![]() ![]() "It was the aftermath that was so hard to explain. "The fun was gone after the '61 season," Maris said, 20 years after the fact. ![]() That figurative asterisk - a separate category created for records set in 162-game, rather than 154-game, seasons - was his scarlet punctuation mark. Maris, you see, made a horrible mistake for which - by most accounts - he paid bitterly the rest of his life. It's a safe bet most of the crowd did the same. What matters is that I remember cheering all of Mantle's homers and booing Maris as though he were the incarnation of some evil principle. Whether the record book would say such a five-homer day ever happened I neither know nor care. Memory says that during one Sunday doubleheader in Washington, Maris hit two home runs and Mickey Mantle hit three. I knew for certain how to feel about this Mr. My finger was on the baseball pulse then as it never again will be. And no fan is more serious or certain than a 13-year-old. When I was 13 years old in 1961, I hated Roger Maris. No baseball player in history ever has had his accomplishments so denigrated or received such criticism for the sin of having performed too well. ![]() When he died Saturday of cancer at the age of 51, that ridiculous asterisk still was beside his name in the record book of the public mind. Right to the end, Maris never caught a break. Wasn't that the moral of Roger Maris' career? Mortal men can be crushed by immortal deeds. Please, don't let it befall Steve Balboni or Tom Brunansky that either should hit 62 home runs. For that, we'd probably be forgiven.įor Christmas, let us hope that, next baseball season, neither Brett Butler nor Kirby Puckett hits safely in 57 consecutive games. Each was dogged by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use.Heaven protect us from achieving a greatness that the world decides we do not deserve.īetter that we do evil, then repent. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants topped McGwire's season mark with 73 home run in 2001. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa (66) of the Chicago Cubs topped Maris’ 61. In 1991, an MLB committee on historical accuracy voted to remove the distinction and award the record fully to Maris, who died of cancer in 1985. For the 1961 season, the American League expanded its schedule from 154 to 162 games after it went from eight to 10 teams. On July 17, 1961, MLB commissioner Ford Frick announced at a news conference that record keepers should have two separate categories for a season home run record-one for Ruth's, set during a 154-game season, and one for any record set in a 162-game season. Maris trotted around the bases, stopping to shake hands with a young boy who’d managed to wriggle past security and onto the field. Sal Durante, a 19-year-old Brooklyn truck driver, caught the home run ball about 10 rows back in the right-field stands. He let two pitches from Boston rookie Tracy Stallard go-one high and outside, one low and inside-before swinging hard at a waist-high fastball. “An ear-splitting roar went up,” the New York Times reported, as “the crowd sensed that this was it.” Maris homered on his second at-bat in the 1-0 win against the Boston Red Sox. READ MORE: The Epic Battle to Beat Babe Ruth's Home Run Record He tops former Yankees great Babe Ruth, who hit 60 home runs in 1927.Īfter hitting 54 homers, New York's Mickey Mantle suffered a hip in September, leaving Maris to chase the record by himself. On October 1, 1961, in New York's final game of the regular season, Yankees slugger Roger Maris hits his 61st home run, becoming the first player in Major League Baseball to hit more than 60 in a season. ![]()
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