Thursday, December 14, 2017
One of the Greatest Moments in Baseball
Roger Maris and Tracy Stallard
In 1961, on
the last day of the baseball season, Roger Maris hit a pitch on a 2-0
count into the short porch seats at Yankee Stadium to break Babe
Ruth's home run record. He was encouraged to leave the dugout,
several times, by his teammates to receive the accolades of the fans.
They played
162 games that season, whereas Ruth played 154 games. Some felt there
should have been an asterisk beside the record. My personal opinion
is that his record stands today. It has been broken since, but only
by players who are in the steroid group. What I mean by that is those
that have admitted to using steroids, and those who unquestionably
used them to enhance performances.
It was a
struggle for Maris to get to that point. Throughout the season, he
and Mickey Mantle battled for the home run lead. Mantle was a fan
favourite in New York. In fact. Maris received threats as the two of
them headed down the stretch to the end of the season. Mantle
eventually hit 54 home runs.
The
achievement took its toll on Maris. Most athletes suffer when they
have a special record within their grasp. They lose sleep, they often
experience significant hair loss, they have difficulty concentrating
on tasks, the are known to be most irritable. There is a great relief
when the goal is achieved.
There is a
similarity between hockey and baseball in this regard. When a hockey
player scores a significant goal, the name of the goaltender is often
quoted in the pursuit. In baseball, it is the pitched. Maris hit his
home run off Tracy Stallard.
Stallard was
in his first major league season with the Boston Red Sox. His
reaction to that particular game is truly remarkable. “I'm not
going to lose any sleep over it,” he said after the game. He
pitched the first seven innings of the game, which the Yankees won
1-0. “I'd rather he hit a homer off me than I walk him.”
Later on, in
1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were in the process of
smashing the home run mark, Stallard reflected on his game against
the Yankees. “I don't have any shame at all. I lost the game 1-0,
and I didn't feel any thing about it. People are always trying to
read something into it. But it has never bothered me to talk about
it.”
Stallard had
been signed by the Red Sox out of high school in 1956. He made his
first major league start in 1960.
Remarkably,
there were plenty of empty seats in Yankee Stadium that day, with a
recorded attendance of 23, 154.
Stallard
spent most of the 1962 season in the Red Sox farm system. He also
pitched for the Mets, and the Cardinals. He finished his major league
career with a record of 30 wins and 57 losses. He owned a coal
business and worked for a construction company.
He became
friends with Maris as the years went by. Maris died of cancer when he
was 51, in 1985.
Tracy
Stallard passed away last Wednesday in Kingsport, Tennessee. He was
80 years old.
# posted by James Hurst @ 4:25 PM 
