Baseball 1961 vs 2007

Baseball Heros

One of my favorite baseball movies is 61*. The story of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantel chasing The Babes home run record. Mickey was a known drinker and womanizer, while Roger was a family man and a chain smoker. I remember 1961 like it was yesterday. My Pittsburgh friends always tease me about 1960 when the Pirates won the world series on a bad hop and a 9th inning home run against my Yankees. But 1961 was something else again. The movie tells the story so well and its directed by Billy Crystal (another Yankee fan). At the time I was saying farewell to high school and joining the army. I followed the Yanks that year with much glee and at times with much anger , anger at the media, anger at some of the fans and anger at the commissioner of baseball. You have to understand that many of the NY fans considered Maris an outsider cause he had been with the team a short time even though he was the MVP in 1960. Mickey it seemed had been there forever. So some fans were real hateful to Maris the outsider and wanted Mickey to break the record. 61 was the first year of the extended season and the commissioner decided that if the record was broken in more than 154 games an asterisk would be added after the new record. Mickey was use to all the media attention because he played in NY for so long. The media gave Roger fits, he was basically a shy guy and didn't crave attention; the media was all over Roger. As the home run battle played itself out Micky had got a infection in his leg and that meant it was up to Roger to break the record; which he did in the last game of the season.

I've been pissed off for many years since that last game. Rodger Maris died in 1985 never to know that a few years later the record was his and his alone as they removed the asterisk after his name.

In 1998, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs passed Roger Maris' single-season home run mark which stood for 37 years. They finished with 70 and 66 home runs respectively. This year was the first year that McGwire was eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame and I am glad he didn't make it. In fact I hope McGwire never makes it and the same goes for Sammy and Barry as well or any other player suspected of or knowingly used steroids. Thats not the way the game is played. Babe broke the record on hotdogs and beer. Rodger smoked a hell of a lot of cigarettes. There are too many unanswered questions about those other guys.

As a footnote to the record race in 1961, I bet you don't know who I was rooting for?
If you said Micky your wrong, even though I think he was one of the greatest ballplayers ever. If you said Rodger your wrong as well. I Didn't care who broke the record as long as it was a Yankee that did it. Watch the Movie, You might like it even if your not a Yankee fan!