Now is the time to give Roger Maris and Henry Aaron asterisks next to their names in baseball’s record book.  The asterisks would of course signify steroid-free performance.  Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is considering returning the all-time homerun record to Aaron if proven that Barry Bonds used steroids.  Aaron thinks it should be left alone, “you’d have to go back and change all kinds of records”.  Maris would probably feel the same, but maybe the commissioner should note in the record books that Maris and Aaron set the records the right way.

Maris never did have an asterisk by his name.  Commissioner Ford Frick stated around mid-season of 1961 that if Maris or Mantle did not break the record in 154 games, then there should be a distinguishing mark next to the record.  No mark was ever in the record books—Maris’s record was listed as 61 homeruns in 161 games and Ruth’s was listed as 60 homeruns in 154 games.  Maris, by the way, hit 60 homeruns in fewer plate appearances (684) than Ruth (689) and that one missing game was a suspended game against Baltimore in which he and Mantle both hit homeruns that were never counted in the season’s total.

Should Maris be in baseball’s hall of fame?  Players that he played with and against think so.  Mantle said this about Maris—“Roger was the best all around baseball player that he ever saw.  Roger was a great fielder, had a great arm, was a great base runner, was always mentally in the game, and never made a mistake throwing too high or to the wrong base.”  He put it simply, “Roger was as good as there ever was.”

Casey Stengel, who knew a little bit about baseball, said of Maris–”I give the man a point for speed  because he can run fast.  Then I can give him a point because he can slide fast.  I give him another point because he can bunt.  I also give him a point because he can field.  He is very good around fences–sometimes on top of fences.  Next, I give him a point because he can throw.  So I add up my points and I’ve got five for him before I even come to his hitting.”

Trivia question—who played in more World Series in the 1960’s than any other major leaguer?  Answer—Roger Maris.  He was a team player and a winner.  Maris may never make it to the baseball hall of fame, but at least give him the asterisk that he was promised back in ’61.

Originally Published August 7, 2011

By: Bob Lind, The Forum

Midland Mich., fifth-graders have a fun project each year: creating a “wax museum” of famous people, with the figures being the kids themselves.

Each writes a report on a famous historical person and memorizes a summary of it. Then he or she dresses for the role and stands perfectly still like a statue until someone pushes his or her button and the “statue” mouths the report.

For one boy, Micah Carroll, his famous person wasn’t Abe Lincoln, George Washington or other people like them. No, it was a guy from the majors: home run hitter Roger Maris.

But maybe the student’s family’s North Dakota background had something to do with it. Maybe.

Family on the team

For baseball fans, the debate rages on: Who holds the record for most homers in a season?

The Forum’s sports department is chronicling Fargo’s Roger Maris’ pursuit of Babe Ruth’s 60-homer record he set in 1927. Roger pulled it off, hitting 61 in, appropriately enough, 1961, although the season was longer than it was in Ruth’s day, creating a controversy on the legitimacy of Roger’s record.

His mark later was topped by three others. But there are questions about them: Did they use steroids?

Well, for Micah Carroll, 11, there’s no question about  all this: Roger still holds the record.

But then, his whole family is on Roger’s team.

Micah’s dad is Brian Carroll, the son of LeRoy and Carol Carroll, Nothwood, N.D., and his mom, Kirsten, is the daughter of Wayne and Gail Saar, Fargo.

Micah has a twin sister Madison and another sister, Abby, 6, a girl from China who the Carrolls adopted.

And don’t forget the Carrolls’ dog. His name: Maris.

“How great a guy”

Her family, Kirsten says, likes to read, is active in church and missions and enjoys sports.

Brian, who played many sports including baseball when he was growing up, graduated from Northwood High School and North Dakota State University. Kirsten is a graduate of Fargo North High School and Minnesota State University Moorhead.

They were married in 1993 and have lived in Austin, Minn., Greensboro, N.C., and now Midland. Brian is an engineer, and Kirsten is a graphic designer.

Kirsten’s dad is a big baseball fan and Maris admirer. He and his wife, who were travel agents before retiring, used to arrange airline tickets for Roger’s mother so she could see her son play.

Kirsten says she and Brian “grew up hearing the stories of how great a guy Roger was and how he should be in the (National Baseball) Hall of Fame (he’s not). The stories of Roger and what a humble man he was makes you love him more; plus, he’s a hometown hero.”

Brian wrote a report on Roger when he was in eighth grade. “The combination of Maris being a major league baseball record holder of one of the most recognizable records in all of sports,” he says, “along with being (from) North Dakota captured my interest in him. This interest continued into my adult years as I went to college in Fargo and learned even more about Maris and his lasting impact on the community.”

“We also enjoyed the movie “61″ (about Roger and his teammate Mickey Mantle),” Kirsten adds.

“When I worked at Richtman’s Printing in Fargo,” she says, “we created the programs for the golf tournament (the annual charity event named for Roger), so that was fun to work on,” adding, “we are proud of North Dakota and of Maris.”

All the Carrolls have T-shirts reading “The record is still 61.” “We get many comments on them,” Kirsten says.

And, yes, Maris (the family dog) sports a dog tage which, too, reads “The record is still 61.”

Any questions, Baseball Hall of Fame?

By: Heath Hotzler, The Forum

Jay Smith has been telling his friends for years that former New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris belongs in the Hall of Fame.

But this year was the perfect time to attempt to do something about it.

You see, this is the 50th anniversary of Maris’ historic 61 home run season of 1961.

That was the year Maris had the baseball world riveted to his every swing as he eclipsed Yankees legend Babe Ruth’s single-season record.

Smith, who grew up in Boston and is now the CEO of a public relations firm in Virginia, is 61 years old. Oh, sweet synergy.

“I’m just a guy who happened to be a fan through all these years, and I thought Roger was shortchanged and derserved to be in the Hall of Fame for a variety of reasons,” said Smith, who served as the press secretary for former House Republican Leader John J. Rhodes of Arizona from 1973-77.

Smith says he can’t remember seeing Maris play in person. But he’s sure he must have watched the former Fargo Shanley High School star athlete play against the Boston Red Sox when the Yankees visited Fenway Park in the 1960s.

That doesn’t matter.

What matters, Smith says, is that Maris’ career stacks up with many players already in the Hall of Fame.

And time is running out to get the two-time MVP into Cooperstown.

“I dug deep and went into all the stats,” Smith said.

“He compares quite favorably. I still talk to a lot of baseball fans, ardent baseball fans, who just assume he is already in the Hall of Fame. I guess they didn’t get the memo.”

Smith recently created the Facebook fan page “Get Roger Maris in the Baseball Hall of Fame.”

He’s collected almost 600 signatures on an online petition that he plans to forward to the Baseball hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee.

The Veterans Committee is in charge of adding players to the ballot that are no longer eligible through the regular Baseball Writers Association of American vote.

In his petition, Smith outlines Maris’ case by comparing the Yankees slugger’s career with Hall of Famers Bill Mazeroski, Phil Rizzuto, Red Schoendienst and Richie Ashburn.

“They were all great ball players who had their own style that has made baseball what it is today,” Smith writes in the petition. “The only difference is they are in the Hall of Fame and Roger is not. Isn’t it time after 41 years that Roger get the credit he derserves and he gets in too?”

Smith, whose PR firm has worked on several successful political campaigns throughout the country, said he’s unsure if Maris will get into the Hall if he doesn’t get in on the steam of the 50th anniversary of one of baseball’s greatest feats.

In an effort to build momentum, Smith recently sent out a news release indicating that current baseball commissioner Bud Selig backed Maris’ bid for the Hall of Fame at a meeting with the Phoenix Area Chamber of Commerce during Major League Baseball’s All-Star weekend.

Smith quotes Selig: “I certainly agree that Roger Maris should be in the Hall of Fame.”

Selig could not be reached for comment.

Smith said he will likely attempt to contact the members of the Veterans Committee about putting Maris on the ballot.

“You come across these detractors who say he only broke the home run record once,” Smithsaid. “That’s like saying Jonas Salk only invented the polio vaccine once, or that Columbus only discovered America once. I think he should be in. That’s all I can say.”

Maris’ 1961 season was like no other

FARGO — As sports controversies go, the brouhaha over Roger Maris’ 61 home runs in 1961 deserves an asterisk. That is, the controversy seemed like a big deal, but it really doesn’t count. So slap on an asterisk, which has been the quick and easy way to discredit something for 50 years.

It goes back to the days when influential people thought Maris’ record was flimsy enough to deserve an asterisk. He was criticized and vilified as he outraced Yankees teammate Mickey Mantle to surpass what then was the most celebrated standard in sports: Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in a season.

Hall of Famers said Maris wasn’t worthy. Yankees fans held it against him that he wasn’t Mantle. Purists, including baseball commissioner Ford Frick, said Maris technically didn’t break Ruth’s record because the schedule had expanded from 154 games to 162 in 1961 and Maris didn’t hit his 61st within the first 154. Hey, get your red-hot asterisk here!

Fact is, there never was an asterisk. The threat of it was just part of tainting with a broad brush, along with detractors’ arguments that Maris was batting against diluted expansion-year pitching, playing in bandbox ballparks and hitting supposedly juiced balls.

What no one ever did insist though, was that Maris himself was juiced. Not even the harshest nit-pickers ever accused him of cheating.

That brings us to today, with the controversy having come full circle. Today, purists are on Maris’ side.

Today, what with all kinds of testimony of steroid use involving Mark McGwire (who broke Maris’ record by hitting 70 homers in 1998 and later admitted using substances that now are banned) and Barry Bonds (who broke McGwire’s record by hitting 73 in 2001 and who was convicted of obstructing justice in his steroids related trial), Maris is the one without the controversy, or the asterisk.

“I still consider him the one who has the record,” said Bobby Richardson Maris’ teammate and friend.

Today, there is a new regard for the man who was, Maris’ son Richard has said, fueled only by caffeine and Camel cigarettes.

As for whether Maris remains the rightful single-season home run king, Tony Kubek, who batted directly in front of him for most of 1961, said: “That’s something I could not care less about. All I know is that Roger was a great ballplayer.”

But Jim Coates, who had one of this best pitching seasons in 1961 and has written a book titled “Always a Yankee,” was more direct about McGwire, Bonds, Sammy Sosa and others: “Here’s my opinion on that. I think they should have every one of their records stripped. Guys like Roger and Mickey, they did it on their own.”

A detailed new book, “1961(ASTERISK)” by Phil Pepe a rookie Yankees beat reporter in 1961 devotes an epilogue to putting Maris in context of the performance enhancing drugs era. “He’s the last guy who was a true, clean home run champion,” he said in an interview. “It hasn’t all been proven, but it seems he is the last guy who did it without artificial aid.”

“The steroid problem,” Pepe said, “has made Maris bigger than he had been.”

Maris certainly was a big name 50 years ago. He was on his way to a second consecutive American League Most Valuable Player award. He (and Mantle) appeared in two movies, “That Touch of Mink” and “Safe at Home.” Still, his profile fell way short of Babe Ruth’s.

By 1961, Ruth had been gone long enough to seem mythical. On the other hand, 1961 still was close enough in the sweep of history to have Ruth’s contemporaries still around, throwing cold water on Maris’ chase.

Kubek said a barb from Rogers Hornsby and the backlash from Maris’ response rankled the Yankees’ rightfielder and affected his strained relationship with the media. “Roger was a quiet North Dakota guy. He wasn’t from the big city with big quotes,” Kubek said. “But he was the most accessible guy, maybe ever, in the first part of the 1961 season.”

Said Richardson, “It was hard because nothing was coordinated, PR-wise, and Roger was asked the same questions over and over.”

Pepe, who covered the 1961 Yankees for the New York World-Telegram and Sun and later became a columnist for the Daily News and then a radio commentator, said some reporters were “exasperated” by Maris’ handling of unfolding history. “He didn’t get it, he didn’t understand,” the writer said.

But Pepe added that there was no bias against Maris in the press box despite how reporters came across in “61 (ASTERISK),” a movie produced by Billy Crystal. “Why would you root against him? Why wouldn’t you want to be part of that? I never heard anybody say, “I hope he strikes out,” Pepe said. “I liked the movie, but Hollywood has to have a villain.”

Judging from the booing at Yankee Stadium, Maris was the villain as he went up against two Yankees icons, Ruth and Mantle (who hit 54 in ‘61).Teammates say it never drove a wedge between Mantle and Maris, who shared an apartment in Queens with fellow outfielder Bob Cerv. What the whole experience did do was separate Maris from patches of his hair, which wound up down the drain because of stress.

Harmon Killebrew, an Idaho native who hit 46 homers for the Twins in 1961, rooted for the North Dakota family man down the stretch. “Roger was a really likable person,” Killebrew said recently. “But I don’t know that a lot of people in New York were rooting for him. I think they wanted Mickey.”

“Honestly, everybody on the team was pulling for Mickey because he had come up in the system. But when Mickey was hurt and couldn’t play anymore, our allegiance switched to Roger,” said Richardson, who became close with Maris and delivered the eulogy at his funeral in 1985 (saying Maris is “in God’s Hall of Fame”).

The baseball establishment seemed to have its own favorite in the race: a burly rightfielder who had put home runs on the map. Frick had been a ghostwriter for Ruth and was seen by some as a loyalist. For the record, the commissioner said at the time that he thought a 162 game season was only a temporary expansion year experiment (it lasts to this day).

Pepe reports that Frick held a meeting that summer with veteran baseball writers to say there would be a special designation if anyone topped Ruth’s record after the 154th game. “Like an asterisk?” columnist Dick Young reportedly asked and Frick did not disagree.

As Pepe points out at the start of Chapter 10: “There was no asterisk. Not then. Not now. Not ever.” (The asterisk in the title is deliberately ironic the author said, because that’s what people remember.) Instead, Frick approved a separate listing for Maris as a record holder in a 162 game season. Ruth was allowed to keep this 154 game mark. That was changed in 1991 and Maris posthumously was awarded the record outright.

“With Roger, that record was the best thing and worst thing that ever happened,” Kubek said. “The bad part was that people thought it was the only thing he could do.”

Teammates saw him as a complete talent and competitor, a good outfielder with an outstanding arm. “He was the toughest player in all of baseball for breaking up the double play,” Richardson said of Maris, a standout high school halfback. “He’d slide and knock you into leftfield.”

Maris also helped make the 1961 Yankees one of the best teams in history. “The greatest one, as far as I’m concerned,” Coates said. Former Yankees credit first-year manager Ralph Houk for using Whitey Ford on three days of rest instead of his customary four, producing a 25-4 Cy Young season. They still compliment Houk for shuffling the lineup to bat Maris third, ahead of Mantle, setting the table for history.

History is growing increasingly kind to the man who had only 23,154 witnesses for his 61st homer Oct.1, 1961 (including 19-year – old truck driver Sal Durante, who caught it in the rightfield seats). Maris now comes off as the clean one, the fellow who didn’t buckle under the specter of an asterisk.

During the height of the controversy, Maris told reporters, “A season is a season.”

All things considered, no one else really has had one like it.

Pat Maris: “He really didn’t get a lot of credit”

FARGO — The widow of former New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris isn’t waiting by the phone for a call from the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“It would be nice if they would do that,” Pat Maris said Thursday of inducting Roger into the Hall of Fame. “If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”

Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record by hitting 61 in 1961, has not received enough votes over the years to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Pat Maris, who lives in Florida, said this week she wishes Roger could have received the honor while he was living. Roger Maris died of cancer in 1985.

“I think it’s kind of sad that he wasn’t appreciated the way he should have been,” Pat said. “He did do something nobody was able to do. He really didn’t get a lot of credit even from the Yankees. I think he felt bad about that.”

“But he wasn’t someone who would ever say anything like that, or talk like that.”

Pat Maris said the Yankees recently reached out to her to be part of a 50th anniversary celebration of Roger’s 61 home runs in 1961 scheduled for Sept. 23 at Yankee Stadium. Pat said she plans to attend.

After he was traded from New York to St. Louis in 1967, Roger Maris stayed away from Yankee Stadium until former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner wooed him back for Opening Day in 1978.

“It was nice to see (Steinbrenner) appreciate the things that Roger did,” Pat Maris said.

Roger Maris hit .260 with 275 home runs and 850 RBIs in 12 seasons with the Yankees, Cleveland, Kansas City Athletics, and St Louis. He was the American League MVP in 1960 and 1961.

“It’s kind of like Bobby Richardson said at Roger’s funeral,” Pat said. “He’s in God’s Hall of Fame. And the other really doesn’t matter.”

Home Grown

He became baseball’s home run king in 1961, yet through it all, Fargo’s Roger Maris remembered his roots

FARGO — Roger Maris wasn’t changed by fame or notoriety. He wasn’t transformed by a record breaking season or by Hall of Fame snubs.

Throughout his life, those that knew him best say Maris was sometimes quiet, sometimes playful, a fiercely loyal friend, a committed family man and a regular guy.

The Roger Maris who roamed the hallways of Fargo Shanley High School in 1951-52 was the same Roger Maris who drilled 61 home runs in 1961 to break Babe Ruth’s revered single season record.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Maris’ mammoth 1961 season. In breaking one of the most hallowed records in baseball, Maris endured death threats, thongs of reporters watching his every move and losing a clump of hair.

None of it altered Maris’ character.

“I suppose if you were to talk to him or if you knew him, you wouldn’t think he was something special,” said Wayne Blanchard, who graduated from Shanley in 1953.

“He certainly didn’t act like he was. That was a great thing about him. He was quite a guy as far as I’m concerned.”

Maris’ life story has been well chronicled.

He moved from Hibbing, Minn., to Grand Forks, N.D., when his father got a job with the Great Northern Railroad, and ended up in Fargo by the time he was 10.

Roger and his older brother, Rudy, attended Fargo Central High School before heading to Shanley when Roger was a junior.

Maris was a standout athlete at Shanley in football, track and field and basketball. He played baseball for the Fargo American Legion.

Maris received plenty of attention for his athletic ability in high school. However, friends say he never liked being set apart from the other students.

And he certainly never sought out any attention.

“When you grow up in that part of the country you do things a little differently,” said Maris widow and high school sweetheart Pat Maris, who graduated from Shanley in 1953. “You do the work and don’t want a lot of credit for it. I think he just took it like he was just like everybody else.”

Maris was like many teenagers in Fargo in the early 1950s, said Orv Kelly, a 1953 Shanley graduate.

Maris liked billiards, school dances and sports. He could also be funny, playing occasional practical jokes on friends to get a few laughs.

Although mostly reserved and quiet, Maris had an outgoing side with his inner circle.

In the classroom, Maris was a hardworking student.

“Roger was a very wonderful young man,” said Sister Antonine Foy, who taught Maris in a typing class at Shanley. “He was a person who was very thoughtful. When he came back to town later in life when he was famous, he often came over to see the Sisters at the convent.”

As a Shanley athlete, Maris turned heads with his talent and ability in multiple sports. He could fly in the 100-yard dash, was a hard-working rebounder in basketball and he could sidestep opponents in football.

But he wasn’t a fan of football practice, according to 1951 Shanley graduate Pat Colliton, a former Maris teammate.

“He was always ready to play the Friday night games,” Colliton said. “But during the week, he kind of slowed down in practice. He was just such a gifted athlete.”

No matter what happened in his life, Maris was “the same old Roger,” said friend Jim Wold.

Maris was always loyal to his high school friends. He often returned to Fargo during and after his 12-year major league career.

“I remember one day when he and I were talking after he had started baseball with Cleveland,” Blanchard said. “He and I were having a cup of coffee and I kept asking him about playing Major League Baseball. He didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to talk about what was going on here (in Fargo).”

Maris hit .260 with 275 home runs and 850 RBIs with the Cleveland Indians, Kansas City Athletics, New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals.

He earned consecutive American League MVP awards in 1960 and 1961 with the Yankees.

Maris held the single-season home run record for 37 years, until Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa each eclipsed the mark in 1998. The current record of 73 was set by Barry Bonds in 2001.

McGwire, Sosa and Bonds have all since been linked to performance enhancing drugs.

“He didn’t act like Roger Maris, the star he was, “ Blanchard said of Maris. “ He acted like a normal, everyday guy.”

50 years later, Maris still Fargo’s Hero

FARGO — The faded VHS production of 61 home runs was frozen into the ground, just a few inches away from the Roger Maris tombstone. The tape was not alone.

Guarding it were three old New York Yankee baseball caps and a St. Louis Cardinals cap. Golf balls – some of them signed by Maris grandchildren – and baseballs, mostly signed, surrounded the grave.

One ball had its cover completely ripped off, exposing the yarned inner core. Was that a ball from 1961?

“Every time we mow grass around it, there’s usually another ball or two,” said cemetery caretaker Gaylas Pritchard.

This year marks 50 years since Maris, a Fargo Shanley High School graduate, sent his 61st homerun ball into the right-field seats at Yankee Stadium.

It broke the single-season home-run record held by the legendary Babe Ruth, and Fargo has never forgotten it. To this day, Maris has remained the city’s No. 1 sports hero.

Maris died in 1985 at just 51 years old. Not many days in the summer go by without somebody stopping by Holy Cross Cemetery in north Fargo to pay their respects to Maris.

One day not too long ago, a man put down a couple of roses, sat down and had a picnic in front of the monument. He was from New York.

It’s not uncommon for people to leave two quarters, a dime and a penny – which adds up to 61 cents. And it’s not uncommon to see young adults, even kids, gawking at the granite.

Roger Maris is Fargo’s No 1 sports hero for all ages.

“I think he had a hometown yen for Fargo,” said Walt Seeba Maris’ brother in law. “Just think, it was 26 years ago this December.”

Maris’ much-publicized funeral was held on Dec. 23 in Fargo, and Seeba still laughs at the thought of three writers from New York at the gravesite wearing windbreakers. Maris and media were at odds in 1961.

“Flimsy windbreakers,” Seeba said. “They had no idea where they were. I’m sure Roger was laughing his head off, watching those guys shiver.”

Seeba and his wife Mary Jo, have taken care of the gravesite for the past 26 years. Now 82, Walt may pass on the caretaking torch to his son, Mark Seeba.

Former New York Yankees teammate Ken Hunt, from Grand Forks, is buried next to Maris. A few feet away is the tombstone of Judge Ronald Davies, whose most famous ruling of ordering the integration of high school in Little Rock, Ark., put him in the limelight of civil rights history.

“Everybody who is buried out there is important, but there are people who influenced the world who are buried out there,” said Bob Hoss superintendent for Holy Cross cemetery.

For fans of Roger Maris, that influence has lasted for 50 years.