Aaron Judge Goes For History (62 HRs currently)

I didn't see it remarked anywhere that ten days ago would have been Roger Maris's 88th birthday. He died from lymphoma in 1985 at the age of 51. The generally celebratory coverage of Judge's pursuit of Maris's record is in marked contrast to the largely negative and dismissive coverage in 1961. In some ways some of the pressure on Maris subsided after he failed to hit 60 in 154 games as The Babe did.

Maris went into game 154 in Baltimore with 58 home runs. That game was given a then very rare national prime time broadcast. Other than the regular Saturday afternoon Game Of The Week, the World Series and the All Star Game, there were no nationally televised games back then, so doing this was highly unusual. Maris did hit number 59 off of Milt Pappas in the fourth inning, but his last three at bats were against side-winder Dick Hall and knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm, both of whom gave Maris a lot of trouble, and Roger failed to hit number 60 in Commissioner Ford Frick's mandated limitation, meaning whatever Maris did over the last eight games would be listed as a separate record.

Here's how dismissive the media and the public were. None of the Yanks remaining eight games were televised nationally. The Yanks played the last five games at home, and no crowd exceeded 25,000. Maris hit home run number 60 off of Baltimore's Jack Fisher (who also gave up Ted Williams's last AB home run) in Game 159 and the next game, Ralph Houk finally acceded to Maris and gave him the day off for Game 160! Maris had been asking for a day off starting with Game 155 -- the Yanks actually played 163 games that year because of an April tie against Baltimore (Maris did not homer), but this was offset by the 1927 Yankees playing 155 games, also because of a tie. Only about 8,000 fans showed up for this game anyway, and they did not know beforehand that Maris would be out. Maris said this day, which he spent with his wife relaxing in the city, was his favorite day of the entire season.

We all know Maris hit number 61 off of Boston's Tracy Stallard in the final game of the season. There were just over 23,000 in the stands, most of them jammed in right field for the pull-hitting Maris. That clip that always gets played of Phil Rizzuto making the call was actually the radio broadcast dubbed over the TV footage. Red Barber made a much more subdued call on TV, as was his fashion, but you rarely hear that played. I remember that day, a beautiful Sunday afternoon, being frustrated because in good weather it was harder to pull in distant TV signals and we could not get a decent picture on WPIX from New York, about 100 miles away. I had to listen in the field behind our house on my Silvertone Six Transistor radio, so I did at least get to hear Scooter's call. It was very exciting, although the vast majority of Yankee fans and even Yankee players wanted more for Mantle to be the one to do it. Once Mickey went down with his injury, the players totally backed Roger, no one more so than Mantle. And in the end, the fans seemed to be pulling for Maris. The media was a different story.

BTW, that crowd of 23,000 was nearly three times the number who saw Babe hit number 60 in 1927, breaking his own record of 59 set in 1921. Of course, it was the fourth time he had set a single-season record, so maybe the fans were a bit jaded. In 1961, there were still a lot of people around who had seen Babe play and were devoted fans -- a kid of 12 in 1927 would only have been 46 -- and that contributed to the negativity.

One point I haven't heard much made of is that Judge could become the first non-chemically enhanced player to hit 61 within 154 games. An issue only for oldsters, I suppose. I have no interest in numerology, but there is something quirky about beating 61 homers in 1961 61 years later.

Anyway, I'm glad Roger Maris's name is popping up more than it has since that farcical 1998 steroid shootout between McGwire and Sosa. He deserves to be remembered for giving baseball fans a thrilling season. As Judge is doing now.