Maris Breaks Home Run Record. In 1961 New York Yankees Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were both in the running to break baseball legend Babe Ruth's long-standing single-season record of 60 home runs. Mantle was the more popular player among both fans and the media, but it was Maris who broke the record in the last game of the season, driving his 61st home run into Yankee Stadium's right-field stands. Maris's home run stirred controversy because his record was achieved in a 162-game season, whereas Ruth hit 60 home runs in only 154 games. In 1998 St. Louis Cardinal first baseman Mark McGwire set a new standard. . Maris Breaks Home Run Record He was having one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. But Roger Maris sat in his manager's office one day in late September shaking, crying, and asking to be taken out of the lineup. "I can't stand it anymore," he said. For Maris, the price of success was stress. He was on track to break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, but he had lost sleep and hair, and his nerves were shot. Reporters hounded him, noting his every move and asking questions like, "How's a .260 hitter like you hitting so many home runs?" People rooted against him and in favor of the late, legendary Ruth. Worse, the commissioner of baseball ruled that unless Maris broke the record in the same number of games as Ruth, his mark would be qualified in the record books with an asterisk noting that Maris's achievement was second-rate. In the face of all the pressure, the 27-year-old Maris prevailed. On October 1, 1961, he hit his 61st home run, eclipsing one of the game's most enduring marks and unseating a legend. Maris, a humble, serious man who was uncomfortable in the limelight, was overwhelmed. "I never wanted all the hoopla," he said. "All I wanted is to be a good ballplayer, hit 25 or 30 homers, drive in around a hundred runs, hit .280, and help my club win pennants. I just wanted to be one of the guys, an average player having a good season." In many respects, Maris was an average player. He played in the American Legion leagues before winning a minor-league contract with the Cleveland Indians. In 1957 he broke into the major leagues. The next year he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics and that season hit 28 home runs. Traded to the New York Yankees in 1960, Maris supplied more punch than the Yankees had expected, hitting 39 home runs and driving in 112 runs to win the American League's most valuable player (MVP) award. Still, Maris hardly seemed a threat to challenge the single-season home run record. The mark had been set 34 years earlier by Ruth, the game's preeminent home-run champion and a larger-than-life hero known for his World Series theatrics and off-the-field antics. Maris started the 1961 season poorly. He didn't hit his first home run until the tenth game and finished April batting under .200. But soon he found a groove. He smashed 11 home runs in May, launched 10 more in the first two weeks of June, and kept up the pace all summer. Although he appeared uninterested in records, he drove himself intensely. In a July 25 doubleheader he hit four home runs and then fumed after registering a weak pop-up. "Roger was mad as hell," a teammate said. "He reacted like a guy who'd gone 0 for 20." By the end of July Maris's total reached 40, ahead of Ruth's pace in 1927. Meanwhile, fellow Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle was also on a tear. He entered August with 38 home runs, also ahead of Ruth's pace. The 1961 baseball season became focused on the so-called M&M Boys and their pursuit of the record. Mantle was the people's choice. An established Yankees star in the tradition of Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio, Mantle hit mammoth home runs and charmed fans with his charisma. Maris, relatively unknown, often offered dull responses to reporter's incessant questioning. On hitting home runs: "I just concentrate on my timing and my swing. If some of my hits are homers, so much the better." On playing baseball: "It's a business. If I could make more money down in the zinc mines, I'd be mining zinc." Maris, however, actually benefited from Mantle's ability. He batted third in the lineup, just before Mantle, and was not intentionally walked all season; pitchers threw strikes to Maris to avoid putting him on base with Mantle at the plate. Bothered by an injured hip, Mantle was removed from the lineup in mid-September with 54 long balls, leaving Maris alone in the home-run derby. The pressure increased as a result of a July 17 ruling by Major League Baseball Commissioner Fred Frick that the record would have to be matched or bettered within 154 games, the number of games played in the 1927 season. In 1961, for the first time, American League teams played 162 games. Frick, a friend of Ruth's, said that if the record was broken after 154 games, the total would be marked with an asterisk in the record book. Many people in the world of baseball discussed Frick's interpretation, making the ordeal even more difficult for Maris. Not only did it increase the pressure on him to hit more home runs sooner, it seemed to take away from his achievement. In addition, many fans sided with the commissioner in protecting Ruth's status as baseball's greatest hitter. Maris characteristically responded, "If all I will be entitled to will be an asterisk, it will be all right with me." With the chance to avoid the asterisk, on the 154th game of the season on September 20, Maris ripped home run number 59 in the third inning. In the seventh he hit a towering shot that drifted foul by about 10 feet; he then flew out deep. In the ninth he grounded out on a checked swing. Maris then went three games without a homer, as the pressure became almost unbearable. On September 26 against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium, Maris tied the record with home run number 60. Another three games went by without a Maris home run. But Maris was determined. "Maybe I'm not a great man, but I damn well want to break that record," he said. On the last day of the season the Yankees faced the Boston Red Sox in New York. Maris registered an out in his first at bat. In his second chance, in the fourth inning, facing Tracy Stallard, a rookie right-handed pitcher, Maris belted a drive into the right-field bleachers. With the crowd of more than 25,000 on their feet, Maris greeted his teammates at home plate, retreated into the dugout, and then re-emerged to tip his cap and take four bows. Although he had the asterisk, Maris also had the record. Maris, who finished the season with a .269 batting average and a league-best 142 runs batted in, won his second consecutive MVP award. The 1961 Yankees came to be compared with the 1927 Yankees as one of the best squads in the history of baseball. They defeated the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series, although Maris and Mantle managed only two hits between them. In 1962 Maris hit 33 home runs; one major wire service named him Flop of the Year. Injuries slowed him in his next four years with the Yankees, and he finished his career playing for two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1985 Maris died of lymphatic cancer at age 51. "I always come across as bitter," he said late in life. "I'm not bitter. People were very reluctant to give me any credit.... Maybe I wasn't the chosen one, but I was the one who got the record." Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
