Table of Content
- A bomb explodes in the Los Angeles Times building
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- Sal Durante, who caught Roger Maris' record-breaking 61st home run in 1961, passes away at 80
- Ford Motor Company unveils the Model T
- Aaron Judge’s historic 62nd home run in photos
- Aaron Judge ties Roger Maris, hits 61st home run of season
As for the ball hit in Judge's history-making home run on Tuesday, fans in the stands tried to catch it, but it wound up landing over the fence with Toronto's pitching coach, who gave it to the Yankees. "He's been chasing history and now he makes it," one sportscaster exclaimed of Judge, in video of the moment shared by the Yankees on Twitter. "Mom knew it, Roger Mathis Jr. knew it. And they are united in history around the magical, mystical number 61." The 30-year-old New York Yankees outfielder, No. 99, reached the mark with a line drive into the left field seats at the top of the seventh inning, at Toronto's Rogers Centre. Maris hit his 61st home run in 1961 on Oct. 1, breaking Ruth's previous 1927 AL record of 60. Like Maris in 1961, Judge was consistent no matter where he was hitting.
In 2001, Barry Bonds surpassed that mark with 73 home runs, though all three players used performance-enhancing drugs. Maris had 59 home runs after the Yankees' 154th game and therefore failed to beat Ruth's 60 home runs within the original season length. Maris hit his 61st home run on October 1, 1961, in the fourth inning of the last game of the season, at Yankee Stadium in front of 23,154 fans. Boston Red Sox pitcher Tracy Stallard gave up the record home run, which was caught by fan Sal Durante in the right field bleachers. Maris was awarded the 1961 Hickok Belt as 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.
A bomb explodes in the Los Angeles Times building
The old schedule of 154 games was replaced by 162 games which led to some controversy due to the 8 extra games that Maris had to try to hit 61. Maris' major league record stood for 37 years, three years longer than Ruth's, before it was broken by Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1998. He became just the fifth player to hold a share of the AL season record.
And in turn, he had always been most concerned about helping his teammates win. Judge's 61 home runs are the most by a right-handed batter in AL history. He is the fifth player to hit at least 61 long balls in a single season, and first since Bonds and Sosa in 2001. Judge reached the plateau 61 years after Maris’ record-setting season with his mother Patty sitting next to Maris’ son right behind home plate. The two-run shot in the seventh inning came on a 3-2, 94-mile per hour sinker.
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Roger Eugene Maris (September 10, 1934 – December 14, 1985) was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball . He is best known for setting a new MLB single-season home run record with 61 home runs in 1961. The record remained unbroken until 1998 and remained the American League record until Aaron Judge broke it in 2022. Maris hit only 58 homers in the Yankees' first 154 games that season, and yes, many folks wanted to put an asterisk next to his home run total in the record books. They didn't think it was fair he had the advantage of eight extra games to break the record. There are still 7 games left in the season for Judge to set a new record.
With all five teams for which Maris played in the minors, the clubs' win-loss records improved from the prior season. Judge walked an astounding 13 times in 34 plate appearances between his 60th and 61st. Judge, who walked his final four plate appearances Tuesday night and in his first time up Wednesday, can pass Maris this weekend at the Stadium, where the Yankees start a three-game series Friday night against the Orioles. The Yankees (96-59), who clinched the AL East crown Tuesday night along with the No. 2 seed for the AL playoffs, have seven games remaining. With special baseballs for the purposes of authentication in play — the case starting in the ninth inning Sept. 18 in Milwaukee when Judge came to the plate with 59 homers — Judge hammered a full-count, 95-mph sinker into the leftfield stands.
Sal Durante, who caught Roger Maris' record-breaking 61st home run in 1961, passes away at 80
Then, in the bottom of the eighth, Maris made the last out of the Yankees’ regular-season when, facing the Red Sox’ Chet Nichols, who had relieved Stallard after the seventh inning, he popped to second. Closer Luis Arroyo, who had come on in the eighth, dispatched the Red Sox in the top of the ninth, giving up one single, and the Yankees, having finishing the regular season with 109 wins, looked ahead to the World Series, which would open at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. As second baseman Bobby Richardson came to bat to lead off the Yankees half of the first, the anticipation grew.
In the late 1950s, Kansas City frequently traded their best young players to the New York Yankees—a practice which led them to be referred to as the Yankees' "major league farm team"—and Maris was no exception. In a seven-player deal in December 1959, he was sent to the Yankees with Kent Hadley and Joe DeMaestri in exchange for Marv Throneberry, Norm Siebern, Hank Bauer, and Don Larsen. Maris's home run record was controversial, as the previous single-season home run record was set during a period when MLB teams played 154 games per season. Before Maris broke Ruth's record, the AL baseball season had been extended to 162 games. Maris hit his 61st home run in the last game of the season, which led to questions about the legitimacy of his record. In 1998, Mark McGwire set a new MLB record with 70 home runs; the same year Sammy Sosa also surpassed Maris' record with 66 home runs.
Ford Motor Company unveils the Model T
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." Durante was a Brooklyn-based truck driver at the time he caught the ball; he would later drive a school bus for 30 years until his retirement at the age of 62. About 20 years ago, Sal and Rosemarie moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island. Red Barber, calling the game on WPIX, implied that the lucky fan who caught the ball would receive $5,000. Sal Durante was 19 years old in 1961 when he caught Roger Maris’ record-breaking 61st home run ball, and it was an experience he cherished for 60 years. 2 Research begun in 1995 and validated in 2010, discovered that Maris has been credited with an additional, unearned RBI during the 1961 season resulting in his original total of 142.
Barry Bonds holds the overall record with 73 home runs in 2001, topping the 70 hit by Mark McGwire and 66 by Sammy Sosa during the home run chase of 1998. That duo combined to eclipse the 60-mark five times over a four-season stretch, with McGwire hitting 65 home runs in 1999 and Sosa crushing 64 in 2001 and 63 in 1999. He actually lost his hair and had his and his families lives threatened. The most heartbreaking part of his 1961 saga came after his record breaking long ball. Commissioner Ford Frick decided that Maris' record would not stand against Ruth's because it was not done during the same number of games.
Within a few years the asterisk controversy died down and all prominent baseball record keepers listed Maris as the single-season record holder. When Maris went up to the plate for that famous home run, Maris heard the sign relayed to him and hit it out for a home run . Meanwhile, as the crowd roared, Maris, who recalled that he thought it was gone as soon as he hit it, made his way around the bases, jogging head down, as he had done 60 other times that season. After being congratulated by third-base coach Frank Crosetti and greeted by Yogi Berra at home plate, the happy Maris headed to the dugout. However, the shy record-holder’s teammates would not allow him to remain there, instead pushing him back out onto the field to acknowledge the fans who were joyfully and exuberantly cheering his name and celebrating his unprecedented accomplishment.
His son, Roger Maris Jr., was in the stands on Wednesday night as Judge hit the homer, sitting next to Judge's mother Patty. Cameras captured the two embracing after the athlete's history-making hit. In his fourth at-bat Wednesday, Judge hit his first home run in eight games. It came after a first inning walk, a second inning pop out and a third inning ground out.
The Washington Senators that took the field in 1961 were an expansion team, having replaced the original Senators franchise that had re-located to Minnesota and become the Minnesota Twins. On September 24, 2011, at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees celebrated the 50th anniversary of Maris's single-season home run record. Maris' wife, Pat, appeared as herself on October 2, 1961, episode of the game show To Tell the Truth. That year, Maris, Mantle, and Yankee teammate Yogi Berra also made appearances in the film That Touch of Mink, starring Cary Grant and Doris Day. In 1998, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs topped Maris’ 61. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants topped McGwire's season mark with 73 home run in 2001.
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