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The Spectacle Blog
As you might imagine, I have spent the better part of the day watching playoff baseball. I have now tuned into Game 1 of the ALDS between the Detroit Tigers and the New York Yankees after the Texas Rangers have evened their ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays. The broadcasters at TBS have just mentioned it was 50 years ago today that Roger Maris hit his 61st homerun of the 1961 season, breaking Babe Ruth’s single season record of 60 homeruns which he set in 1927.
It is astonishing to think there were barely over 23,000 in attendance at old Yankee Stadium on the final day of the regular season to see Maris take Tracy Stallard deep. At the time, Yankee Stadium’s capacity was more than 67,000. So yes, Yankee Stadium was two thirds empty when Maris supplanted Ruth.
In 1961, the American League expanded with the addition of the Los Angeles Angels and a new version of the Washington Senators (the original Senators moved north to become the Minnesota Twins.) Consequently, the schedule was expanded from 154 to 162 games. While Commissioner Ford Frick never actually affixed an asterik to Maris’ record he did indicate such a notation would be made Maris didn’t hit his 61th by the 154th game.
The New York media also didn’t kindly to an upstart passing a mythical figure. Of course, for much of that season both Maris and Mickey Mantle had a shot at surpassing the record. The New York media intimated there was a feud between Mantle and Maris but they were actually living together at the time. Maris would joke with Mantle when he would hand him a morning paper and say, “Mick, we’re fighting again.” Of course, Mantle would miss the final weeks of the regular season due to ill health with only Maris having a shot at the record.
When Maris did pass Ruth, he ran around the bases as fast as he could and had to be cajoled to accept a curtain call. By the time the World Series came around, Maris was a spent force going 2 for 19 with a homerun. The Yankees, however, beat the Cincinnati Reds in five games to win their first World Series under manager Ralph Houk.
Despite hostility from the press, Maris would win his second consecutive American League MVP. He did drive in 100 runs in 1962 along with another World Series title but his productivity fell off after that. Maris was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals following the 1966 season. He was more comfortable in low key St. Louie and appeared in back to back World Series with the Cardinals in 1967 and 1968 before announcing his retirement. Maris moved to Florida where he ran a Budweiser distributorship which was awarded to him by Cardinals owner Auggie Busch. He died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in December 1985 at the age of 51.
It should be noted that while Maris’ record has been eclipsed by the likes of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds, Maris still holds the American League single season record for homeruns. In light of the manner McGwire, Sosa and Bonds attained their records there are those who make the case that Maris should still be recognized as the record holder for both leagues. When Maris was passed by McGwire in 1998, Maris held the record longer than The Bambino. Well, record holder or not, Roger Maris’ accomplishment half a century ago becomes more impressive with each passing year.
Occam's Tool| 10.2.11 @ 12:37AM
And they won their 109th game of the Season on the same game, too. Bunch of anuses, New Yorkers are.
Bob K.| 10.2.11 @ 12:45AM
1961 was baseballs first expansion season. It was a weird year. The American league added 2 new teams a year before the National League did in 1962. The new Washington Senators were a brand new team. They finished 9th with a 61 and 100 record, tied for last with Kansas City which was universally derided as a farm team for the New York Yankees. The new Los Angeles Angels were 70 and 91 and finished 8th, tied with Minnesota, the old Washington Senators.
Norm Cash won the batting title with Detroit which came in 2nd with over 90 wins. He hit .361. 90 points over his lifetime average and it was the only time he ever hit over .300 in his 17 year career. He also hit 48 Home Runs that year. His most remembered quote was: "I owe my success to expansion pitching, a short Right Field Fence and my hollow bats." Yankee Stadiums Right Field was even shorter and had a lower fence than Detroit's did.
Jim Gentile tied Maris in RBI's with 141 with Baltimore which came in 3rd.
Whitey Ford won the Cy Young award with a record of 25 and 4. He had an ERA of 3.21 while completing only 11 games. He was MVP in the Series that year.
It marked the beginning of the end of a nearly 20 year stretch starting with the end of WWII where the New York Yankees were able to do anything they damn well pleased in Baseball and actually began to make the game more diversified and more interesting.
Aaron Goldstein| 10.2.11 @ 1:21AM
The Yankees appeared in five straight World Series between 1960 and 1964. Their decline began in earnest following the '64 season when they fired Yogi Berra after losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Berra was replaced by Cardinals manager Johnny Keane.
The Cardinals had been planning to dump Keane late in the '64 season and replace him with Leo Durocher when the Cardinals got red hot while Gene Mauch's Phillies imploded. Keane had prepared a letter of resignation in advance and submitted it to Cardinals management following the '64 World Series.
Unfortunately for Keane, the Yankees did not respond to him as they fell to 6th place in the AL with a 77-85 record, 25 games back of the unlikely Minnesota Twins and their even unlikelier MVP Zoilo Versalles.
Keane was dismissed after the Yankees lost 16 of their first 20 games in 1966 and was replaced by Ralph Houk. The Yankees would finish last in the AL for the first time since 1912. Sadly, Keane died the following year of a heart attack at the age of 55.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals hired Red Schoendienst instead of Durocher and would take them to a World Series title 1967 and a NL pennant in 1968 with a roster that included Roger Maris.
RJ| 10.2.11 @ 2:38AM
Norm Cash, Roger Maris and other outstanding players had their statistics enhanced with two new expansion teams diluting major league talent. And it has only gotten worse over time. Pitchers with eras over 4 used to be on the road out of the majors unless they got their act together. Now, they can make millions.
Expansion also led to divisional play which really makes much of the season meaningless. There are as many teams in the play-offs to get in the world series (8) as there used to be in each major league. The game is not the same and in many ways, is not as enjoyable as during the days of Cash and Maris.
Bob K.| 10.2.11 @ 9:37AM
The fact that there are too many playoff games is because there are too many Divisions with too few teams in each.
Another problem is that the National League has 16 teams and the American League has 14. One can argue that the talent is more diluted in the NL. It has 22 more pitchers who should be in the minor leagues.
And then, of course, there is the DH, which makes a difference in the finals. The NL won the All Star Game this year so the DH should only play in games 3, 4, and 5(if needed) at the AL park.
Big Java| 10.2.11 @ 3:27PM
I remember Roger Maris as a fine man and I am still glad for his record breaking season.
astorian| 10.3.11 @ 7:08AM
Today, it's almost the conventional wisdom that Roger Maris was an absolutely wonderful man who was harassed and despised unfairly by the cruel New York fans and the omnipresent New York media, just because he was an introvert and because they all loved Mickey Mantle more.
Now, I was in the cradle in 1961, so I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of exactly what went on in baseball that year. It's possible that the conventional wisdom is exactly right. I will merely point out that reporters who covered the Yankees in 1961 saw things very differently. Ask any old-time sportswriter and he'll tell you that...
1) Even if he was uncomfortable in the spotlight, Roger Maris got along BEAUTIFULLY with the press in 1961. It was in 1962 that things went sour.
Some people blame Jimmy Cannon for that, while others blame Maris. Either way, the media LIKED Maris in 1961. The mutual hostility came later.
2) The press gave Roger Maris the MVP award in 1960, BEFORE he hit 61 homers, even though Mickey Mantle's numbers were every bit as good. Why would the press honor Maris over Mantle, if they all loved Mantle so much more? Why would they honor Maris, if they all hated him irrationally?
3) Roger Maris was a highly decent man in most respects, but he had a well-earned reputations as a brooder and "Red Ass" long before he came to New York.
4) As Mr. Goldtein notes, baseball was nowhere NEAR as big in New York in 1961 as it is now. Yankee Stadium was largely empty when Maris hit most of his biggest homers, and the "omnipresent" media that supposedly dogged Maris amounted to NOTHING compared to the media attention Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa had to deal with.
Wayne| 10.3.11 @ 7:14AM
I was about 13 in '61 and a White Sox fan. I remember how upset Yankee fans were that Maris was getting that record, not Mantle, who was considered a "real Yankee". The hype was huge as sports pages lead off with how Mantle and Maris home runs numbers were comparing to the Babe.
For whatever reason, that year affected Maris negatively. His career continued as a single's hitter.
Derek Leaberry| 10.3.11 @ 10:38AM
Maris hit 33 home runs in 1962, 23 in 1963 and 26 in 1964. A power hitter in decline but still a power hitter. Harvey Rosenfeld's biography of Maris claims that the Yankees forced Maris to play with a bad hand in 1965 which sapped his strength for the rest of his career.
Wayne| 10.3.11 @ 7:10AM
Ironically Maris had the asterisk, not the drugged humungous Sosa, McGwire or Bonds. Maris was not over 180 pounds. Sosa alone shot up from 175 to about 250 pounds of bulk.
Derek Leaberry| 10.3.11 @ 8:49AM
Roger Maris deserves a different sort of asterisk than he received in 1961. He should be acknowledged as the true holder of the single-season home run record and not the three doped up individuals currently listed ahead of him. Two things of note about Maris. After setting the record that afternoon, Maris attended Catholic Mass and had a simple steak dinner with his wife. No endless parade of TV interviews. Also, Maris holds the obscure record of most kickoff returns for touchdown in a high school game- four, which he set for Shanley High School in Fargo, North Dakota.
yisong| 10.25.11 @ 8:43PM
Slewing bearing is also called slewing bearing, some people called: rotary support, swing support.