Mickey Mantle, the leading Yankee hero of that era, had as many homers and was cheered much more loudly than Maris was every time he slammed one of his gigantic blows well up into the third deck of the House that Ruth Built.
But it was a travesty when boos and cat calls became the ugly background racket for Maris as that record season of 1961 progressed. Some sports reporters, to their discredit, rooted openly in hopes that Mantle and not Maris would break Ruth's 34-year-old mark of 60 home runs in a season. Fans joined in the Mantle-over-Maris cheering.
Then, when Maris did get that 61st home run on the final day of the season, Commissioner Ford Frick put the ultimate stamp of disgrace upon it all when he ordered that an asterisk mark Maris' 61 because it was achieved in the new 162-game season, not the 154-game seasons of Ruth's day. That most famous asterisk in history was abolished years later but served as a reminder that major league baseball dishonored itself at a time when a very humble and nice man came along to break the most famous record set by the most famous athlete of the century.
Actually, the Yanks played 163 games in 1961 because they played one tie cut short by rain. Maris did not hit a home run in that tie game and played in 161 of the 163 Yankee games. Ruth set his record of 60 in 1927 when the Yanks played 155 games because they also played a tie game that year. Ruth was in 151 of those games and did not hit a homer in the tie.
All of this comes to mind now because another ball player, Barry Bonds, is being booed and verbally abused as he moves to bypass another of Ruth's standards -- 714 home runs for a career. Hank Aaron holds the career record of 755 home runs while he, Ruth and Bonds are the only men to have hit 700 home runs in a career.
Bonds is the target of abuse because some fans and some reporters suspect him of using steroids to achieve his slugging records. Such performance enhancing drugs were unheard of back in Maris' heyday.
All the people who booed Maris or Bonds should be loudly booed themselves. They are the ones who are a disgrace.
As to Maris, he was always a quiet gentleman who never asked to be in such a position. But once he broke Ruth's mark, Maris held his head high and finally, after years went by, said, "They acted as though I was doing something wrong, poisoning the record books or something. Do you know what I have to show for sixty-one home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing."
Bonds, on the other hand, may not be the most charming baseball player in history. But he is an accomplished hitter and athlete who set the current one-season home run record of 73 just five years ago. He was cheered then. But now, with all the talk of steroids, Bonds' records are suspect, according to some.
The trouble with this is that the last time I looked, despite recent attacks upon the civil liberties and constitutional safe guards of all Americans, a citizen is still innocent until proven guilty. Therefore, Bonds is innocent today.
Maris' 61st home run ball was worth only $5,000 back in 1961 and the man who caught it had to be talked into selling it instead of returning it to Maris.
Bonds' 73rd home run in 2001 was worth $450,000 and was fought over in court by two San Francisco fans. They each claimed possession and the court decided the money should be split 50-50. Nevertheless, each fan lost money in the fight because of legal fees and court costs.
The shy, 27-year-old Maris tied The Babe's record of 60 home runs on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 1961, in the 159th Yankee game of that championship season. He also hit that 60th homer off a Baltimore Oriole pitcher, Jack Fisher, at Yankee Stadium. The Yanks then played Baltimore Wednesday, had Thursday off and ended the season with a three-game series against the then lowly Boston Red Sox at the Stadium.
I was assigned to go sit in the right field grandstands at Yankee Stadium where I was to wait along with thousands of fans and a dozen or so other reporters Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and into Sunday afternoon for No. 61. It was my job to capture the scene and write of the spectator who came up with the baseball that already had a price tag attached. A California restaurant owner, Sam Gordon, offered the $5,000 reward for Maris' 61st.
Maris, who failed to hit a homer Wednesday, Friday or Saturday, did not impress on his first at bat, Sunday afternoon. He sliced a pop fly out to left field in the first inning against the rookie Red Sox pitcher, Tracy Stallard. When Maris came up in the fourth inning Stallard missed with his first two pitches for an 0-2 count.
But the next pitch did it -- waist high, over the plate so that Maris cracked it hard into the record books, making a big impression upon baseball history. The ball came down in his usual target area, the lower right field grandstand, eight rows back of the low fence and 10 feet right of the Yankee bullpen. That was about 40 feet from where I was sitting.
The Monday, Oct. 2 editions of The New York Times carried my story that began:
"The ball that was hit by Roger Maris and, as a result was worth $5,000, sailed high before it began its descent toward the recovery area -- Box 163 D in Section 33 of Yankee Stadium yesterday afternoon.
"Ready for its arrival in the right field seats were many fans and twice as many grasping hands. Among them was Sal Durante, a young man with quick reflexes. Durante leaped to the challenge, grabbed the ball on the fly with one hand and suddenly found that he had leaped into prominence that left him flabbergasted."
Durante, a 19-year-old truck driver from Coney Island in Brooklyn, was quickly hustled to the Yankee locker room by security guards. Maris came from the dugout at the bottom of the fifth inning to meet Durante, who wanted to give the ball to the Yankee right fielder.
But Maris rejected the baseball, telling Durante to take the $5,000 from Sam Gordon. Maris felt Durante could use it since he was about to get married to Rosemarie Calabrese. Sal and Rosemarie had been together at those last three Yankee games, hoping they could grab lightning in a bottle. They did.
Maris' 61st home run ball is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., along with the bat he used that day. Maris died of cancer at age 51 in 1985. Ten years later his Hall of Fame teammate, Mickey Mantle, also died of cancer. Mantle hit 54 homers that 1961 season as he and Maris waged the "M and M" race to see who would break Ruth's record. But in September, Mantle fell victim to another of his many injuries and was hospitalized during the last week of the season. He was not at Yankee Stadium when Maris hit No. 61.
Sal Durante and his wife, Rosemarie, moved to Staten Island years ago, raised a family and have many grandchildren. Tracy Stallard, who will always be the answer to one of baseball's most common trivia questions, had an undistinguished seven-year career in the majors. He is now retired in Virginia and does not wish to speak of No. 61.
Maris and Mantle led the Yanks to a team record of 240 home runs for the 1961 season -- a Yankee mark that was broken in 2004 when the Yanks hit 242 home runs. The Yankees won that final game, Oct. 1, 1961, by the margin of Maris' home run, 1-0, and then went on to beat the Cincinnati Reds, four games to one, in the World Series.
Prior to my four-game assignment at Yankee Stadium that last week of the 1961 season, I jokingly asked my boss, Jim Roach, The New York Times sports editor in 1961, "How do I handle the story if I'm the one who catches No. 61?"
Jim smiled widely and replied, "Don't you dare."
Gordon White served 43 years as a sports reporter for The New York Times. His e-mail is sports@thepilot.com.
