Maris- why is he under appreciated

[larietrope]

Being a friend of Bobby Richardson, he has said many times that Roger Maris was misunderstood. The press and public's image was not what he was really like. Yet he came across as sullen and uncooperative.
No one can take away his 61 in the time of non steroid use.In my opinion the asterisk didn't belong.

[packs]

I am a huge supporter of Roger Maris and think he should unquestionably be in the HOF for his achievement and contribution to baseball. His 1961 season was one of improbable triumph in the face of overwhelming adversity. No one wanted him to succeed and yet he did it. His life was more or less destroyed by the whole thing as evidenced by the dip his career took after it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Funny how in the 90s to present if a guy has an aberrational year like that (I think 39 and 33 were his next best totals) everyone thinks juicing. I am sure he wasn't but just pointing it out.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Funny how in the 90s to present if a guy has an aberrational year like that (I think 39 and 33 were his next best totals) everyone thinks juicing. I am sure he wasn't but just pointing it out.

Throw in the acne and mood swings and I say he was roiding to the max. But hey I think a lot of the major stars from that era and the 70's was also on the juice.

[packs]

Well he won back to back MVPs and if you look at before and after pics of Maris breaking that record aged him significantly. I don't know if you're being serious with your insinuation.

[Rookiemonster]

Juiced up for sure ! Koufax went from a nobody to a somebody right around the same time. Then retired because he was afraid for "health reasons ".mantle and Maris were probably injecting each other .

Babe Ruth lesser known nickname was the sultan of steroids. 💉

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Throw in the acne and mood swings and I say he was roiding to the max. But hey I think a lot of the major stars from that era and the 70's was also on the juice.

not so sure about that. One of the great "red flags" of the roid era was the "double peak" statistically. Players normally peak between 24-28 and then decline, the level that they decline generally determines if they are a star, avg or a HOF'er. One thing players never have done in the history of baseball, is produce a second peak between age 32-40 yet this is exactly what most of the "usual suspects" did in the 90's early 2000's.

Not saying it is the sole way to determine roid use, but it's a pretty darn good flag.

In the case of Maris, he had a 7.1 WAR season in 1960 followed by a 7.2 in 1961. His BABIP was actually low that year but he had a higher HR/FB than usual. I think it's just the case of a player having a "career year" and it's obvious he made a greater effort to hit long balls that year and was driven by Mantle along the way.

as far as why he's underappreciated? the stupid asterisk, and the fact that his career wasn't very long , hurts him.(and that he wasn't a media darling)

[DBesse27]

I would take the word "why" out of your question. "Is Roger Maris under appreciated?" My answer would be no. His cards still command more money than some HOFers. How much more appreciated do you want him to be?

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Throw in the acne and mood swings and I say he was roiding to the max. But hey I think a lot of the major stars from that era and the 70's was also on the juice.

FYI, steroid use was not prevalent even among professional bodybuilders until the early '60's. Amphetamines were the drugs of choice by major league baseball players in the '60's; perhaps understandably so in light of the truly grinding nature of the 162-game schedule.

Best to all,

Larry

[Volod]

I wonder how much more "unappreciated" Maris would have been had not Frank Lane "appreciated" him so much. If he had broken Ruth's record while playing for the Indians, or the NY farm team in KC, he might have been booted out of baseball and banned from the Hall.

[the 'stache]

Roger Maris is not a Hall of Famer. Are you kidding me? He won two MVPs. Okay. In one of those seasons, he broke Ruth's single season home run mark.

What else did he do? In the other ten years of his career, he received a grand total of 4 MVP votes (all in 1964); he finished in 25th place, receiving 1% of the vote.

A 5 + WAR is considered All Star caliber. In 1960, he had a 7.5 WAR. In 1961, he had a 6.9. His third best season, 1964, he doesn't even come close to All Star caliber. When a guy's third-best single season WAR is a 3.9 , I'm sorry, I don't care if he hit 100 home runs in 1961. Put a nice display for his historic season in Cooperstown, as they have; the player doesn't warrant induction. I'm sorry that he had such a rough time of it while chasing Ruth. That makes for fine melodrama, but it really isn't a consideration for Cooperstown.

Oh, and in 1961, Mickey Mantle was a vastly superior player to Maris. He had a 10.5 WAR (again, versus a 6.9 for Maris), and his OPS of 1.135 blows Maris' .993 out of the water. He won the MVP because of #61, even though Mantle was by every possible measure a better player. A 167 OPS + (Maris) is real good. A 206 OPS + (Mantle) is spectacular. Maris hit 61 balls out of the park, and he still couldn't lead the league in slugging percentage. Mantle did, at .687.

Stop this nonsense.