ROGER MARIS
Name: Roger Maris
Born: 10 September 1934
Died: 14 December 1985
Roger Eugene Maris (September 10, 1934 - December 14, 1985) was an American
right fielder in Major League Baseball who is primarily remembered for breaking
Babe Ruth's single-season home run record in 1961, a record that would stand for
37 years. In twelve Major League seasons, he participated in seven World Series.
The son of Croatian immigrants, he was born as Roger Eugene Maras (he later
changed his last name to Maris) in Hibbing, Minnesota. He grew up in Grand Forks
and Fargo, North Dakota where he attended Shanley High School. A gifted athlete,
Maris participated in many sports while in Fargo, and excelled at football. He
still holds the official high school record for most kickoff return touchdowns
in a game with four.
At an early age, Maris exhibited an independent, no-nonsense personality.
Recruited to play football at the University of Oklahoma, he arrived by bus in
Norman and found no one from the university there to greet him. He turned around
and went back to Fargo.
Even in the minor leagues, Maris showed talent for both offense and defense. He
tied for the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League lead in putouts by an outfielder with
305 while playing for Keokuk in 1954. Meanwhile, in four minor league seasons (1953-1956)
Maris hit .303 with 78 home runs.
Maris made his major league debut in 1957 with the Cleveland Indians. The next
year, he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics, whom he represented in the All-Star
Game in 1959 in spite of missing 45 games due to an appendix operation.
Kansas City frequently traded its best players to the New York Yankees — which
led them to be referred to as the Yankees' "major league farm team" — and Maris
was no exception, going to New York in a seven-player trade in December 1959. In
1960, his first full season with the Yankees, despite the already-nagging media,
he led the league in slugging percentage, runs batted in, and extra base hits
and finished second in home runs (1 behind Mickey Mantle) and total bases. He
was recognized as an outstanding defensive outfielder with a Gold Glove Award,
and also won the American League's Most Valuable Player award.
In 1961, the American League expanded from 8 to 10 teams, generally watering
down the pitching, but leaving the Yankees pretty much intact. Also the season
was extended from 154 games to 162 games. Yankee home runs began to come at a
record pace. One famous photograph lined up six 1961 Yankee players, including
Mantle, Maris, Yogi Berra, and Bill Skowron, under the nickname "Murderers Row,"
because they hit a combined 207 home runs that year. The title "Murderers Row",
originally coined in 1918, had most famously been used to refer to the Yankees
side of the late 1920s. As mid-season approached, it seemed quite possible that
either Maris or Mantle, or perhaps both, would break Babe Ruth's 34-year-old
home run record. Unlike the home run race of 1998, in which the competition
between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa was given extensive positive media coverage,
sportswriters in 1961 began to play the "M & M Boys" against each other,
inventing a rivalry where none existed, as Yogi Berra has testified in recent
interviews.
Five years earlier, in 1956, Mantle had already challenged Ruth's record for
most of the season and the New York press had been protective of Ruth on that
occasion also. When Mantle finally fell short, finishing with 52, there seemed
to be a collective sigh of relief from the New York traditionalists. Nor had the
New York press been all that kind to Mantle in his early years with the team: he
struck out frequently, was injury prone, was a true "hick" from Oklahoma, and
was perceived as being distinctly inferior to his predecessor in center field,
Joe DiMaggio. Over the course of time, however, Mantle (with a little help from
his teammate Whitey Ford, a native of New York's Borough of Queens) had gotten
better at "schmoozing" with the New York media, and had gained the favor of the
press. This was a talent that Maris, a blunt-spoken upper midwesterner, never
attempted to cultivate; as a result, he wore the "surly" jacket for his duration
with the Yankees.
So as 1961 progressed, the Yanks were now "Mickey Mantle's team" and Maris was
ostracized as the "outsider", and "not a true Yankee." The press seemed to root
for Mantle and to belittle Maris. But Mantle was felled by a leg infection late
in the season, leaving Maris as the only player with a chance to break the
record.
On top of his lack of popular press coverage, Maris' chase for 61 hit another
roadblock totally out of his control: along with adding two teams to the league,
Major League Baseball had added 8 games to the schedule. In the middle of the
season, Baseball commissioner Ford Frick announced that unless Ruth's record was
broken in the first 154 games of the season, the new record would be shown in
the record books as having been set in 162 games while the previous record set
in 154 games would also be shown. It is an urban legend, probably invented by
New York sportswriter Dick Young, that an asterisk would be used to distinguish
the new record.
According to Nash and Zullo in The Baseball Hall of Shame, Frick made the ruling
because, during his days as a newspaper reporter, he had been a close friend of
Ruth's. Furthermore, Rogers Hornsby--himself a lifetime .358 batter--compared
the averages (In Ruth's record year he hit .356; Maris, .269)--and said, "It
would be a disappointment if Ruth's home run record were bested by a .270 hitter."
(Hornsby's old-time bias was well-known. Scouting for the Mets, the best report
he could muster for any current player was "Looks like a major-leaguer". That
was his assessment of Mickey Mantle.) Maris couldn't understand such a
perspective; he said, "I'm not trying to be Babe Ruth; I'm trying to hit sixty-one
home runs and be Roger Maris." (This sentiment would be echoed in 1973-1974,
when Henry Aaron, in pursuit of Ruth's career record, said, "I don't want people
to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember Henry Aaron.")
Maris failed to reach 61 in 154 games (he had only 59 after 154 games). He hit
his 61st on October 1, 1961, in the fourth inning of the last game of the season,
a sparsely attended contest between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in New
York. The Red Sox pitcher was Evan Tracy Stallard. No asterisk was subsequently
used in any record books—Major League baseball itself had no official record
book, and Frick later acknowledged that there never was official qualification
of Maris' accomplishment. However, Maris remained bitter about the experience.
Speaking at the 1980 All-Star game, he said of that season, "They acted as
though I was doing something wrong, poisoning the record books or something. Do
you know what I have to show for 61 home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing."
Despite all the controversy, Maris was awarded the 1961 Hickok Belt for the top
professional athlete of the year, as well as winning the American League's MVP
Award for the second straight year. It is said, however, that the stress of
pursuing the record was so great for Maris that his hair occasionally fell out
in clumps during the season. Later Maris even surmised that it might have been
better all along had he not broken the record or even threatened it at all.
Maris' major league record would stand three years longer than Ruth's did, until
Mark McGwire broke it by hitting 70 in 1998. The record is currently held by
Barry Bonds who hit 73 home runs in 2001. Maris remains the American League
record holder through the 2007 season.
Name: Roger Maris
Born: 10 September 1934
Died: 14 December 1985
Roger Eugene Maris (September 10, 1934 - December 14, 1985) was an American
right fielder in Major League Baseball who is primarily remembered for breaking
Babe Ruth's single-season home run record in 1961, a record that would stand for
37 years. In twelve Major League seasons, he participated in seven World Series.
The son of Croatian immigrants, he was born as Roger Eugene Maras (he later
changed his last name to Maris) in Hibbing, Minnesota. He grew up in Grand Forks
and Fargo, North Dakota where he attended Shanley High School. A gifted athlete,
Maris participated in many sports while in Fargo, and excelled at football. He
still holds the official high school record for most kickoff return touchdowns
in a game with four.
At an early age, Maris exhibited an independent, no-nonsense personality.
Recruited to play football at the University of Oklahoma, he arrived by bus in
Norman and found no one from the university there to greet him. He turned around
and went back to Fargo.
Even in the minor leagues, Maris showed talent for both offense and defense. He
tied for the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League lead in putouts by an outfielder with
305 while playing for Keokuk in 1954. Meanwhile, in four minor league seasons (1953-1956)
Maris hit .303 with 78 home runs.
Maris made his major league debut in 1957 with the Cleveland Indians. The next
year, he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics, whom he represented in the All-Star
Game in 1959 in spite of missing 45 games due to an appendix operation.
Kansas City frequently traded its best players to the New York Yankees — which
led them to be referred to as the Yankees' "major league farm team" — and Maris
was no exception, going to New York in a seven-player trade in December 1959. In
1960, his first full season with the Yankees, despite the already-nagging media,
he led the league in slugging percentage, runs batted in, and extra base hits
and finished second in home runs (1 behind Mickey Mantle) and total bases. He
was recognized as an outstanding defensive outfielder with a Gold Glove Award,
and also won the American League's Most Valuable Player award.
In 1961, the American League expanded from 8 to 10 teams, generally watering
down the pitching, but leaving the Yankees pretty much intact. Also the season
was extended from 154 games to 162 games. Yankee home runs began to come at a
record pace. One famous photograph lined up six 1961 Yankee players, including
Mantle, Maris, Yogi Berra, and Bill Skowron, under the nickname "Murderers Row,"
because they hit a combined 207 home runs that year. The title "Murderers Row",
originally coined in 1918, had most famously been used to refer to the Yankees
side of the late 1920s. As mid-season approached, it seemed quite possible that
either Maris or Mantle, or perhaps both, would break Babe Ruth's 34-year-old
home run record. Unlike the home run race of 1998, in which the competition
between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa was given extensive positive media coverage,
sportswriters in 1961 began to play the "M & M Boys" against each other,
inventing a rivalry where none existed, as Yogi Berra has testified in recent
interviews.
Five years earlier, in 1956, Mantle had already challenged Ruth's record for
most of the season and the New York press had been protective of Ruth on that
occasion also. When Mantle finally fell short, finishing with 52, there seemed
to be a collective sigh of relief from the New York traditionalists. Nor had the
New York press been all that kind to Mantle in his early years with the team: he
struck out frequently, was injury prone, was a true "hick" from Oklahoma, and
was perceived as being distinctly inferior to his predecessor in center field,
Joe DiMaggio. Over the course of time, however, Mantle (with a little help from
his teammate Whitey Ford, a native of New York's Borough of Queens) had gotten
better at "schmoozing" with the New York media, and had gained the favor of the
press. This was a talent that Maris, a blunt-spoken upper midwesterner, never
attempted to cultivate; as a result, he wore the "surly" jacket for his duration
with the Yankees.
So as 1961 progressed, the Yanks were now "Mickey Mantle's team" and Maris was
ostracized as the "outsider", and "not a true Yankee." The press seemed to root
for Mantle and to belittle Maris. But Mantle was felled by a leg infection late
in the season, leaving Maris as the only player with a chance to break the
record.
On top of his lack of popular press coverage, Maris' chase for 61 hit another
roadblock totally out of his control: along with adding two teams to the league,
Major League Baseball had added 8 games to the schedule. In the middle of the
season, Baseball commissioner Ford Frick announced that unless Ruth's record was
broken in the first 154 games of the season, the new record would be shown in
the record books as having been set in 162 games while the previous record set
in 154 games would also be shown. It is an urban legend, probably invented by
New York sportswriter Dick Young, that an asterisk would be used to distinguish
the new record.
According to Nash and Zullo in The Baseball Hall of Shame, Frick made the ruling
because, during his days as a newspaper reporter, he had been a close friend of
Ruth's. Furthermore, Rogers Hornsby--himself a lifetime .358 batter--compared
the averages (In Ruth's record year he hit .356; Maris, .269)--and said, "It
would be a disappointment if Ruth's home run record were bested by a .270 hitter."
(Hornsby's old-time bias was well-known. Scouting for the Mets, the best report
he could muster for any current player was "Looks like a major-leaguer". That
was his assessment of Mickey Mantle.) Maris couldn't understand such a
perspective; he said, "I'm not trying to be Babe Ruth; I'm trying to hit sixty-one
home runs and be Roger Maris." (This sentiment would be echoed in 1973-1974,
when Henry Aaron, in pursuit of Ruth's career record, said, "I don't want people
to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember Henry Aaron.")
Maris failed to reach 61 in 154 games (he had only 59 after 154 games). He hit
his 61st on October 1, 1961, in the fourth inning of the last game of the season,
a sparsely attended contest between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in New
York. The Red Sox pitcher was Evan Tracy Stallard. No asterisk was subsequently
used in any record books—Major League baseball itself had no official record
book, and Frick later acknowledged that there never was official qualification
of Maris' accomplishment. However, Maris remained bitter about the experience.
Speaking at the 1980 All-Star game, he said of that season, "They acted as
though I was doing something wrong, poisoning the record books or something. Do
you know what I have to show for 61 home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing."
Despite all the controversy, Maris was awarded the 1961 Hickok Belt for the top
professional athlete of the year, as well as winning the American League's MVP
Award for the second straight year. It is said, however, that the stress of
pursuing the record was so great for Maris that his hair occasionally fell out
in clumps during the season. Later Maris even surmised that it might have been
better all along had he not broken the record or even threatened it at all.
Maris' major league record would stand three years longer than Ruth's did, until
Mark McGwire broke it by hitting 70 in 1998. The record is currently held by
Barry Bonds who hit 73 home runs in 2001. Maris remains the American League
record holder through the 2007 season.