Baseball Card of the Week

At a surprise party in the neighborhood a couple of us somehow got to talking about baseball. Discussing the book Moneyball started it and somehow the town of Fargo, North Dakota came up and for me that was a natural segue into Roger Maris. In 1964-65 I lived in Grand Forks, ND. Roger Maris of course was a favorite son of just about everybody. He was still with the New York Yankees then. 3 years earlier Maris had his 61 home run season. There has been much said about what he went through, especially with the vicious New York City press. In the back of my mind I recall seeing a baseball movie with Maris and Mickey Mantle (I think it was call Safe at Third). As a youngster Maris breaking the Great Bambino's record for home runs in a season was a big deal. Everybody said he did it in more games. Well he did, he played in 161 games that year and Babe played in 151 games in 1927 when he hit 60. 1961 was an expansion year and the schedule went from 154 games to 162 games. That didn't matter to me. He did it in the last game of the year. Tracy Stallard, that was the opposing pitcher's name, of the hated Red Sox delivered the pitch that Maris poked out of the park. Roger was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals and was an integral part of the team in their consecutive Worlds Series appearancaes. The '67 Series was against the Bosox and Yaz had won the Triple Crown that year with Jim Lonborg having a Cy Young season. The Cards won. I admit I was pulling for the Red Sox in that one. The next year the Cards played the Tigers in the Series and the Tigers won. That was pretty much it for Maris. He had a beer distributorship that sustained him until he died of cancer. In Fargo, ND you still see the influence of Roger Maris around town. He and the Mick were quite a duo. Roger Maris is my card of the week.