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Difficulty - and Simplicity - of a Homer  By Douglas S.
LooneySenior sports columnist of The Christian Science Monitor /
September 11, 1998   The beauty of the hoopla over Mark
McGwire's many-splendored home runs is twofold.  Skip to next
paragraph  It is, all at once, an incredibly easy feat to
understand in its simplicity and an amazingly difficult one to
fathom in its complexity.  McGwire reflected on it himself
earlier this record-setting week when he mused about the
incongruity of using a round bat to hit a round ball with the
goal of connecting squarely. Indeed, compare accomplishing this
feat in front of tens of thousands screaming fans with, say,
hitting a round ball with a flat tennis racket in ordered
silence. No comparison.  That's why it is broadly thought that
the most difficult athletic skill is hitting a baseball. Few who
have tried it will disagree. It's so difficult that most
youngsters give up the sport the first time they see a