The school had no baseball team, but he played American Legion ball and became a star there, too. He was an outstanding athlete at Shanley High School, a star in basketball and track and an all-state halfback in football.
The family name was Maras, but he changed it legally in 1955 to Maris. 10, 1934, but was still an infant when his family moved to Fargo.
Roger Eugene Maris was born in Hibbing, Minn., on Sept. But, regardless of my faults, I'll never take abuse from anybody - big or small, important or unimportant - if I think it's undeserved." I'm miffed most of the time, regardless of how I'm doing. "Even the Yankee clubhouse attendants think I'm tough to live with. "I was born surly," Maris acknowledged in 1961 when the home-run race had ended, "and I'm going to stay that way. His manager in 1960, Casey Stengel, once said: "You ask Maris a question, and he stares at you for a week before he answers." He was dour, aloof, sometimes arch, and in no way the flamboyant bear portrayed by Babe Ruth. He was considered an upstart in the House That Ruth Built, and the house that Mantle dominated. He was imported to the Yankees from the Kansas City Athletics, a stocky figure with a blond crewcut, and he was playing only his second season in the celebrated pinstripes. Maris had no "right" to break Ruth's record ostensibly because he was none of the things that had made Babe Ruth renowned as the Bambino. " Maris has no right to break Ruth's record." And Rogers Hornsby, the Hall of Fame slugger, who also had been a contemporary of Ruth, said in the passion of the day: But the commissioner, a onetime colleague of Babe Ruth, announced that any record would have to be set in 154 games. The Yankees received 3,000 messages a day during the final weeks of the season, many of them cheering him on. But Maris, an accomplished outfielder with a powerful arm and bat, was besieged as he pursued the memory and the record of Ruth.Īnd yet, Maris was not universally embraced for his achievement. Mantle, who was injured in September, still managed to hit 54 home runs, so the "twins" combined for an awesome total of 115. It was the rousing end to a rousing season, and it ended with the Yankees winning the pennant race before roaring sellout crowds and swarms of writers and broadcasters drawn by Mantle and Maris, the power hitters on yet another great Yankee team. 1961, asterisk or no asterisk, Roger Maris made history when he hit his 61st home run of the season in his 161st game on the final day of the 162-game season in Yankee Stadium against Tracy Stallard of the Boston Red Sox.
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Frick, the commissioner of baseball, who apparently reflected the traditionalist view of many fans that the Olympian feats of Babe Ruth must be defended against long seasons, short fences and newly arrived sluggers -even one who eventually played in seven World Series and hit 275 home runs in 12 seasons in the big leagues.īut, on Oct. It was inserted into the record books by Ford C. The asterisk was inserted to distinguish Maris's home-run record from the one set in 1927 by the greatest Yankee of them all: Babe Ruth, who hit 60 in the days of the 154-game season. But baseball history will remember him as the home-run twin to Mickey Mantle, and generations of fans will remember him as the man with the asterisk in the record books: * Hit 61 home runs in 1961 in a 162-game season. He was 51 years old.ĭuring the early 1960's when the New York Yankees reigned for five straight pennant-winning seasons, Roger Maris was all things to all people. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston after a two-year bout with cancer, hospital officials said. Roger Maris, who held the major league record for the most home runs in a single season, died yesterday at M. ROGER MARIS IS DEAD AT 51 SET RECORD FOR HOME RUNS Appeared in The New York Times on Decem/ Obituaries / Roger Maris