Bye bye, Babe. One Yankee right-fielder replaced another as baseball's home run king. Thirty-four years after Babe Ruth belted 60 homers, Roger Maris passed Ruth's mark with # 61 on the season's final day. In the fourth inning, in Game 162 of the season, Maris homered into the Yankee Stadium right-field seats off Boston Red Sox rookie Tracy Stallard.

   And yet,  when Maris hit his 61st homer, Yankee Stadium was half-empty - there were only 23,154 fans on hand to see it. For this reason, it's hard to justify rating this moment higher, especially since Maris took 162 games to reach the mark.

   Once considered an unbreakable record, 60 home runs in a single season became a symbol of generational excellence - like the sound barrier, it was an unsurpassable mark, but more than that it was a part of mythology. When Maris took his run at the record, the fact that Ruth had accomplished the feat in 154 games had become as much a part of the mythology as the number 60 itself.

   Still, consider this: the pitchers Maris faced in 1961 were more successful, had lower ERAs, and were pitching in bigger ballparks than those Ruth faced in 1927. In fact, Maris hit 36 of his homers off guys who won at least 10 games during the 1961 season, while Ruth hit only 33 of his homers in 1927 off double-digit winners. And Maris' record stood for 37 years, against expansion seasons, live balls and weaker pitching, while the Babe's record lasted for just 34 years.

   The historic homer was caught by Sal Durante, a 19-year-old truck driver from Coney Island. Durante's reward was $5,000 from a Sacramento restaurant owner - Durante was delighted to just meet the new home-run champion, but Maris insisted that Durante collect the reward.

   There are at least 3 reasons why Maris accomplishment hasn't gotten more respect:

1. Baseball was a different game in 1961. Rather than hype its young stars, it tried to protect its legends. Ford Frick was the commissioner, and he also was a former ghost writer for Babe Ruth. As Maris and Mickey Mantle both closed in on the record, Frick ruled that any player must hit 61 homers in 154 games to officially break Ruth's record, because Ruth played only 154 games when he set the record in 1927. In other words, Maris' achievement would be tainted by the famous "asterisk."

2. In 1961, the American League added two teams, growing from eight to 10. To accommodate the expansion Washington Senators and Los Angeles Angels, the league had to revamp its schedule from 154 to 162 games just to balance things out. With the addition of two teams to the American League, pitching weakened and was diluted; twenty new pitchers were added to the American League, and nearly 500 more homers were hit in 1961 as compared with 1960. Many hitters had their greatest seasons - for example, Norm Cash hit .361. It was more the dilution of talent than the extra games.

3. But most importantly, for most of 1961, Maris wasn't the only hitter chasing Ruth. His teammate, Mickey Mantle, was also in hot pursuit - Mantle, the successor to DiMaggio and Ruth himself, was the one who thrilled with 500-foot home runs, and it was he who gained the support of his teammates and of Yankee fans.  Fans still basically thought of Maris as lefthanded pull hitter who had just the swing to take advantage of that friendly porch in Yankee Stadium’s right field. He rarely hit a homer further than 400 feet. His charisma quotient was almost nil. Although he had been the 1960 American League MVP, he was a career .260 hitter, still an unknown quantity unworthy of dethroning America’s greatest sports hero.

   This characterization of Maris wasn't entirely fair. In 1960, he had led the league with 112 RBIs, and his 39 home runs were just one behind league-leader Mantle - all this despite the fact that Maris had missed 18 games due to injuries.

   In fact, as Mantle and Maris made their charge at Ruth’s home run record, the Yankees actually considered switching Maris, who batted third, and Mantle, who batted fourth, to give Mantle a better shot at the record. If the switch had been made, Maris almost certainly would not have broken the record. Consider this: Maris did not receive one intentional walk in 1961 (after all, who would walk Maris to get to Mantle?), while Mantle was intentionally passed 9 times. Mantle walked 126 times that year - Maris drew 94, in 44 more plate appearances.

   When Mantle fell injured late in the season with 54 homers, it was Maris alone who took up the chase.  The pressure to beat Ruth became so intense for Maris that clumps of his hair fell out. After Mantle fell back in the middle of September when he suffered a hip injury, Maris kept it up and went into the 154th game of the season in Baltimore with 58 homers. He gave it his best shot that night. He hit No. 59 and then hit a long foul on his second-to-last at bat. Alas, in his last at bat, against Hoyt Wilhelm, he hit a checked-swing grounder.

   Maris actually sat out the 155th game, just to rest and regain some peace of mind. Frick's ruling had taken the luster off the record, even if Maris were to hit 61 homers. He belted No. 60 in game No. 158. This is how the Associated Press story led off: "Roger Maris blasted his 60th homer of the season Tuesday night, but it came four official games too late to officially tie Babe Ruth's 34-year-old record in 154 games."

   Maris finally hit #61 on the last day of the season against the Red Sox’s Tracy Stallard. Appropriately enough, it went about 340 feet into Yankee Stadium’s right field porch. Maris won his second straight MVP award, driving in a league-leading 142 runs.

   After the 1961 season, Maris slipped to 33 homers and 100 RBIs in 1962, as the Yankees won their third straight pennant, and then he was hit by a string of injuries during the next four seasons as the Yankee dynasty crumbled. New York traded him to the Cardinals after he hit only .233, with only 13 homers and 43 RBIs, in 1966. He left an angry man, and lasted just two years with the Cards. Injuries had diminished his skills, but when he died in December, 1985, of lymphatic cancer, his record had stood for 24 years. He was only 51. Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs had lasted 34 years. Maris’s record stood for 37 years before Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa topped it in another expansion season.

   As for his home-run record, it was written like this:

61 Roger E. Maris, AL: NY, 1961 (162 G/S)

60 George H. Ruth, AL: NY, 1927