Richard Phelps
By Richard Phelps
In 1961, I was ten years old. Baseball, like religion, you gotta get em early if you want to keep them. I was solidly a Yankee fan, by then, even though my father was, inexplicably, a Cardinal fan. I think because of Dizzy Dean. He loved the name Dizzy, as later he would rename himself Mad Sammie. I was a Mickey Mantle fan, and, of course, Whitey Ford, who still holds the best won/loss percentage of all pitchers born after 1907. I held in my head the stories of the ancients -- the Iron Horse Lou Gehrig, DiMaggio, and the great one, George Herman “Babe” Ruth - the Bambino.
A young neighbor, Bob Watte, who worked for my dad, (my dad helped get him into Cornell vet school a few years later) took my brother and me to a Yankee game that year, 1961, in the old green stadium in seats up under the overhang behind the first base side, the home dugout side, and the stadium was full, was packed, and in the beginning the game was close and the peanuts crisp, as our mother gave us some spending money.
1961 was the year Maris beat Babe Ruth’s record for the most home runs in a single season. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927, when few players hit home runs and the game was a slash and bunt and steal and rack ‘em up hits kinda’ game.
It was my first ballgame and Maris was a new guy, kinda, not joining the Yanks until 1960, and not really a Yankee yet, and no-one knew what he was about to do, but he was neck and neck with Mantle in home runs at that stage. For years I kept the game stub in my wallet with the score written on the back, but like my ticket to Woodstock, and my Mantle baseball cards and Joe Pepitone cards, it was lost in the great shuffle of life, so I am not sure of the date.
I decided to research it. I know two things: the Yanks played Detroit and Maris hit a home run and the Yanks won it. Ok. That’s three things. My research shows Maris hit a home run at home against Detroit on July 4, and again on September 2. I wonder if my mother would have let us go to New York City on the 4th with someone so young as Bob. July 4th was a doubleheader, and I don’t remember that. I remember the game being close for much of the time and when Maris hit his homer it was consequential; and that was the case in the September 2nd game as the Yanks had only seven hits, but Maris drove in four and had ten total bases with three of those seven hits. There is something else people don’t know about Maris – he was a tough-nut fielder with above average speed, and he had no fear of the wall as he played right field, and those were the days before the walls were padded, and late in that game he hit the wall about as hard as you could and held onto the ball like a snow cone. Mantle ran over to him to see he was OK, and no matter the competition between the two they cared for each other and held each other in high regard as ballplayers. Detroit was tough that year and in the race with the Yanks right to the end.
Roger Maris was no Babe Ruth, and everyone knew it and he knew it himself and said as much, many times, he had to say, not least because he knew it was true. That was a hard year on Maris, who heard as many boos as cheers no matter what town he was in, and he was only 26. But he had his chance, and he was taking it, and when he hit that homer I saw there were no boos as the fans knew we needed that game.
I liked Roger as he was a fine ball player and when he hit one out his right foot was flat on the ground and his left wrist turned over as the bat was nearly level with just a slight upcut and he pulled everything; and if you missed the middle of the plate, or came inside, you were almost back on the bench, and he knew how to foul off those outside pitches and had only 67 strikeouts that year.
Maris was a heavy smoker and a commercial man for Camel cigarettes and died of lung cancer at 51.
Within a few days, perhaps the same day this column is published, something extraordinary is likely to happen. For the just the second time during my life, a New York Yankee will break Babe Ruth’s single-season home run Yankee team record. During the interim, some doped-up, steroidal imposters shattered those golden, all-time, all league records, and the sports asterisk was born. In fact, the asterisk was born in 1961 when all this wonderfulness began as baseball declared Roger took too many games to beat Ruth’s record, as the season had been lengthened. Asterisk.
There will be no asterisk when Aaron Judge gets done with it. Stay tuned. I like Judge. So cool, commanding. He never steps out. Here I am, pitch it to me. More time, OK. I am not stepping out. This is a plan for him. This is an intimidation no one else can do to a pitcher. Go Judge, a gentleman, and a sport. Fun to watch.