It ain't over until the fat cat sings
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The Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris Home Run Derby for the New York Yankees 1961
Based on the life of Skeeter Hayden, an 11 year old baseball player, and pitcher who dreamed of pitching for the Yankees, and had that dream come true. This is a collection of short stories about family relationship, fishing, hunting, baseball. Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Dizzy Dean, JFK and many others found their dream come true on Blue Bayou, where the catfish play and you fish all day.
The following story copied form Wikipedia
In 1961, the American League expanded from 8 to 10 teams, generally watering down the rosters as more teams meant that players who usually would've been still at AAA or lower were now in the majors, but leaving the Yankees pretty much intact. In addition, the season was extended from 154 games to 162 games. On January 23, 1961, an Associated Press reporter asked Maris whether the schedule changes might threaten Babe Ruth's single-season home run record; Maris replied, “Nobody will touch it…Look up the records and you’ll see that it’s a rare year when anybody hits 50 homers, let alone 60.”
Yankee home runs began to come at a record pace. One famous photograph lined up six 1961 Yankee players, including Mantle, Maris, Yogi Berra, and Bill Skowron, under the nickname "Murderers Row," because they hit a combined 165 home runs that year. The title "Murderers Row," originally coined in 1918, had most famously been used to refer to the 1927 Yankees. As mid-season approached, it seemed quite possible that either Maris or Mantle, or perhaps both, would break Babe Ruth's 34-year-old home run record. Unlike the home run race of 1998, where both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were given extensive positive media coverage in their pursuit of the home run record, sportswriters in 1961 began to play the "M&M Boys" against each other, inventing a rivalry where none existed, as Yogi Berra has told multiple interviewers.
Five years earlier, in 1956, Mantle had already challenged Ruth's record for most of the season, and the New York press had been protective of Ruth on that occasion also. When Mantle finally fell short, finishing with 52, there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief from the New York traditionalists. Nor had the New York press been all that kind to Mantle in his early years with the team: he struck out frequently, was injury prone, was a true "hick" from Oklahoma, and was perceived as being distinctly inferior to his predecessor in center field, Joe DiMaggio. Over the course of time, however, Mantle (with a little help from his teammate Whitey Ford, a native of New York's Borough of Queens) had gotten better at "schmoozing" with the New York media, and had gained the favor of the press. This was a talent that Maris, a blunt-spoken upper midwesterner, never attempted to cultivate; as a result, he wore the "surly" jacket for his duration with the Yankees.
As 1961 progressed, the Yanks were now "Mickey Mantle's team" and Maris was ostracized as the "outsider," and "not a true Yankee." The press seemed to root for Mantle and to belittle Maris. But Mantle was felled by a hip infection late in the season, leaving Maris as the only player with a chance to break the record.
On top of his lack of popular press coverage, Maris' chase for 61 hit another roadblock totally out of his control: along with adding two teams to the league, Major League Baseball had added eight games to the schedule. In the middle of the season, baseball commissioner Ford Frick announced that unless Ruth's record was broken in the first 154 games of the season, the new record would be shown in the record books as having been set in 162 games while the previous record set in 154 games would also be shown. It is an urban legend that an asterisk would be used to distinguish the new record, sparked by a question to Commissioner Frick from New York sportswriter Dick Young.
Nash and Zullo argued in The Baseball Hall of Shame that Frick made the ruling because the former newspaper reporter had been a close friend of Ruth's. Furthermore, Rogers Hornsby - himself a lifetime .358 batter—compared the averages (In Ruth's record year he hit .356; Maris, .269) and said, "It would be a disappointment if Ruth's home run record were bested by a .270 hitter." (Hornsby was not easy to impress; while scouting for the Mets, the best report he could muster for any current player was "Looks like a major-leaguer." The assessment referred to Mickey Mantle.) Maris downplayed the challenge, saying, "I'm not trying to be Babe Ruth; I'm trying to hit sixty-one home runs and be Roger Maris." (This sentiment would be echoed in 1973–1974, when Hank Aaron, in pursuit of Ruth's career record, said, "I don't want people to forget Babe Ruth. I just want them to remember Henry Aaron.")
With 59 home runs after the Yankees' 154th game, Maris failed to reach the arbitrary mark. He hit his 61st on October 1, 1961, in the fourth inning of the last game of the season, at Yankee Stadium in front of 23,154 fans.[3] Boston Red Sox pitcher Tracy Stallard gave up the record home run. No asterisk was subsequently used in any record books—Major League Baseball itself then had no official record book, and Frick later acknowledged that there never was official qualification of Maris' accomplishment. However, Maris remained bitter about the experience. Speaking at the 1980 All-Star game, he 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 61 home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing." Despite all the controversy and criticism, Maris was awarded the 1961 Hickok Belt for the top professional athlete of the year, and won the American League's MVP Award for the second straight year. It is said, however, that the stress of pursuing the record was so great for Maris that his hair occasionally fell out in clumps during the season. Later, Maris even surmised that it might have been better all along had he not broken the record or even threatened it at all.
Maris' major league record would stand three years longer than Ruth's did, until National Leaguer Mark McGwire broke it by hitting 70 in 1998. Sammy Sosa also broke Maris's record that year, hitting 66. The record is currently held by Barry Bonds (also a National Leaguer), who hit 73 home runs in 2001. Maris' 61 home runs are now the seventh-highest single-season total, and remain the American League record.[4] On January 11, 2010, McGwire admitted to using steroids the year he broke Maris' record. Sosa and Bonds have also been suspected of steroid use.
It ain't over until the fat cat sings
