In Roger Maris’s version of hell, he was the prey in a daily media feeding frenzy, lost his privacy, shed some hair, received hate mail by the bundle, experienced vicious heckling from even home fans, and, having arrived in New York from Kansas City only twenty-two months before, was treated by the Yankees organization like an outsider, an ugly duckling in a pond of swans. Just like that, he had finally found a slice of heaven after a long season he’d sum up as “sheer hell.” He rounded first at the same time nineteen-year-old Sal Durante held up the 61st home-run ball in his right hand another ecstatic young male fan leaped onto the field and the clearly dejected Red Sox pitcher concocted an upbeat postgame response to the media (“I’ll now make some money on the banquet circuit!”).Īs he neared second base, Maris suddenly escaped dark shadows and moved into the bright, warm sunlight. Having completed what his bedridden Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle always called the “greatest sports feat I ever saw,” the new single-season home-run champion dropped his bat and ran down the baseline. Fortunately, one of the greatest, if most neglected, visual metaphors in sports history would be preserved on celluloid. With, surprisingly, still-seated fans behind him, he is completing his pivot, releasing the bat with his left hand, and watching with hopeful eyes the flight of his historic home run into Yankee Stadium’s packed right-field stands.īut even the award winners among them missed something quite extraordinary that took place seconds later. The second picture, taken from the front, was of Maris one breath later. The left-handed pull hitter is exhibiting his much praised swing with extended bat and arms parallel to the ground, his left hand turning over, his right leg straight and left leg flexed, his right foot pointing toward third base and his left one perpendicular to the ground, his muscles in his face, neck, and upper arms tense, and his hips rotating. The first, taken from behind and near the Yankee dugout, was of Roger Maris making solid contact over the plate on a 2-0 fastball by Tracy Stallard. THE SAVVIEST PHOTOGRAPHERS GOT the two money shots. With research drawn from more than 130 interviews with Maris’s teammates, opponents, family, and friends, as well as sixteen pages of photos, some of which have never before been seen, this timely and poignant biography sheds light on an iconic figure from baseball’s golden era-and establishes the importance of his role in the game’s history. And over time, he gained redemption in the eyes of the Yankee faithful. After the tremendous challenge of breaking Ruth’s record was behind him, Maris ultimately regained his love of baseball as a member of the world champion St. At the center is the exciting story of the 1961 season and the ordeal Maris endured as an outsider in Yankee pinstripes, unloved by fans who compared him unfavorably to their heroes Ruth and Mantle, relentlessly attacked by an aggressive press corps who found him cold and inaccessible, and treated miserably by the organization.
#Roger maris pro
Tom Clavin and Danny Peary trace the dramatic arc of Maris’s life, from his boyhood in Fargo through his early pro career in the Cleveland Indians farm program, to his World Series championship years in New York and beyond. It was Mantle himself who said, “Roger was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was.” Yet Maris was vilified by fans and the press and has never received his due from biographers-until now. In 1961, the soft-spoken man from the frozen plains of North Dakota enjoyed one of the most amazing seasons in baseball history, when he outslugged his teammate Mickey Mantle to become the game’s natural home-run king. Roger Maris may be the greatest ballplayer no one really knows. Tom Clavin and Danny Peary chronicle the life and career of baseball’s “natural home run king” in the first definitive biography of Roger Maris-including a brand-new chapter to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his record breaking season.
0 kommentar(er)
