Baseball player, born in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA. During his 12-year career as an outfielder (195768), mostly with the New York Yankees and St Louis Cardinals, he hit a career 275 home runs and was twice voted the American League Most Valuable Player (19601). In 1961 he slammed 61 home runs to break Babe Ruth's single season record of 60 home runs set in 1927. The reaction to his breaking Ruth's records was so extreme, and often threatening, that he seemed an unhappy man for the rest of his life.
Roger Eugene Maris (September 10, 1934 – December 14, 1985), was a Major League Baseball player primarily remembered for breaking Babe Ruth's 34-year-old single-season home run record in 1961 on the last day of the season.
Early life
The son of Croatian immigrants, he was born as Roger Eugene Maras (he later changed his last name to Maris) in Hibbing, Minnesota. A gifted athlete, Maris participated in many sports while in Fargo.
At an early age, Maris exhibited an independent, no-nonsense personality.
Major league career
Early years
Maris made his Major League Baseball debut in 1957 with the Cleveland Indians.
Kansas City frequently traded its best players to the New York Yankees, and Maris was no exception, going to New York in a seven-player trade in December 1959.
When he showed up in New York to join the Yankees, he was dressed in blue jeans, white bucks and a sport shirt. Maris immediately took the fan to a Thom McAn's store, where he bought two more pairs of white bucks. That seemingly curmudgeonly side of Roger Maris only encouraged the New York sportswriters to look for things to criticize.
In 1960, his first full season with the Yankees, despite the already-nagging media, he led the league in slugging percentage, RBIs, and extra base hits and finished second in home runs (1 behind Mickey Mantle) and total bases.
61
In 1961, the American League expanded from 8 to 10 teams, generally watering down the pitching, but leaving the Yankees pretty much intact. One famous photograph lined up six 1961 Yankee players, including Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, and Bill Skowron, under the nickname "Murderer's Row," because they hit a combined 207 home runs that year. 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.
Five years earlier, in 1956, Mantle had already challenged Ruth's record for most of the season and the New York press had been protective of Ruth on that occasion also.
So as 1961 progressed, the Yanks were now "Mickey Mantle's team" and Maris was ostracized as the "outsider", and "not a true Yankee." The press seemed to root for Mantle and to belittle Maris. But Mantle was felled by a leg infection late in the season, leaving Maris as the only player with a chance to break the record.
On top of his lack of popular press coverage, Maris' chase for 61 hit another roadblock totally out of his control: along with adding two teams to the league, Major League Baseball had added 8 games to the schedule. In the middle of the season, Baseball commissioner Ford Frick announced that unless Ruth's record was broken in the first 154 games of the season, the new record would be shown in the record books as having been set in 162 games while the previous record set in 154 games would also be shown.
Maris failed to reach 61 in 154 games (he had only 59 after the 1st 154 games). Despite all the controversy, Maris was awarded the 1961 Hickok Belt for the top professional athlete of the year, as well as winning 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. Later Maris even surmised that it might have been better all along had he not broken the record or even threatened it at all.
Remainder of career
In 1962, Maris made his fourth consecutive and final All-Star game appearance.
Injuries slowed Maris for the next four seasons, most notably in 1965, when he played most of the season with a misdiagnosed broken bone in his hand. The Yankees questioned Maris' courage and Maris left angry.
Maris was well-received by the St. Louis fans, who appreciated a man with a straightforward midwestern style even if the New York press did not. Gussie Busch, owner of the Cardinals and of Anheuser-Busch, set Maris up with a beer distributorship after he retired.
Awards, honors, and life after baseball
On the Indians, he wore uniform number 32 in 1957 and 5 in 1958; Maris was on hand for the ceremony and wore a full Yankee uniform.
Maris was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1983. In response he organized the annual Roger Maris Celebrity Golf Tournament to raise money for cancer research and treatment. Tributes include Roger Maris Drive, the free-admission Roger Maris Museum, and The Roger Maris Cancer Center, the fund raising beneficiary of the annual golf tournament.
In 2001, the film 61* about Maris and Mantle's pursuit of the home-run record was first broadcast. Maris was played by Barry Pepper.
In 2005, in light of accusations of steroid use against the three players who had, by then, hit more than 61 home runs in a season (Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds), the North Dakota Senate wrote to Major League Baseball and "urged" that Roger Maris' 61 home runs be recognized as the single season record .
Roger Maris is a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award. The Roger Maris Museum, dedicated to the life and career of Maris, is located at the West Acres Shopping Center in Fargo, ND
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Preceded by: Mickey Mantle |
American League Home Run Champion 1961 |
Succeeded by: Harmon Killebrew |
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Preceded by: Babe Ruth |
Single-season home run record holders 1961-1998 |
Succeeded by: Mark McGwire |
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Preceded by: Nellie Fox |
American League Most Valuable Player 1960-1961 |
Succeeded by: Mickey Mantle |
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