It could be said that this was in itself a form of anti-Maris discrimination, but in any event after a few years all record books came around to giving Maris sole credit for the single-season record. Some, such as the the Sporting News' record book, simply listed Ruth's record and Maris' record on separate pages. When the 1962 record books appeared, there was no asterisk and no distinctive mark of any kind. But publishers never really took the hint. Indeed, there are those in the journalistic community who suspect that Frick and Young set up the scene together. Everybody does that when there's a difference of opinion." Of course, there was no "difference of opinion" the issue didn't exist until Ford created it, and it wouldn't have lasted unless Young had kept it alive. According to a Maris biographer, Maury Allen, who was present at the meeting, Young said out loud, "Maybe you should use an asterisk on the new record.
It's possible that little or nothing would have come out of the press conference if not for the crusty and acerbic sports columnist Dick Young, then writing for the New York Daily News. So, in essence, Frick was telling publishers over whom he had absolutely no authority whatsoever that they change their books to suit him. What the film doesn't say, and what escaped most of the baseball writers present at Frick's press conference, was that Major League baseball has no "official" record book and didn't have until Total Baseball got the job a few years ago. However, if the player does not hit more than 60 until after his club has played 154 games, there would have to be some distinctive mark in the record books to show that Babe Ruth's record was set under a 154-game schedule. "Any player who may hit more than 60 home runs during his club's first 154 games would be recognized as having established a new record.
#Roger maris crack
As early as July 17, when Maris and several other sluggers were ahead of Ruth's 1927 pace, Ford, apparently distressed that the new 162-game season would give someone an unfair crack at Ruth's record, called a press conference and issued this ruling: Maris had the bad luck to have his greatest season in 1961 at a time when Frick was commissioner of baseball. Frick worshiped Ruth and was at his bedside the day before he died (and made much of that in interviews and after-dinner speeches). That anyone ever thought there was an asterisk is at least as much the fault of sportswriter Dick Young as of commissioner Ford Frick. In point of fact, no such asterisk was ever put beside Maris' name in any record book it never existed. The asterisk was supposed to accompany Roger Maris' name into the record books to indicate that Maris had broken the record over a 162-game span instead of the 154 schedule that Ruth played. The asterisk supposedly came into being 40 years ago when Maris became the first player to surpass the most famous American sports record of the past century, Babe Ruth's 60 home runs in one season.
#Roger maris tv
Now, thanks to the enormous success of Billy Crystal's TV film "61*" (released last week on home video), it seems the asterisk next to Roger Maris' name has sole possession of the top spot.
In fact, with the possible exception of Abner Doubleday's invention of baseball, the game's most enduring myth has been Roger Maris' Asterisk.
Of course, the idea that the achievements of a new generation of ballplayers should be qualified isn't new. There's Murray Chass in the New York Times writing about "The Measure of Inflation in the Home Run Race." And one of the hosts on New York's WFAN let the cat out of the bag when he said we should put "a mental asterisk" around Bonds' record, whatever it turns out to be. So now they want to put an asterisk on Barry Bonds! "The home run has been devalued," says someone on NPR.
0 kommentar(er)
