The regular season story culminates with Roger Maris hitting his 61st home run.

It is the integrity, and his desperate effort to retain it, that has made the ordeal of Roger Maris a compelling and disturbing thing to behold.Maris is handsome in an unconventional way. "Maris hit no homers in the double-header that concluded the home stand and afterward committed the only truly graceless act of his ordeal. (Fortunately for the child scout, the elevators were unhurried relics of a more leisurely time. "Robert Reitz, an unemployed Baltimorean, retrieved No.

"Well?" and he might have played football at Oklahoma "except during the entrance exams I decided not to." An eighth of an inch lower on the bat and the long fly might have been a home run—the home run.Hoyt Wilhelm was pitching in the ninth. They even ask for autographs at Mass.

"It was nice of Kaline, but any ballplayer would have done it. It is the only public relations device that Maris has mastered completely.When Maris is angry or annoyed or upset, the mouth changes into a grim slash in a hard face. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC. But I don't like being busted in on all the time and now, when I go out, I'm busted in on all the time. "We all know how tough it's been for Rog, and I guess we all decided right then, all at once, that we wanted him to know how much we were for him. "Maris looked uncomfortable.

Occasionally taste vanishes.

He doesn't blast, he answers questions. While Mickey Mantle answered all questions and volunteered information, Maris, the other half of the celebrated M-Squad, remained in the trainer's room and sulked. a reporter said to Maris, whose locker adjoins Elston Howard's.

Later Mantle cut his cheek shaving, and Gus Mauch, the Yankee trainer, had to be summoned to stop the bleeding.On the third day, the mayor of Fargo appeared at the ballpark to present Maris with a "certificate of appreciation for your loyalty and devotion to your home town of Fargo."

… Three more at bats and one home run to tie.When he came up again, Dick Hall was pitching. Then as soon as the picture is taken, the smile vanishes.

I'll get on." All Rights Reserved. Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing. So when the game was over I started figuring what I'd tell the writers when they asked me what was wrong with Ford. "Mr. Howard, tell these gentlemen how you did it. Throughout most of that month Roger Kahn, on assignment from SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, was an unobtrusive but constant observer of Maris' triumph and trials. "Any complaints about the umpiring tonight?" "Damn right," Maris said, neglecting to pay the customary fealty to the Babe. "If I'da missed it, I woulda been on first anyway. "Now he is talking more easily, going from topic to topic at the drop of a word. "When I hit 48," he told a group one day, "I said to Rog, 'I got my man. United States and many other countries (Maris was born in Hibbing, Minn., and lives in Ray-town, a suburb of Kansas City, Mo. "If I have to go 15 rows into the stands, I'll catch that No. Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing. 59 and announced that the ball was worth $2,500. ""Are you trying to tell me how to run my clubhouse?" When he hit his 59th home run of the season in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium one night last week, Roger Maris stood one swing away from baseball's household god, George Herman Ruth. When Maris or Mantle approached the elevator, a child scout would sprint down eight flights and shout to the lobby, "Here they come." "Come on, Roger, baby, hit it to me," shouted Jim Coates. me talking. YanksAtShea proudly presents a genuine rarity; a restored clip of Roger Maris' Legendary 61st Home Run as called by Red Barber and aired over WPIX-TV. ""Well," the reporter said, "would it be all right if I wrote Doris Day? "He hit a homer, not me," Maris said, gesturing toward Howard. "But they were called strikes. This amount is subject to change until you make payment. It's good being famous, but I can't do the things I like any more. I den't want to be Babe Ruth. Babe’s former record had stood since 1927, and had been seen by many as untouchable (Maris’ record was topped 37 years later and has since been eclipsed again). a Detroit newspaperman asked. He was disturbed, upset, withdrawn. He would be hard to stop on the two-yard line.At bat he is unobtrusive, until he hits the ball. "Ralph Houk, the manager of the Yankees, won a silver star and a purple heart in Europe during World War II and so is familiar with pressure.