61*

The month of September brings us the equinox, and the beginning of fall, at least, on this side of the equator. The month of October ends with the celebration of Halloween, a celebration of interest to me because it coincides with my birthday. In between these two dates we find a date of significance that is not often remembered. It is October 1, 1961. On that date, Roger Eugene Maris broke Babe Ruth’s record (from 1927) of 60 home runs in one season. In the fourth inning, during the last regular game of the season, and in front of a little more than 23,000 fans, Maris nailed a pitch from Boston Red Sox pitcher Tracy Stallard, sending it into the right field bleachers for home run number 61 of the season.

The home run was controversial at the time, primarily because Babe Ruth, who died in 1948, still had friends in Major League Baseball. The most significant friend was Ford Frick, the commissioner of baseball, and a friend to Ruth’s widow, Claire. Frick saw himself as the protector of the Ruth legacy, and he found a way to discredit Maris’ achievement even before it happened.

In Ruth’s day, the baseball season was 154 games long. In 1961, the league was expanded to ten teams with the addition of the Los Angeles Angels and the Washington Senators. In order to balance the schedule, the season was extended to 162 games. Frick announced at a mid-season press conference that, in his opinion, Ruth’s record would stand unless it was broken in 154 games. Any home run past 60, hit in any game after the 154th, should contain some “distinctive mark” in the record books, indicating that it was set in the “extended” season. While Frick himself did not suggest that the record be marked with an asterisk, Dick Young, a sportswriter for the New York Daily News, proposed the asterisk as the “distinctive mark”. Major League Baseball did not control “the record books” at that time, so Frick’s suggestion of a “distinctive mark” was just that, a suggestion that Maris’ record should occupy a different category than Ruth’s.

The controversy hides the remarkable nature of the achievement. The Ruth record stood for 34 years, and Ruth came close to that record only one other time in his career, in 1921, when he hit 59 home runs. He hit 54 home runs twice more in his career (1920, 1928). Aside from those four years, Ruth was never in the 50s with respect to home runs. (In Ruth’s day, what we now call an “automatic double,” a ball that hit the ground in the outfield then bounced over the fence, was considered a home run. I have been assured that none of Ruth’s 1927 home runs came that way, but I do not know whether any of his other three seasons of 50 plus home runs contains “automatic double” homers.) All major league players recognized how difficult it would be to tie the Ruth record, much less best it.

The 50 Home Run Club, made up of players who had hit 50 or more home runs in a season, contained, in 1961, only eight members: Ruth, Hack Wilson, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenburg, Johnny Mize, Ralph Kiner, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle. Foxx and Greenburg led the pack of runners up with 58 home runs each (in 1932 and 1938, respectively). Mantle hit 52 home runs in 1956, and he would end the 1961 season with 54 homers. It was an exclusive club, one difficult to break into. Sixty home runs seemed like a dream.

Yet both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were in the running to break Ruth’s record in 1961. Late in the season, Mickey Mantle was sidelined with a hip infection. He had no regular season at bats after September 26, 1961. As noted above, he finished the regular season with 54 home runs. It would have been a fantastic season if Mantle had remained healthy.

The 1961 New York Yankees was blessed with its “Murderer’s Row” of heavy hitters. In addition to Mantle(CF) and Maris(RF), the heart of the lineup contained Moose Skowron(1B), Yogi Berra(LF), and Elston Howard(C). For the most part, Maris was third in the lineup, followed by Mantle, Berra, and Skowron. Opposing pitchers did not have the luxury to pitch around Maris, so he saw some pretty good pitches.

At any rate, the 154th game passed with Maris at 59 home runs (September 20). He hit number 60 on September 26 (game number 158), and the 61st on October 1 (game number 162).

In my opinion, Maris’ achievement should never have been marred with the suggestion that it wasn’t in the same category as Ruth’s. For one thing, Ruth didn’t have to travel all the way to Los Angeles to play a game. Travel does tend to wear on the body. The addition of eight games to the schedule seems to have had no effect on any other records. By the time Hank Aaron broke Ruth’s total home runs record (714) in April of 1974, there was no suggestion that an asterisk or other distinctive mark was necessary to denote that some of Aaron’s home runs had occurred during extended seasons. The same holds for single season hits, or walks, or stolen bases, etc. I believe that Maris was the target of an unfair discrimination that would not occur today.

Curiously enough, Maris is still not in the baseball Hall of Fame. I understand why: except for 1961, he really didn’t turn in hall of fame quality years. However, 61 home runs in a season is, in my opinion, enough to overcome the mediocrity of some of his baseball career. He should be in the Hall of Fame.

His achievement still stands, in my opinion. Oh, I know, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds have hit more home runs in a season, and the record books even note that Bonds has beaten Aaron’s record of most home runs (755). I put a great big asterisk next to each of those records, with the qualifier: “These so-called records were set with the aid of performance enhancing drugs.” They are not records in my record book.

The decade of the nineties was a terrible time for baseball. Were I the King of Baseball, there would be no players from that decade inducted into the Hall of Fame, and no records from that decade entered into the record book. It is my sincere hope that Major League Baseball has the performance enhancing drug epidemic under control. Unfortunately, it comes too late for me.

My interest in baseball began its death spiral after the revelations of steroid abuse. But my admiration for Maris, Mantle, and all the other true athletes of the pre-drug era, increased substantially.

So, on Tuesday, October 1, 2019, I will stop and remember with awe the accomplishment of Roger Maris back on that Autumn day some 58 years ago.