Here is a 1963 Topps baseball card of former New York Yankee outfielder Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth’s longstanding single season home run record by clubbing 61 “dingers” in 1961. His more popular Yankee teammate, Mickey Mantle, was the favorite of the fans to break the mark but came up short and wound up hitting 54 that season. Then the commissioner of baseball declared that Maris’ record would carry an asterisk in the record book because he broke the mark in 162 games, while Ruth played a shorter 154 game season in his time. It really was a shame how Maris was treated at the time, but he was highly regarded as a teammate by the players he played with, and the recent mess made of baseball’s record book in the steroid era has cast him in a new light and gained him much more respect for not only his single-season accomplishment but his entire career.
Louise
August 11, 2010 at 4:06 pm
One of my favorite all-time Yankees. Stopped paying attention to the Yankees once Maris, Mantle, Yogi, Whitey et al left the game.