Roger Maris

Did You Know?

• Maris set a minor league record by driving in seven runs in Game 2 of the 1956 Junior World Series.
• He and his brother owned the Budweiser beer distributorship in Gainesville, Florida, after his playing career.
• Maris's wife Pat appeared on the game show To Tell the Truth in 1961, receiving three of four possible votes.

Early life

Roger Eugene Maris was born on September 10, 1934, in Hibbing, Minnesota, to Rudolph S. "Rudy" Maras and Ann Corrine "Connie" Perkovich, both of Croatian heritage. His father changed the family surname from Maras to Maris in 1955. Maris's older brother Rudolph, who developed polio at age 18, initially forced him to play baseball, dragging him out by the ear; Maris hated the sport but later came to enjoy it. The family moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1938, and to Fargo in 1946. Maris attended Fargo Central High School before transferring to Bishop Shanley High School, a Catholic school, in 1950, graduating in June 1952. He played baseball and football for the Shanley Deacons, setting a national high school record for most return touchdowns in a game with four. He met his future wife, Patricia, in the tenth grade at a basketball game.

Major league baseball career

Maris made his major league debut on April 16, 1957, with the Cleveland Indians, going 3-for-5 in a 3–2 loss. Two days later he hit his first home run, a grand slam off Jack Crimian. He finished his rookie season with a .235 average, 14 home runs, and 51 RBI in 116 games. On June 15, 1958, he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics with Dick Tomanek and Preston Ward for Vic Power and Woodie Held.

After the trade he hit .247 with 19 home runs and 53 RBI for Kansas City in 1958. In 1959 he batted .273 with 16 home runs and 72 RBI, missing 45 games due to an appendix operation. On December 11, 1959, he was sent to the New York Yankees in a seven-player deal. In his Yankees debut on April 19, 1960, he hit a single, double, and two home runs.

That season he led the AL in slugging percentage (.581), RBI (112), and extra base hits (64), hit 39 home runs, and won the AL MVP and Gold Glove Award. The Yankees won the pennant but lost the World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1961 Maris hit 61 home runs, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record, and won his second MVP. He played for Yankees teams that won the World Series in 1961 and 1962, and for the St. Louis Cardinals team that won in 1967.

Hall of Fame candidacy

Maris was considered for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers' Association of America from 1974 to 1988, but was not elected. In 1977 sportswriter Greg Hansen criticized the writers for excluding Maris, noting that many outfielders in the Hall of Fame had never won two MVP awards and that no one else had hit 61 home runs in a season. Hansen wrote that Maris's tense relationship with the media affected the voting, and that Maris had told him he knew he would never be inducted.

In 2010 the Hall of Fame established a Golden Era Committee to vote on overlooked players from 1947 to 1972. Maris did not appear on the committee's first ballot in 2011 or its second in 2014. In August 2011 George Vecsey of The New York Times wrote that Maris was a terrific player for a few brief years but that his career statistics were not worthy of induction, despite playing in an era not influenced by performance-enhancing substances.

Legacy

Speaking at the 1980 All-Star Game, Maris said that people acted as though he was doing something wrong by breaking the home run record, and that he had nothing to show for his 61 home runs. Commissioner Ford Frick had stated the record had to be achieved in 154 games, but the record was affirmed by committees in 1968 and 1991. Maris's MLB record was broken by Mark McGwire in 1998, and later by Barry Bonds in 2001; his AL record stood until Aaron Judge hit 62 home runs in 2022.

In 1964 Maris received North Dakota's Roughrider Award. In 1977 he was inducted into the North Dakota American Legion Baseball Hall of Fame. On July 22, 1984, a plaque dedication and number 9 retirement ceremony was held for him in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. The Roger Maris Museum opened in 1984 in Fargo, and the Roger Maris Cancer Center opened in 1990.

The United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in 1999. Actor Barry Pepper portrayed Maris in the 2001 HBO film 61.