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Last night the Yankees got off their losing streak and defeated the Angels as Aaron Judge hit home run #51, a three run shot. He is now on pace to tie or break Roger Maris’s Yankee and American League record of 61 in 61. There is now debate of if he hits 62 or more, that he should be considered the baseball all time record, because all of the players ahead of Maris, (all in the National League) are widely suspected of being steroid cheaters. None have been elected to the Hall of Fame, because the baseball writers who vote on the Hall of Fame, consider them to be cheaters.

HR Player/Team Year
73 Barry Bonds, San Francisco (N.L.) 2001
70 Mark McGwire, St. Louis (N.L.) 1998
66 Sammy Sosa, Chicago (N.L.) 1998
65 Mark McGwire, St. Louis (N.L.) 1999
64 Sammy Sosa, Chicago (N.L.) 2001
63 Sammy Sosa, Chicago (N.L.) 1999

In my mind if Judge breaks Maris’s record, I will just say he is the Yankee and American League all time single season home run champ, and let others argue the legitimacy of the homers hit by Bonds, McGwire and Sosa.

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Roger Maris

Speaking of Roger Maris, I was only 11 in 1961 when he hit 61 home runs, but even then I appreciated a handsome guy, and I found and still think of Roger at that age as being very sexy!

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And of course Roger’s teammate who he was competing with for the home run title that year was future Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle who was also a very handsome man!!!!

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Speaking of Roger Maris, I was only 11 in 1961 when he hit 61 home runs, but even then I appreciated a handsome guy, and I found and still think of Roger at that age as being very sexy!

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And of course Roger’s teammate who he was competing with for the home run title that year was future Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle who was also a very handsome man!!!!

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I have a Yankee fan sister who is proud to share her September 10th birthday with Roger Maris! After Maris was kind of driven out of New York, he had some very good seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals. Mantle was not that popular with Yankee fans when he first came up as he was taking Joe Dimaggio's job! Years later that Yankee fans felt guilty about that, so they rooted for Mantle and against Maris in 1961 to make up for their earlier mistreatment of Mantle, but abused Maris in the process. It really is an interesting history.
 
I have a Yankee fan sister who is proud to share her September 10th birthday with Roger Maris! After Maris was kind of driven out of New York, he had some very good seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals. Mantle was not that popular with Yankee fans when he first came up as he was taking Joe Dimaggio's job! Years later that Yankee fans felt guilty about that, so they rooted for Mantle and against Maris in 1961 to make up for their earlier mistreatment of Mantle, but abused Maris in the process. It really is an interesting history.
I admire your sister’s good taste in men and in teams! :001_tongue:

And you correctly described the history between the Yankee fans in regard to Mickey & Roger. Part of it was on Roger in that he never really took to the big city as he was born Hibbing, Minnesota, (by coincidence the same town that Bob Dylan was born in). But Roger was a small town boy. Mickey Mantle was also born in a small town in Oklahoma. But Mickey thrived in New York City and loved to go out to the clubs and party with the women in every city the Yankees traveled to, while his wife Merlyn raised his boys. But according to the Billy Crystal movie. “61”, Roger stayed home in a house he shared with Mickey while playing for the Yankees while Mickey drank and caroused in Manhattan after games. And sadly Roger began to lose his hair in clumps as he couldn’t handle the pressure of the reporters and the fans during that magical 1961 season.

Speaking of the film, “61”, actors Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane actually resembled Roger & Mickey.

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I always loved Roger Maris, (as apparently did kg’s sister, lol). But I would love for Aaron Judge to be the man to break the Yankee and American League single season home run record. And speak of numerical coincidences, Maris hit 61 homers in 1961 and if Judge breaks the record in 2022, it will be exactly 61 years since Roger got his record. Spooky, huh? Lol

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Taste is in the eye of the beholder and sometimes their mouth, is it not?
 
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This is Roger with the 20 year old kid from Staten Island, Sal Durante, who had his moment of fame when he caught the historic home-run ball in the right field stands at Yankee Stadium that afternoon in 1961.

Check out the story from October 2011:


https://www.wnyc.org/story/161979-maris/


The record has been broken three times since 1961, but to Sal Durante, a 70-year-old Yankee fan living on Staten Island who is claimant to five-minutes of baseball infamy, the record still stands.

Fifty years ago, on October 1, 1961, Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, and on that same day, Durante ascended from tough kid and super fan from Coney Island, to a baseball legend: he caught the record-breaking ball.

It was a Sunday, and the way Durante tells it, his girlfriend (soon-to-be wife), his cousin and his girlfriend were sitting around his home in Coney Island, bored.

Durante was a fan who never missed a game on television and suddenly felt the urge to see the last game of the season.

“I always wanted to get a home run,” Durante said.

That season the race for the home run record was neck and neck between Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.

“The two of them, the M and M boys, were celebrities, they took baseball by storm,” said baseball historian Harvey Frommer. “I’m wondering how many Yankee fans were created in that 1961 season, because this was power personified.”

Mantle though was the more beloved of the two.

“Maris never had the panache, the sexiness, the image of a Mickey Mantle, and most people were kind of turned off by his persona,” said Frommer, who describes Maris as having a “grim façade” and not being media savvy.

Durante and company all headed into the city, not knowing if they’d be able to get tickets. Durante, worked in an auto parts shop, but didn’t have any money at the time but, his girlfriend, Rosemarie did. He admits they were surprised to learn tickets were available -- and in right field, prime home run-catching territory.

Durante was sitting with his cousin and his girlfriend, smoking a cigarette, when Maris was up to bat just before the fourth inning.

“I watched that baseball and didn’t take my eye off that baseball from the time it left Tracy’s (Stallard) hand to Roger’s bat. And sure enough he hit it,” Durante said.

Durante jumped on his seat, cigarette still in his mouth.

”It came right to me, amazing. I just reached as high as I could reach, hit the palm, knocked me into the next row. And that was it,” he said.

Durante was whisked away and met Maris a few minutes later. But Maris refused to take the game ball.

“You keep it, you make yourself some money,” Durante remembers Maris telling him.

Durante spent the rest of the afternoon at the Yankees restaurant eating pie with his girlfriend and doing interviews.

Meanwhile, Sam Gordon, a bold restaurant owner in Sacramento, Calif., had promised $5,000 to whomever brought him the record-breaking ball.

Durante collected the promised $5,000 from Gordon (who later returned the ball to Maris) and used half the money to pay off his parents’ debt.

“Growing up as a young boy, I always said if I made some money I’d give them money to help them, so I gave them $2,500 of it. And the other $2,500, when we got married, I set up my home with furniture,” he said.

Durante, a retired school bus driver of 30 years, has three sons and six grandchildren. He’s been to the new Yankee stadium, but can’t say he’s a fan.

“It just doesn’t seem the same—maybe because I grew up watching the old stadium and going there a few times,” he said. “It’s just a different feel for me.”

Since that time, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds have all broken the home run record, but all have been mired in steroid scandals, which to Durante, and many others, taints the sacred record.

“I believe, yes, Roger is the home run king,” Durante said. “He deserves to be recognized for the single season home run record. Maris worked his tail off, with all that pressure, he was still able to do it.”

Frommer, the historian, said when Maris broke the home run record it was an “epic feat.”

“The conditioning was not as great as it is today,” he said, “and the ball was kept in play a little bit more than it is today and the ball parks are still relatively big. There were some real challenges to hitting home runs.”

And the players didn’t use performance enhancing drugs.

“Maris basically just smoked and drank beer,” Frommer said. “Babe Ruth also, all he did was a lot of beer drinking and womanizing, and smoking.”
 
Twenty year old kid, are we showing our age (and yes I no the sports term kid)! :biggrin:
 
Twenty year old kid, are we showing our age (and yes I no the sports term kid)! :biggrin:
Indeed I’ve long been referring to guys in their early twenties as kids, be them minor leaguers coming up to the majors, kids who come to work at my old job or current job, or Broke Straight Boys newbies on the site. I think it’s an endearing term, but I guess these kids may not see it that way. lol :smile:

I’d love to be a kid again and I’d take no offense to the being called such. :biggrin:
 
You know I was just 'funin' with you & I, too, would love to be anything under 50 for that matter!
 
True, but not an oldie with a broken down Chassis!
 
I am a Duke basketball fan but the same Duke sites that follow basketball cover all their athletic programs including football. In fact, by coincidence, the current starting quarterback of my New York Giants team is Daniel Jones, former Duke QB.

So this morning as I was checking the Duke site for info on the upcoming basketball season, I see that the football team has a new Quarterback. He is 6' 4", 212 lbs Riley Leonard out of Fairhope Alabama. I don’t think Duke football will be a good team this year, but I always check out at least part of some games on TV and I will root for cute young Riley!!!!

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I will root for cute young Riley!!!!

So that begs the question. Were he ugly would you root for him?
 
I will root for cute young Riley!!!!

So that begs the question. Were he ugly would you root for him?
I know you are joking. But the answer is, on the Duke basketball team, I will root for any player to help us win.

On the football team, a cute guy at QB will make me more likely to watch. :smiley-love021:
 
I fully agree with you my friend, as you have said before this Forum is meant to be light hearted and I add to have loads of fun.
 
I am a Duke basketball fan but the same Duke sites that follow basketball cover all their athletic programs including football. In fact, by coincidence, the current starting quarterback of my New York Giants team is Daniel Jones, former Duke QB.

So this morning as I was checking the Duke site for info on the upcoming basketball season, I see that the football team has a new Quarterback. He is 6' 4", 212 lbs Riley Leonard out of Fairhope Alabama. I don’t think Duke football will be a good team this year, but I always check out at least part of some games on TV and I will root for cute young Riley!!!!

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I was channel surfing last night and Duke was winning, although I did not get the final score. Meanwhile Virginia Tech was a huge upset victim to Old Dominion!
 
The Yankees continue to lose games in an unprecedented manner. But the one pleasure at this time being a Yankee fan is watching the Magnificent Aaron Judge playing day in and day out, lining base hits, hitting massive home runs, playing an amazing outfield and running the bases. He is the complete package! If the Yankees don’t resign him this offseason, there will be mutiny of Yankee fans. He is a true super star!

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Just a quick mention before I go to work that today the Yankees play a doubleheader at the Stadium with Minnesota and Aaron Judge has two more games to try to hit another home run in his historic chase of Roger Maris’s Yankee and American League record of 61 home runs in 1961.

Aaron is now at 54 with 27 games remaining.

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:smiley-love021: Aaron. Lol
 
Sunday was a big sports day for me. My Yankees throughly defeated Tampa Bay for the second straight day and extended their lead in first place to 5-1/2 games. Gleyber Torres’s lead the Yanks with two home runs.

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The New York Football Giants won their first Opening Day since 2016 with a thrilling 21-20 win on a two point conversion by the Giants and a last second missed field goal by Tennessee. The Giants were lead by Saquon Barkley coming back from yet another injury with 164 yards rushing and he score a touchdown.

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And while I am not a tennis fan, also in New York yesterday in the finals of The U.S. Open it was a match between 19 year old Carlos Alvarez defeating 23 year old Casper Rudd, two hot “real athletes”.

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