were extremely effective. But commissioner Uncle Bud Selig later decided to take a stand, after the fact, and outlaw the absorption of anything stronger than coffee.
Performance-enhancing drugs were out – including the amphetamines that kept MLB players hepped up and energized during the long season through many, many decades of ball.
So, now that storytime is over … let me get to the point about what’s on my mind today.
The 2025 Cardinals have banned home runs. Their home runs. And I hope that they’ll lift the prohibition in 2026.
Watching this group trying to hit for power is sort of sad. Watching the Cardinals, we don’t have to worry about illicit substances, or suspiciously sculpted physiques, or alarmingly massive foreheads. These fellers are clean, man. Give ‘em their milk before they tuck into bed.
The Cardinals are missing out on something of a home-run revival in 2025.
Seven major-league hitters have ripped 40+ home runs this season. And there are still a few games to go for each of the 30 teams. But as I type this on Thursday afternoon, we see Cal Raleigh’s count of 60 homers, Kyle Schwarber with 56, Shohei Ohtani with 53, Aaron Judge with 51, Eugenio Suarez with 48, Junior Caminero with 44, and Juan Soto with 43.
There hasn’t been an MLB season with seven 40-homer (or more) performances since 2019, when 10 guys did it.
This year’s in-progress total of four 50-homer seasons by MLB hitters is the most since four boppers did it in 2001: Bonds, Sosa, Alex Rodriguez and Luis Gonzalez.
From 2002 through 2024, there were never more than two 50-homer guys in a season – and that happened just five times. There were no 50-homer hitters in 11 seasons – and only six seasons with one 50 home-run hero.
Through Wednesday’s games, 88 major-league players had cudgeled 20+ home runs this season.
Only one of the 88 was a Cardinal. That would be Willson Contreras, who had exactly 20 big ones before being placed on the IL for the rest of the season because of a strained bicep. Contreras played his final game of the season on Sept. 15.
Keep an eye on Ivan Herrera (19 HR) and Alec Burleson (18) who have three games to reach the 20-home run mark.
And if Herrera and Burly don’t get to 20?
Since Bill DeWitt Jr. took ownership of the franchise before the 1996 campaign, the Cardinals had just one 20-homer in a full season. That was 2015 when Matt Carpenter struck for 28 home runs.
Heading into Thursday’s schedule, 39 MLB hitters have deposited 30 or more homers this season. None are Cardinals.
And 59 hitters have hammered at least 25 homers. None are Cardinals.
And 78 hitters have launched at least 21 homers. At this moment, none are Cardinals.
That could change if Herrera and/or Burleson can go off at Wrigley Field this weekend.
Homers aren’t everything. There are other ways to score runs, but the 2025 Cardinals aren’t effective at manufacturing runs with their speed or situational hitting. Without home runs, the St. Louis offense tends to starve.
Consider the cause and effect:
+ Through Wednesday, the Cardinals have not homered in 67 games this season. That’s the third-highest total of no-homer games so far. Only the Pirates (80) and Royals (69) have gone homerless in a game more often than the Cardinals.
+ And when the Cardinals fail to bang a home run in a game? Their record is 22-45 for a .328 winning percentage. Brutal.
+ The Cardinals have stroked exactly one home run in 53 games so far. Their record is 28-25 for a .528 winning percentage. See? Just hitting one home run in a game can make a difference.
+ The Cardinals are in business when they summon the power to erupt for two or more home runs in a game this season. When they get that done the Redbirds are 28-11 for a .718 winning percentage that ranks 12th in the majors.
+ Now here’s the problem: it hasn’t happened enough. The Cardinals’ total of 39 two-plus homers in a game is the fourth-lowest total in the majors – ahead of only the Nationals (38), Padres (30) and Pirates (28.)
With so many MLB teams having a blast in 2025, the Cardinals are missing out on the home-run fun. And while the Cards had other problems (starting pitching) their power outage probably cost them a wild-card playoff spot in 2025.
“The ball is flying out of the park,” analyst Matthew Trueblood wrote at Baseball Prospectus. “Overall, the league has hit more home runs per game than it did in 2022 or 2024, and is tracking almost identically to 2018. In the other years since then, of course, there have been even more longballs, but power is robust throughout baseball right now.”
Not in St. Louis.
Not with these Cardinals.
With three games to go, the Cardinals’ rate of 0.92 home runs per game ranks 29th in the majors, with only the Pirates having less home-run muscle.
The Cardinals current slugging percentage, .380, would be their second-worst in a full season since the DeWitt Era began in 1996. And their Isolated Power number (.134) would be the fourth lowest over the last 30 seasons.
Well, at least Big Mac Land is still out there in left field, representing memories of the way it used to be – power to the people! – for the Cardinals and their fans.
On his long list of things to do, incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom must find a way to empower this team. But please, no Flintstone vitamins.
Thanks for reading …
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or “Redbird Rush Hour” on KMOX, and Bernie does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals with his longtime pal Will Leitch. Bernie joins Katie Woo on the “Cardinal Territory” video-podcast each week, and you can catch a weekly “reunion” segment here at STL Sports with Bernie’s appearance on the Randy Karraker Show every Friday morning at 10:30 am.