![]() That took much of the suspense out of the record chase. 153 and had a potential record-tying shot that hooked 10 feet foul in the late innings of the 154th game. Frick had proclaimed that Ruth's 154-game record would stand if Maris did not break it by the 154th game, which was the third game of a four-game series against the Orioles. The asterisk series took place at Memorial Stadium. Maris found skeptics everywhere, particular in Ruth's hometown Baltimore, where longtime Evening Sun sportswriter Bill Tanton quoted a Memorial Stadium groundskeeper lamenting that "It would be a crime to see a. So, when Maris, then 26, outdistanced a banged-up Mantle in the final months of the 1961 season, the fan reaction bore no resemblance to the euphoric fan frenzy that has greeted McGwire at every stop. "Then Roger came in and he was the whipping boy because he was supposedly trying to replace Ruth." "When Roger showed up, Mickey was the whipping boy, because he was trying to replace DiMaggio," Shannon said. And he was immediately in juxtaposition with Mantle, whose early years in New York also were uncomfortable because he was cast in the role of successor to the legendary Joe DiMaggio. He hit 39 home runs in his first season in New York, falling just one behind league leader Mickey Mantle in 1960 in a precursor to their exciting two-man run at Ruth's record the following year. Maris was a country boy from Fargo, N.D., who began his baseball career out of high school and eventually became one of the many solid players who were shuttled from the beleaguered Kansas City A's franchise to the Yankees during the late 1950s. I think if you asked 90 percent of the writers who dealt with him, you'd get a much different perception." "He would stand at his locker for hours after the game answering every reporter's question, but he still got this reputation for being a snarly guy. ![]() The Yankees never wanted him to break that record so they didn't help him at all. "It was just a perception that people had of him because of what was put on him. "He was a great guy," said Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon, who played with Maris for two years in St.
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