Roger Maris
Roger Eugene Maris was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball. He is best known for setting a new MLB single-season home run record with 61 home runs in 1961.
Maris played in the minor leagues from 1953 to 1956, and made his major league debut for the Cleveland Indians in 1957. He was traded to the Kansas City Athletics during the 1958 season, and to the New York Yankees after the 1959 season. Maris finished his playing career as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1967 and 1968. Maris was an AL All-Star from 1959 through 1962, the AL Most Valuable Player in 1960 and 1961, and an AL Gold Glove Award winner in 1960. Maris appeared in seven World Series; he played for Yankees teams that won the World Series in 1961 and 1962 and for a Cardinals team that won the World Series in 1967.
Maris's home run record was controversial, as the previous single-season home run record was set during a period when MLB teams played 154 games per season. Maris broke Ruth's record in the year the AL baseball season was extended to 162 games, hitting his 61st home run in the last game of the season, which led to questions about the legitimacy of his record. However, he hit his first home run in the 11th game of the season, so that he hit all 61 within a 151-game span. Maris' major league record remained unbroken until Mark McGwire surpassed it in 1998; his AL record stood until 2022, when Aaron Judge hit 62 home runs for the New York Yankees.
Early life
Roger Eugene Maris was born on September 10, 1934, in Hibbing, Minnesota; in 1955, his father changed the surname from Maras to Maris. Roger's parents, Rudolph S. "Rudy" Maras and Ann Corrine "Connie" were born in Minnesota, and were of Croatian heritage.Maris' brother Rudolph, who was a year older, developed polio at age 18 in 1951. It was Rudolph who began Maris' baseball career. Maris recalls Rudolph forcing him to play the sport, saying that he physically would drag him out by his ear to play the game that he hated desperately. While he loved taking breaks from his schoolwork and spending time outdoors, he could not stand baseball. By the time he was playing baseball in high school, he no longer had to be forced to play and enjoyed the game. Maris' parents had a turbulent marriage and divorced in 1960. The Maris family moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1938, and to Fargo, North Dakota, in 1946. Maris entered Fargo Central High School in 1948. In 1950, Maris, a Catholic, transferred to Bishop Shanley High School in Fargo, and graduated from there in June 1952. Maris played both baseball and football for the Shanley Deacons. In football, Maris set a national high school record, which still stands, for most return touchdowns in a game, with four. In that 1951 game, he also scored a fifth touchdown on a 32-yard run from scrimmage. He met his future wife, Patricia, in the tenth grade at a high school basketball game.
Minor league baseball career
Maris began play for the Indians' minor league organization at Fargo in 1953. He was named rookie of the year in the Northern League, then moved on to Keokuk, Iowa, the next season. In four minor league seasons from 1953 to 1956, Maris hit.303 with 78 home runs and 353 runs batted in. In Game 2 of the 1956 Junior World Series, Maris, playing for the Indianapolis Indians of the American Association, set a record by driving in seven runs. With all five teams for which Maris played in the minors, the clubs' win-loss records improved from the prior season.Major league baseball career
Cleveland Indians (1957–1958)
Maris made his major league debut on April 16, 1957, with the Cleveland Indians. He finished the game 3-for-5 with a run scored in a 3–2 loss against the Chicago White Sox. Two days later, he hit the first home run of his career, a grand slam off Detroit Tigers pitcher Jack Crimian at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. He finished his rookie season with a.235 average, 14 home runs and 51 RBI in 116 games. On June 15, 1958, after playing in 51 games and hitting.225 with nine home runs and 27 RBI for the Indians, he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics with Dick Tomanek and Preston Ward for Vic Power and Woodie Held.Kansas City Athletics (1958–1959)
After the trade, Maris played in 99 games and hit.247 with 19 home runs and 53 RBI for Kansas City in 1958. In 1959, he played in 122 games and batted.273 with 16 home runs and 72 RBI; he missed 45 games during the second half of the season as a result of an appendix operation. He was selected to play in the second of two All-Star Games held that year. In the late 1950s, Kansas City frequently traded their best young players to the New York Yankees—a practice which led them to be referred to as the Yankees' "major league farm team"—and Maris was no exception. In a seven-player deal completed on December 11, 1959, he was sent to the Yankees with Kent Hadley and Joe DeMaestri in exchange for Marv Throneberry, Norm Siebern, Hank Bauer, and Don Larsen.New York Yankees (1960–1966)
In his Yankees debut on April 19, 1960, Maris hit a single, double, and two home runs in an 8–4 win over the Boston Red Sox. He was named to the AL All-Star roster again and played in both games. He finished the season leading the AL in slugging percentage, runs batted in, and extra base hits. He also hit 39 home runs and had a.283 batting average in 136 games. He won the American League's Most Valuable Player award and was recognized as an outstanding defensive outfielder with a Gold Glove Award. The Yankees won the American League pennant, the first of five consecutive pennants, but lost a seven-game World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates culminating in Bill Mazeroski's dramatic walk-off home run. Maris hit.267 with two solo home runs, six runs scored and a double in the series loss.1961
In 1961, the AL expanded from eight to ten teams. In the expansion draft, the newly created Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators were restricted to drafting players from AL rosters. The perceived result was that American League team rosters had become watered down, as players who would otherwise have been playing at AAA, if not lower, were now in the AL. In order to maintain a balanced schedule, AL owners extended the season from 154 games to 162 games in 1961. On January 23, 1961, an Associated Press reporter asked Maris whether the schedule changes might threaten Babe Ruth's single-season home run record; Maris replied, "Nobody will touch it ... Look up the records and you'll see that it's a rare year when anybody hits 50 homers, let alone 60."Yankee home runs began to come at a record pace. One famous photograph lined up six 1961 Yankees, including Mantle, Maris, Yogi Berra and Bill Skowron, under the nickname "Murderers Row", because they hit a combined 165 home runs the previous season. As mid-season approached, it seemed quite possible that either Maris or Mantle, or perhaps both, would break Ruth's 34-year-old home run record. Sportswriters began to play the "M&M Boys" against each other, inventing a rivalry where none existed; in fact, the two men were friends and roommates. Mantle, however, was felled by a hip infection causing hospitalization late in the season, leaving Maris as the single remaining player with the opportunity to break Ruth's home run record. In the middle of the season, baseball commissioner Ford Frick announced at a press conference that unless Ruth's record was broken in the first 154 games of the season, the new record should be shown separately in the "record books", with some "distinctive mark" next to it indicating it had been done in a 162-game season. The asterisk as such a mark was immediately suggested by New York Daily News sportswriter Dick Young. In spite of its formality, Frick's so-called ruling was merely a suggestion: Major League Baseball had no direct control over any record books until many years later. As he closed in on Ruth's record, Maris received death threats and NYPD detective Kieran Burke was assigned to watch over him.
Maris had 59 home runs after the Yankees' 154th game and therefore failed to beat Ruth's 60 home runs within the original season length. Maris hit his 61st home run on October 1, 1961, in the fourth inning of the last game of the season, at Yankee Stadium in front of 23,154 fans. Boston Red Sox pitcher Tracy Stallard gave up the record home run, which was caught by fan Sal Durante in the right field bleachers. Maris was awarded the 1961 Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year and won the American League's MVP Award for the second straight year. It is said, however, that the stress of pursuing the record was so great for Maris that his hair occasionally fell out in clumps during the season. Within a few years the asterisk controversy died down and all prominent baseball record keepers listed Maris as the single-season record holder. Maris ultimately finished his record-setting season with a.269 average, a major-league leading 132 runs scored, 61 home runs and an AL-leading 141 RBI in 161 games.
1962–1966
In 1962, Maris made his fourth consecutive All-Star team appearance and his seventh and final All-Star game appearance. He batted.256 with 33 home runs and 100 RBI in 157 games. In Game 7 of the 1962 World Series, Maris made a game-saving play in the bottom of the ninth inning against the San Francisco Giants. With the Yankees leading 1–0 and Matty Alou on first, Willie Mays doubled toward the right-field line. Maris cut off the ball and made a strong throw to prevent Alou from scoring the tying run; the play set up Willie McCovey's series-ending line drive to second baseman Bobby Richardson, capping what would prove to be the final World Series title for the Yankees until 1977.In 1963, Maris played in only 90 games, hitting.269 with 23 home runs and 53 RBI. Maris was injured in Game 2 of the 1963 World Series, in which the Yankees were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in four games.
In 1964, Maris rebounded, appearing in 141 games and batting.281 with 26 home runs and 71 RBI. Maris hit a home run in Game 6 of the 1964 World Series, in which the Yankees lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. In 1965, his physical problems returned, and he had off-season surgery to remove a bone chip in his hand. In 1966, the Yankees' and Maris's fortunes continued to decline as he played most of the season with a misdiagnosed broken bone in his hand. On December 8, 1966, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Charley Smith.