Early in the game, on the best night of the best summer ever, a father asks his son for a special favor.

Alex Gossett is only 5, and his father wonders how much the blue-eyed Kentucky boy will remember of his first major-league baseball game.

Will the impressions last - the fireworks (Alex covered his ears), the thunderous crowd, the sight of another father hoisting his son in the air?

Andy Gossett takes no chances. The favor he asks of young Alex as the St. Louis fans cheer is not a command. It is a plea.

"Don't ever forget this."

Yes, Alex, remember. Press each day in your memory like a flower in a scrapbook. This was a keeper, a carnival of the unexpected, a season in which the sublime and the ridiculous were teammates.

Craziness abounded. The president of the United States confessed to an "inappropriate relationship" with a White House intern and faced impeachment - and his job-approval rating increased. Two more countries conducted nuclear tests. The stock market peaked, then zigzagged all summer, like a balloon with the air let out.

And then, like a gift from the heavens, the sky rained baseballs.

A man hit 66 home runs, crushing a record that stood for 37 years, and he finished second. We watched, intrigued at first, then amazed, and then enchanted as the home run chase teased our imaginations and became intertwined with our lives.

On the day that Alex watched his first baseball game, a baby was born in St. Louis. Her first gift was a Cardinals jersey with No. 25 on the back.

A Missouri couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. As is their custom, they kissed after a home run.

In Chicago, two teen-age girls saw a Dominican Republic flag flying atop Wrigley Field and were so proud they almost cried.

And in a nearby nursing home, a dying man was reminiscing about Babe Ruth when he suddenly stopped to watch a baseball game on television. The adult children of the late Roger Maris were leading the Chicago Cubs crowd through "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

"Wow," he said.

Let's relive it, replay the days of the best summer ever, and savor once more the noble efforts, big and small, from those both famous and unknown. We will begin not when the calendar tells us to, but when summer actually begins in America, on Opening Day.

It is March 31, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The middle of the country, the middle of the game. Fifth inning, bases loaded.

Mark McGwire swings.

Keep your eye on the ball, Alex. It's about to take an unforgettable ride.

And so are we.

Mark McGwire hits a grand-slam with that swing in the St. Louis season opener. He homers again in the second game, the same day a federal judge dismisses the Paula Jones lawsuit against President Clinton. Another home run in the third game. And the fourth.

It's barely April, but the countdown is on.

In a country that has always considered itself bigger, stronger and, yes, better, the home run stands as our enduring athletic symbol. Boys and girls dream of the game-winning homer. Babe Ruth saved baseball from the Black Sox scandal with his massive clouts.

Is McGwire his heir? He hit 58 home runs last year, and already fans debate whether Big Mac will break the most cherished record in sports - the 61 home runs hit by Roger Maris in 1961.

Not long after the season begins, LeRoy and Gladys Pruneau embark on an annual family ritual. The Pruneaus - call him "Zeke" - live in Crystal City, Mo., a town of 5,000 about 30 miles south of St. Louis, boyhood home of Bill Bradley, former basketball star and U.S. senator. The Pruneaus' nephew has Cardinals season tickets; he allows them to select a handful of games.

Their choices include a September game against the Chicago Cubs. If you're a Cardinals fan, there's nothing better than a late-season game against the hated Cubs. It's a grudge that dates back to 1892.

Zeke has loved the Cardinals for almost as long. He's 81, a retired electrician, and when he was 9, he listened to the radio as Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched the Cardinals to the 1926 World Series title, the team's first.

His wife, Gladys, 78, grew up on a farm. Zeke waited for her to leave high school, then "we just went off and got married." They were married again, on Sept. 17, 1938, this time by a priest.

"I prefer that one," Gladys says. "It seems more appropriate."

How old-fashioned.

This baseball season has opened in the company of a four-month-old sex scandal involving the president. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of a sex-enhancing drug, Viagra, giving late-night comedians material to last through the millennium. It's a tabloid time.

"When we were growing up, heaven forbid, we couldn't even say somebody was pregnant," Gladys says. "Now they talk about anything and everything."

Lifelong Democrats, the Pruneaus voted for Clinton twice and want to believe his denial - "I did not have sex with that woman." Gladys has her doubts, but she's distracted. She's leaving soon for a vacation in Ireland. And she can't wait.

In suburban Chicago, another wife makes plans, but 75-year-old Ruth Kaitis is filled with dread, not excitement. Her husband, Chester, 78, has fallen in their home and hurt himself badly. He has Parkinson's disease, a degenerative brain disorder, and his condition is quickly worsening.

Ruth cannot lift Chester, so she knows what's next. While he recovers in the hospital, she searches for another place for him to live.

"It's terrible," Ruth says.

Husband and wife will live apart for the first time in 55 years.

Chester Kaitis - call him "Chet" - was raised on Chicago's north side, Cubs territory, but he was "one of those contrary kids," so he cheered for the south-side White Sox.

The first baseball game he saw, in 1928, was at Comiskey Park, and Babe Ruth slugged a homer for the visiting Yankees. The previous year, Ruth had finished with 60, a feat considered untouchable.

"His running was the most awkward form of running ever," Chet remembers. "He ambled. I can't think of a better word. Big body. Short arms and legs."

By 1937, when Chet first met Ruth Breitenberg, after a dance, he had succumbed to his geographical destiny and cheered for the Cubs. He took Ruth to her first baseball game at Wrigley Field, one of many dates there. They were married in 1943.

During World War II, Chet was leading 15 tanks through Italy when shrapnel shredded his legs. He nearly lost them. "I have a million-dollar wound, and I'm coming home," he wrote Ruth.

Fifteen surgeries later, he could walk, and he and Ruth raised a son and daughter. For fun, they joined other couples in a poker club or enjoyed Frank Sinatra songs at the Aragon ballroom.

"Chi-ca-go, Chi-ca-go, that toddlin' town," Ruth sings. "I loved to sing along on that one."

Those were the days. Chet was the loan guarantee officer for the Veteran's Administration, and for a couple of years he coached son Frank's Little League team. One year Chet escorted the players to a game at Wrigley Field, and a boy was robbed in the bathroom. "He was scared stiff."

Billfolds. Ballgames. Cubs fans are used to losing. The team last won a World Series in 1908, a dozen years before Chet was born, and last appeared in a World Series in 1945. But Chet never stopped believing, never stopped hoping.

The worst was 1969. The Cubs had a four-game lead heading into September, then collapsed. "Oh, that was a bad year," he says. "You may say I was heartbroken."

It's funny how baseball works. The season is so long, seven months, that the 162 games are taken for granted, summer's background music, and then suddenly the days grow shorter and the shadows longer and you wish the song would never stop.

Chet learned he had Parkinson's disease three years ago. The doctor was brutally frank: The disease will put you in a wheelchair, then in bed, and eventually you will starve to death.

"I cried all the way home," Ruth says. "So did he."

They stayed together until the end of April, when Chet fell. Then Ruth and her son found a nursing home in Glenview, a suburb near home.

They move Chet there on May 13. Two days later, Frank Sinatra dies, and the commentators talk about the end of an era.

My era, too, Chet thinks.

In Affton, Mo., Julia Polson uses the Internet to mail a sympathy message to the Sinatra family on behalf of her stepfather. He thinks Old Blue Eyes was the greatest.

Julia, 35, and her husband, Mark, 40, prefer country music, but there hasn't been much opportunity lately for dancing. Julia is five months pregnant. The baby is due in September.

The pregnancy was quite a shock. The Polsons learned about it in January, a week before the White House scandal erupted. They have been married two years, and their house is already full with four children from previous marriages. This will be their first child together.

On one of their early dates, Mark took Julia to a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium. A stranger walked over, said they looked like a nice couple, and handed them two front-row tickets. A good omen.

Like generations of men who grew up following baseball, Mark still has score cards from games 30 years ago. He has an autographed baseball signed by a dozen Hall of Famers. He has two trunks stuffed with baseball cards.

"I've gotten more involved because of Mark," Julia says. "It's more fun when you can share it with somebody."

Sports unify families in these frenetic times. Just the other night, Mark and the two boys searched through his baseball card collection. "It's something you can do without having the stress of everyday life," Mark says.

Watching the news is disheartening. On May 21, a teen-ager shoots his parents, then kills two students and wounds 21 in Springfield, Ore.

"You used to think school was a safe place," Mark says.

What place is? On May 30, the day Mark McGwire hits his 27th home run for the Cardinals, Pakistan detonates an underground nuclear device, following India's lead.

"What are they doing with the bomb?" Mark Polson asks, incredulous. "They shouldn't even have one. As bad as the United States sometimes seems, the rest of the world is just loony."

His wife nods.

"Thank God for baseball."

In 1945, Army Pvt. Zeke Pruneau was stationed in Virginia, expecting a ticket to war, when President Truman ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb.

"We didn't even know what it was," he says, but he was grateful. World War II soon ended, and Zeke returned to Missouri, where he and Gladys raised three children. They didn't go to many Cardinals games then. "Probably couldn't afford it," Zeke says.

Like most families, the Pruneau children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are scattered throughout the country. Their youngest daughter, Martha DeMent, lived just down the street, but she recently moved to Fort Worth because her husband was transferred. Gladys understands, but it saddens her.

"It was nice that she was that close if we needed her."

On June 9, about a week after Martha leaves for Houston, Zeke Pruneau awakens with chest pain. Tests later show he has suffered a mild heart attack. He enters the hospital, then leaves three days later for a family gathering in Kiawah Island, S.C., to celebrate their approaching 60th wedding anniversary. His doctor isn't sure he should go, but Zeke won't miss this trip.

"Some gal said, '60 years? How could you live with one man for 60 years?' " Gladys says. "I told her it's easy when you've got one like I've got."

On June 15, Zeke and Gladys arrive in South Carolina to meet 20 family members, and Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa hits three home runs at Wrigley Field,giving him 24 for the year and 11 for the month.

Watching from his nursing-home room outside Chicago, Chet Kaitis is stunned. When did Sammy Sosa become a slugger? "It was the most surprising thing in the world," he says.

Chet is strapped into a wheelchair to keep from falling. His room contains a bed, tissue box, water pitcher, plant, clock radio and a book of O. Henry stories. Drawings from grandchildren cover the walls, and a photograph of his only great-grandchild sits atop the television. His life consists of politics - he's following the Clinton scandal - and Cubs games.

"This is the end of the world," he says. "Every 30 or 40 days I fall apart, then I get back."

On Father's Day, June 21, Sosa hits another home run, and Chet receives this letter from Nora, his 12-year-old granddaughter:

Dear Grandpa,

I hope your Father's Day is filled with fun, joy and happiness. I have missed you because you are at the [nursing home], but I want you to know I still love you. We all do, and will never give up. I remember all those great memories we had. ... Thank you, Grandpa, for giving a wonderful childhood.

Chet's eyesight is failing, but he reads this letter.

"Over and over."

When the baseball season began, Annerys Cano and Jhoanna Maldonado were more interested in merengue dancing and the Chicago Bulls. The Cubs? The Cubs were a joke.

Nobody's laughing now.

It's the end of June, and Sammy Sosa has just completed the greatest month of home-run hitting in major-league history. He hit 20 in June alone. This from a player whose previous best was 40 - for the season. Mark McGwire's home-run lead has been reduced to four, 37 to 33.

Annerys and Jhoanna are 13-year-old cousins. Both were born in the United States, but both identify more with the Dominican Republic, homeland of their parents - and Sosa. They are among 8,000 people in Chicago with Dominican ties.

Everywhere they go in their neighborhood, they see Sosa T-shirts, Sosa signs, Sosa photos.

"Cual es tu favorito?" Annerys asks her little brother, Giancarlo.

"Sammy."

No interpretation needed.

"It feels good to have somebody who can be a representative for Dominicans," says Annerys, a lithe, 5-foot-5 girl who hopes to be a model. "People say they don't know about the Dominican Republic. They only know about Puerto Rico and Mexico. Now a lot of people are finding out about us."

Just walk around the city. Look at all the Anglo boys wearing Sosa's name and No. 21 on their backs. No longer will Annerys have to open her social studies textbook to show classmates a map.

"You're from the Dominican?" they ask her now. "Cool."

With less than a third the land mass of Arkansas, with not much more than the population of New York City, the Dominican Republic caught baseball fever long ago. The tiny country has produced a steady supply of major-league players, from Hall of Famer Juan Marichal to Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez.

L But none has captured America's imagination like Sammy Sosa.

He gestures more than a third-base coach. He points to the bleacher bums in right field, clenching his fist and tapping his chest, above his heart. When he hits a home run, he skips in the air, as if he's about to take flight, kisses two fingers for his mother, thumps his chest again, and spreads two fingers in the air, a gesture for Harry Caray, the late Cubs announcer.

A striking contrast: McGwire, the red-headed Goliath, product of a California suburb, casts a Ruthian shadow, representing baseball's past. He plays with the burden of great expectations. "I feel like a caged animal," he complains in June.

Sosa, the ever-smiling Latin who shined shoes as a boy for pocket change, plays with the joy of unexpected great fortune. He's the future; Hispanics represent the fastest-growing minority America. "Baseball's been bery, bery good to me" is his playful refrain. He takes the game seriously, but not himself.

"You see Sammy now, you feel like we have a chance to do it, too, to be successful," Jhoanna says. "You feel you can actually do something."

Now this is a deal. In Henderson, Ky., at the end of June, a co-worker offers Andy Gossett his choice of Cardinals tickets. It will be the Gossetts' first major-league game as a family.

Andy selects Sept. 8, Cardinals vs. Cubs. Hot dog! His children will see Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa on the same field.

Andy, 32, and his wife, Cheryl, 28, live in a rural area just south of Henderson, about three hours from St. Louis. Andy followed the Cardinals as a youngster, but he grew disenchanted with baseball after the 1994 strike.

The home runs brought him back.

So did the men who hit them.

It's difficult raising young children in the summer of 1998. The Gossetts take theirs - Beth, 8, and Alex, 5 - to church. They turn off the television when the news comes on, especially now, when talk of blue dresses and DNA evidence fills the airwaves. The heroes Andy and Cheryl knew, cowboys like Roy Rogers, astronauts like Alan Shepard, are dying.

One day, Beth asked: Mommy, what does sex mean? A friend at school told her the word.

"I had to tell her it's something for grown-ups to discuss, and she's not old enough to understand it," Cheryl says. "I just never imagined I'd have to explain that to my second-grader."

The Gossetts want Beth and Alex to know about McGwire and Sosa, and not only because they are sports stars. When he signed with the Cardinals last September, McGwire said he would donate $1 million for three straight years to help abused and neglected children. Sosa has given computers to schools in the Dominican Republic and opened a baseball school there.

And get this: They pull for each other.

"If people across America want to say I'm a role model, for adults and kids, so be it," McGwire says.

On July 12, he homers twice. It's the quickest a player has ever reached 40 home runs in a season.

The next day, the Gossetts leave on vacation to Daytona, Fla., where they visit Sea World. Their father shoots baskets to win a stuffed whale for Beth and a stuffed alligator for Alex.

Four days later, on July 17, McGwire again homers twice - Nos. 41 and 42 - and Sosa smacks No. 36. Secret Service officers testify before the grand jury investigating President Clinton. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a peak of 9,338.

And in Affton, Mo., in her 31st week of pregnancy, Julia Polson goes into early labor.

Gladys Pruneau shouts at her president. "You stupid fool! Why didn't you tell the truth to start with?"

It is Aug. 17. She and husband Zeke watch President Clinton's televised admission that he had a relationship with a White House intern. Zeke never thought it was true. He's disappointed. Gladys is angry, but she faults the Republicans, too.

In Chicago, Chet Kaitis shakes his head and wonders.

"Why are people so dumb?"

Mark and Julia Polson watch at her mother's house.

Last month's scare for them is over. Doctors halted Julia's early labor with medication, but a Caesarean-section may be required because the fetus is positioned for a breech delivery.

Julia is disgusted with the president. "He's a dirty rotten skunk." Mark's just bored. He changes the station. Better to watch baseball.

There's never been a season like this. America is home-run crazy. From Aug. 19 through the end of the month, McGwire and Sosa hit a combined total of 16 home runs in 13 games. They end the month tied at 55.

Every time events in Washington force the nation to hang its head, McGwire and Sosa make us look up to see where another baseball is landing. The only spin that matters is on a curve ball.

McGwire catches fire.

Two homers on Sept. 1. Nos. 56 and 57.

Two more the next night. Nos. 58 and 59.

Andy Gossett, who works for a financial equipment company, is in Tulsa on business, listening to the games on the radio, when he realizes that McGwire could hit No. 62 on the night his family will be at the Cardinals-Cubs game.

Sosa homers on Sept. 2, then he does it again two days later. He has 57, just two behind McGwire.

In Chicago, Annerys Cano and Jhoanna Maldonado are following every pitch. Come on, Sammy, catch him! The sports anchors talk about the pressure on McGwire. Try hitting a home run with the entire Dominican Republic counting on you.

"I won't be disappointed if he doesn't win," Annerys says. "He's done so well."

On Sept. 5, the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, McGwire joins Ruth and Maris as the only major-leaguers ever to hit 60 in a season. He pumps his hand in the air. The same day, Sosa hits No. 58.

Mark and Julia Polson have tickets for the next game, a hellishly hot Sunday afternoon. Her mother warns her - What if you go into labor? - but Julia wants to be there. She wears her Cardinal-red maternity top. Halfway through the game, she's suffering and leaves her seat to find ice cream.

McGwire hits a long fly that curves foul. He finishes the day stuck on 60. Mark and Julia return home. He's disappointed. She's not. Julia's Caesarean-section is scheduled in two days - it's a girl, the doctors say - and she has a premonition.

"He's going to do it on the baby's birthday."

At 5:30 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 8, Mark and Julia Polson leave their Affton, Mo., home for the hospital. The surgery begins at 7:30 a.m.

Alyeen Casey Polson is born at 8:06 a.m.

But there's a problem. Alyeen is breathing fast, too fast, and she's whisked away. It could be fluid in the lungs, or it could represent something even more serious.

"We had no idea," Mark says.

Four hours later, near Henderson, Ky., Andy and Cheryl Gossett pull Beth and Alex out of school and drive to St. Louis. Andy feels curiously nervous. The day before, McGwire slammed his 61st home run, tying the record. Through sheer luck, his family could be there for No. 62. But it's their only chance. It has to happen tonight.

About 4 p.m., in Crystal City, Mo., Zeke and Gladys Pruneau leave for the ballpark, wearing matching red shirts with the Cardinals logo. They hope to arrive in time for batting practice. It's not their anniversary, not for a week, but they're celebrating anyway.

By the time batting practice begins, Alyeen Casey Polson's breathing has settled -- and so has her parents'. The newborn is moved into her mother's room.

"OK, what time's the game on?" Mark wonders aloud.

The Gossetts find their seats, down the third-base line. Like much of the crowd, they wear Cardinals T-shirts with McGwire's name and No. 25 on the back. Beth waves red-and-white pom-poms. Young Alex swings a red miniature baseball bat.

Game time is 7:10 p.m.

When McGwire comes to the plate in the first, the crowd stands and flashbulbs explode. He crouches, waving his bat like a metronome, his face a squinty glare of concentration. He grounds out to shortstop.

Andy Gossett returns to his seat, disappointed.

Tonight. It has to be tonight. He wants the kids to see this.

McGwire next bats in the fourth inning. A batboy brings specially marked balls to the umpire. The entire Gossett family stands on their seats.

It is 8:18 p.m.

Cubs starter Steve Trachsel throws a first-pitch fastball.

McGwire coils.

"Swing - and a shot into the corner!" the radio announcer yells. "It might make it! There it is - 62, folks!"

Andy Gossett can't see the ball. He only hears the crowd. For 10 minutes people cheer. Fireworks. Explosions. Streamers. Son Alex covers his ears. McGwire rounds the bases, almost missing first, and when he reaches home plate, he lifts his 10-year-old son in the air and kisses him. He leaps over a railing and hugs the children of Roger Maris. A huge banner unfurls in center field -- a drawing of McGwire and a bright red 62.

Sammy Sosa tiptoes in from right field, tentatively, as if he's unsure whether to crash this party. McGwire spots him, and they embrace in a bear hug.

"Sammy Sosa," McGwire says into a microphone. "Unbelievable class."

Zeke Pruneau leans over and gives Gladys a kiss. Later in the game, when the giant message board congratulates them for 60 years of marriage, he's in the bathroom. They get a good laugh out of that.

In a St. Louis hospital room, Alyeen Casey Polson sleeps unaware as her tired parents cheer the home run on television. Julia describes the game in Alyeen's baby book, right after, "President Clinton's in trouble. I'll tell you why when you're 21."

The Gossetts stay the entire game. They sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." They nearly catch a foul ball. They watch the post-game celebration, when McGwire receives a red '62 Corvette.

On the way to their car, close to midnight, Andy Gossett repeats something he told his children earlier. They are tired, but this is important, so he tells them again.

"Don't ever forget this."

Three days after the historic home run, on Sept. 11, independent counsel Kenneth Starr's report is released. Gladys Pruneau tosses her newspaper account in the recycling bin without reading it. In Kentucky, Andy Gossett scans a few sections on the Internet, then makes sure his children don't watch the news. In Chicago, Jhoanna Maldonado yawns. "Let it go."

There's other news in Chicago this day. Sammy Sosa has hit another home run.

The race isn't over.

He homers again the next day. And hits two more the next, giving him 62, tying McGwire. It happens so fast that the baseball powers appear caught off guard. There is no ceremony for Sosa, no 10-minute ovation, no fireworks, no sports car.

Watching at home, Jhoanna Maldonado wonders why.

"He deserves something," she says.

But Jhoanna, like Sosa, refuses to cite race as a factor. This has been too much fun to let bitterness intrude. Let McGwire hit 100 home runs. Give him 10 Corvettes. You can't diminish Sammy.

"There's a lot of American people of different races - white, black, Asian - who are supporting him," she says. "I just think they were surprised that he did it that soon."

The Cubs respond. The final home game, Sunday, Sept. 20, will be Sammy Sosa Day at Wrigley Field. He'll get his ceremony, his ovation, his sports car. Jhoanna and Annerys would love to go, but tickets are gone.

Never mind. This is the summer when anything can happen.

A friend from the Dominican Republic tourism department calls. Some rich businessman has two spare tickets. Are the girls interested?

On game day, Jhoanna and Annerys buy matching Sosa jerseys and meet Gary Wells at the fire station near the ballpark. He's not the billionaire they imagine, just a sales manager with a soft spot for Sammy Sosa.

"This is such a special year," he says. "It's about giving something back."

The girls join Wells in the first row of the upper deck, above the Cubs dugout. They see Sosa's family. They hear the Dominican anthem sung by Juan Luis Guerra, a popular merengue singer. They stand as Sosa jogs a victory lap around the field.

And everywhere they look - lining the top of the stadium, from a light pole beyond center field, on an apartment house across from the ballpark, in the hands of Ernie Banks, the most famous Cub of all - they see Dominican Republic flags. Big ones. Small ones. Everywhere.

"I've never seen so many flags," Jhoanna says.

Now people will know. They are not from Puerto Rico, or Mexico, Cuba. They are from the Dominican Republic, a country with its own food, accent and culture. And, now, its very own American hero.

The girls wave their own Dominican flag. They join the chorus.

"SAM-MEE! SAM-MEE! SAM-MEE!"

In the seventh inning of the game, the children of Roger Maris lead the Wrigley Field crowd in the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." While her husband watches from his wheelchair, Ruth Kaitis quietly sings along in his nursing-home room.

"So it's root, root, root for the

Cub-bies ..."

Ruth visits Chet every day, usually from 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., and they often watch the Cubs. It's now one of their greatest joys.

"You just take the cards in the deck that God deals to you," Ruth says. "I thank God for the 55 wonderful years we've had. Not everyone can say that. In any marriage there's going to be a test."

Chet looks up. He smiles.

"I'd like to skip this test."

He needs a miracle.

There once was a summer when two men hit more home runs than Ruth and Maris, when St. Louis Cardinals fans stood and cheered for a player on the despised Chicago Cubs, when the biggest news of the day was not a president's misdeeds but whether Big Mac or Sammy nailed another one.

Miracles happen, you know.

Chet looks at Ruth.

"I'm going to lick this."

The season doesn't end. Not yet.

It gets better.

Sosa homers twice on Sept. 23, tying McGwire at 65. When Jhoanna Maldonado's father tells her after school, she screams.

"You OK?" he asks.

"You don't understand. Sammy's my man!"

Two days later, Sosa announces he has established a foundation to help Dominican victims of Hurricane Georges, which has ravaged the country. Then he hits another home run. So does McGwire.

Tied again, both with 66.

Then, finally, decisively, McGwire pulls away.

Two homers on the next-to-last day of the season.

Two more on the last day.

70.

Gladys Pruneau misses that one. Her Missouri church is celebrating its fall festival, and she's scheduled to work. She doesn't mind.

"We've asked an awful lot of the Lord the last six months," she says. "He has answered our prayers."

The best summer ever ends with 5-year-old Alex Gossett pleading with his father.

"Come on," he whines. "Let's play."

"OK, get your bat."

In the front yard of his Kentucky home, Alex digs in. He crouches, waving his bat like a metronome. His father pitches. Swing and a miss.

"Throw another one."

This time Alex connects, and the ball takes off, a rocket line drive that flies over the wooden fence, bounds across the street and settles in a neighbor's yard.

Alex looks at his father. He remembers. He will always remember.

"That's 59," he says, tapping the ground with his bat. "Let's do it again."

Pub Date: 10/04/98