It was nice to see St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire displace some of the gloomy news on the front page earlier this week.

McGwire broke the single season home run record held by Roger Maris since 1961. But, of course, unless you live in a cave, you already knew that.

You already knew that because it grabbed the attention of a nation numb from bad news.

The scandals in Washington. The Asian financial crisis. The Wall Street uncertainty. The crumbling Russian political and economic scene. To top it off, a jetliner falls out of the sky.

So when McGwire broke the record, it was very uplifting for all of us.

The game Tuesday night drew a 12.9 rating. That equates to about 42 million viewers.

That's only about half of what the Super Bowl draws, but it's still a lot of people.

Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a huge baseball fan. I watch a few games a year, mainly late in the season and during the playoffs and World Series.

I am not like the sports guys here in the office. They know all the players' shoe sizes.

My favorite team is the Cardinals, but I can't name all the players on the team or even all the starting pitchers.

I am a Cardinals fan because my dad was a Cardinals fan. When he was a kid, he lived for a time in Panama, Ill. That's why he was a Cardinals fan. (Later, he moved to Wisconsin, where he met my mom. That's why I am a fan of the Green Bay Packers.)

So anyway, I grew up liking the Cardinals and it made me very happy when Mark McGwire broke the home run record.

For a while, I was concerned that Sammy Sosa of the Cubs would break the record first.

That would have disappointed me. I really don't like the Cubs. Everybody knows that Cardinals fans don't like the Cubs. The thought of a Cub overtaking a Cardinal in the home run race is quite distasteful.

Now, even if Sosa passes McGwire and ends up with the record - which is possible - it was still McGwire who broke the Maris record.

Don't get me wrong. I think Sosa is a class act, just like McGwire. I'm just glad McGwire got to 62 first.

Another thing that I'm glad about is that he did it in the Cardinals' 144th game of the season.

Babe Ruth, who hit 60 home runs, did it in a 154-game season. It took Roger Maris 162 games to hit 61.

So there was this huge asterisk by Maris' record. After all, he got an extra eight games to break Ruth's record.

With McGwire, there will be no asterisk. No second guessing. Just an amazing achievement.

When you start to think about it, it really becomes mind boggling.

It is difficult to hit home runs in the major leagues these days. More difficult, I think, than it was in the days of Ruth and Maris.

There were fewer pitchers in those days. Ruth and Maris faced the same guys over and over.

McGwire hit his 62 home runs off 57 different pitchers.

In the days of Ruth and Maris, pitchers stayed in the game longer. There were a lot more complete games pitched. There were no "specialists" like middle relievers and closers.

McGwire faced some of the toughest pitching in history.

For him to hit all those homers in this day and age truly boggles my mind.

McGwire's 62 homers came in 448 at bats. That means he hit a home run every 7.22 times at bat. If you factor only McGwire's homers into his batting average, he was batting .138.

That is almost unbelievable. The guy had more homers than singles.

McGwire truly makes the seemingly impossible look commonplace.

But I think the best thing about McGwire's record-breaking year is the effect it has had on America.

People like me, who are not diehard baseball fans, got involved because it was such a compelling story to watch unfold.

The fact that Sosa is in the race made it more compelling.

Then McGwire hit his 61st homer on his dad's 61st birthday.

The pitcher who gave up Maris' 61st homer - in 1961 - turned 61 this year.

McGwire's enthusiastic hugging of his 10-year-old batboy son is indelibly stamped in the minds of millions.

So is his heartfelt "happy birthday" to his dad and his huddle with the Maris family.

And don't forget that McGwire gives a million dollars a year to charity and has taken no endorsement money.

If a producer in Hollywood had to write a script about a guy breaking the record, he couldn't have outdone the reality of McGwire.

Yes, Tuesday was a rare day in the Gerard house. The whole family was sitting in the living room watching a baseball game together. We had a great time.

These days it's tough to get families together in the same room for anything - except maybe supper.

But McGwire pulled us together. I am sure the scene in our living room was played out all over America.

So thank you, Mr. McGwire, for uniting us with something fun, wholesome and exciting.

That's a rare commodity in today's America. [[In-content Ad]]