Via BBTF (great video linked, too), Frank Deford gets all nostalgic about Roger Maris‘s record:
In 1961 the American League schedule was lengthened by eight games to 162, and it was about this time that summer that the commissioner –– of whom it was once written, “An empty cab drove up to the curb and Ford Frick got out” –– declared that even if some player broke Babe Ruth‘s record of 60 home runs, it would not count if he needed more games than Ruth had had.
So, when Roger Maris hit his 61st in the last game of the longer season, the distinction did not displace Ruth in the record books but was merely listed along with The Babe’s lesser number.
This all became moot in 1998 when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd homer, there to be graciously greeted by Maris’ family survivors –– and, of course, Sammy Sosa then three times topped Maris, and Barry Bonds hit 73 in 2001.
Subsequently, McGwire admitted to using performance enhancing drugs, and the only people who don’t assume the same of Bonds and Sosa also believe that Neil Armstrong’s moon landing was a hoax and that Ford Frick was a wise man.
I find this amusing. Deford rips Frick for think Maris’s record was illegitimate. At the time, I believe, Frick was probably in the mainstream. People looked at Maris’s record the same way we now look at the records set by McGwire and Bonds:
But most fans supported the edict, as did the columnist Dick Young of the Daily News on Aug. 22:
[Frick’s] seems to be the realistic approach. Just as there is a difference between the 100-yard dash record and 100-meters, so is there a difference between a home run race over the 154 and 162-game distances. . . . What Maris seems to overlook is that the Commissioner’s deadline has been set for the benefit of Maris and Mantle, just as much as it has built a protective wall around Ruth’s record. It will spare the M & M boys from charges of being ”cheese champs.”
People like Deford protect Maris the same way Frick tried to protect Ruth. I hope I’m alive in 30 years when someone is approaching 75 homers and people are trying to protect Barry Bonds’s record.
As a side note, I finally looked up Maris’s home runs by park that year:
| ParkName |
PA |
HR |
HRPct |
| Cleveland Stadium |
41 |
5 |
12.2 |
| Comiskey Park I |
41 |
5 |
12.2 |
| Tiger Stadium |
42 |
5 |
11.9 |
| Griffith Stadium |
40 |
4 |
10.0 |
| Municipal Stadium |
42 |
4 |
9.5 |
| Fenway Park |
43 |
4 |
9.3 |
| Yankee Stadium |
325 |
30 |
9.2 |
| Wrigley Field, LA |
41 |
2 |
4.9 |
| Metropolitan Stadium |
41 |
1 |
2.4 |
| Memorial Stadium |
42 |
1 |
2.4 |
A big reason home runs were up in that expansion season was that the two new ballparks, Wrigley Field in LA and Metropolitan Stadium in Minnesota were good home run parks. As you can see, however, they did not help Maris. If they had, Roger might have passed Ruth before the 154 game mark.
