Columnist Dean Juipe: McGwire flips as pressure starts to build

THE STRESS is building and building and building. It's still only June and Mark McGwire is acting like he's starting to crack.

At a time when he should be ecstatic, he's withdrawn.

And rather than rejoice in his home-run production and the attention directed his way, he's snivelling.

Is this the same man who until last week was thought to be bulletproof?

That was how he was portrayed for weeks as he rocketed from the launching pad at the outset of the season on a home-run pace unmatched in history. Steady. Quiet. Dependable. Those were said to be McGwire's primary personal characteristics and they were thought to be attributes that would serve him well under ever-increasing public scrutiny.

But in the space of a few days McGwire has suffered a meltdown. Now he's playing the role of an off-the-wall Humpty Dumpty.

Suddenly he's reluctant to come out for batting practice.

If the St. Louis Cardinals have access to a psychiatrist, they need to schedule McGwire for an appointment. If he's actually afraid to take BP, he's losing it.

He's also scaling back the media's access to him, but that's OK. It's grueling to do interview after interview, day after day, when all of the questions focus on the fans' fascination with snapping Roger Maris' 1961 record of 61 home runs in a single season.

McGwire, with 33 home runs in 75 games, is well ahead of Maris' pace despite not hitting one Tuesday night, or Monday, or Sunday, or Saturday, or Friday. In fact, for the first time this year he has gone two series and 20 official at-bats without a dinger, having been blanked again Tuesday in the Cardinals' 8-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers.

Nonetheless, if he stays on pace he'll hit 68. (Maris had 27 home runs on this date in 1961, and 29 in the New York Yankees' first 75 games that year.)

The best thing McGwire could do is listen to Bobby Knight's distant advice and relax and enjoy it -- no matter how difficult it seems.

Instead: "People just think I came in from outer space," he said last week in Houston, where some 20,000 spectators arrived early to see his batting-practice exploits for themselves. "It's out of control. It's ridiculous."

Rather than go with the flow, McGwire began not only tempering his batting practice but skipping it altogether. Rather than feed off the fans and be charged by their excitement, he's opting for escape.

The updated McGwire policy on BP: It's hit or miss on whether he takes it, and there will never be any advance notice either way.

Well that's just great. Here's the guy leading a much needed revival of interest in baseball and a player in the midst of what could well become the most fabled personal-stat season in history, and suddenly he's Chicken Little.

Maris lost his hair as the 1961 season progressed and he closed in on Babe Ruth's one-season record, and now McGwire has flipped his lid with three months still to play.

He needs an adjustment. He needs to enjoy the highlight year of his career.

Or maybe he just needs the Cubs' Sammy Sosa to pass him in the home-run derby and take that unbearable pressure off his slumping shoulders.

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