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. 💉

[Leon]

Originally Posted by 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. 💉

Ruth's steroids were hot dogs.

[Rookiemonster]

Originally Posted by Leon

Ruth's steroids were hot dogs.

Lol call'em what ever you'd like . Wink wink hot dogs ..... Barry bonds must have eaten a ton of hotdogs .

[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?

[packs]

He could be more appreciated by gaining induction. Dizzy Dean is in due in large part to his 30 win season. So why can't Maris get in for hitting 61 homers? His career was shortened due to his magical season just as Dean's was, so what is the difference between them that one gets in and one doesn't?

[Johnny630]

Well said Nick. Prime example would be Jr. With his outstanding years from 21-30. Then injuries/steady decline. I'd like to think he was the best all around position player of my era, 90's-early 2000's. Also pretty cool is Jr was the first and only round one number one draft pic to be in the HOF.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Well said Nick. Prime example would be Jr. With his outstanding years from 21-30. Then injuries/steady decline. I'd like to think he was the best all around position player of my era, 90's-early 2000's. Also pretty cool is Jr was the first and only round one number one draft pic to be in the HOF.

Chipper will be the 2nd #1 overall pick to go in in a year or two. Really shows how hard scouting and drafting really is.

[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

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Leon

Ruth's steroids were hot dogs.

Hot dogs, booze and broads! Better than dianabol, decadurabolin or winstrol any day.

Regards, Larry

[Johnny630]

Totally agree Nick, sure is a crap shoot! Chipper for sure will be the second number one pick. 😃

[glynparson]

I have been loving your posts lately both the comic ones and the opinion ones. eep up the good work sir and hope to see you again at the national this year.

[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.

[ALR-bishop]

We enjoyed having him in St Louis in 67 and 68.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Bill has nailed it. The romance surrounding Maris is quite misplaced IMO, one exceptional season notwithstanding. Norm Cash's 1961 season in which he led the league in hits, BA, on base percentage, and OPS arguably was better than Maris's season. And Cash had a much longer and better career. But nobody (rightfully) is suggesting Cash for the HOF.

[brian1961]

Peter, the romance surrounding Roger Maris is most assuredly not misplaced! Roger Maris is very worthy. Roger is also worthy of being enshrined in the Hall. It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of a Long and Great Career with Sufficient Numbers that satisfies even the most cynical and begrudging card curmudgeons. Just as Dizzy Dean had his 1934, and Lou Boudreau had his 1948, and Hack Wilson had his 1930, Roger Maris was 1961. People love an underdog. Everything and everybody, except Roger's family, teammates including Mickey Mantle, and a few devoted fans, were AGAINST him. They put the words AGAINST ALL ODDS on Roger's tombstone, and so it was. Even in the World Series, the Reds were starting to come back and really make a fight out of it, holding the Yanks to a tie late in the game, but Roger Maris broke their backs with a home run that broke the tie and eventually won the game. The Reds said it was Roger's HR that destroyed their momentum.

Taking the whole mess that Roger went through, and I feel cut his life by 25 years, he gave baseball so much in '61, and achieved more fame in that one year than a third of the HOF members.

I agree Roger's career stats do not come close to a typical hall of fame career. Be that as it may, his lasting legacy is one of remarkable respect and admiration. He was a complete player--great fielder, good base runner, and a clutch player.

Let's not bring Norm Cash into the discussion. His "great" 1961 season has a hollow ring to it----he achieved it by using a hollow bat!

Roger Maris is in my personal hall of fame, and I have enjoyed collecting his cards for over 50 years. I never bought his items believing they were gonna appreciate in value. I bought them because I've always appreciated Roger.

I believe he is misunderstood and underappreciated, but this may be due to the masses of tunnel-visioned malcontents that only see HOF credentials by, again, those "sufficient numbers".

MLB continues to do a disservice to dear Roger. They've dragged their feet in the wet Yazoo clay at dealing with the guys who were on the steroids--the cheaters. Roger Maris should still hold the single season home run record! Again, Roger Maris should ALSO be elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame.

---Brian Powell

[Peter_Spaeth]

Baseball is first and foremost a game measured by numbers. By any set of numbers, Maris is nowhere close to HOF stature, in my book. This is not to denigrate him in any way or to say he should not be admired for breaking the record and for his other talents and accomplishments.

PS the cut his life by 25 years thing seems a bit melodramatic and a media creation to me. Millions of ordinary people were and are under infinitely more pressure on a daily basis than a guy playing baseball chasing a record. Sure he put pressure on himself for a couple of months but to say it dramatically shortened his life, I am skeptical.

[brian1961]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Baseball is first and foremost a game measured by numbers. By any set of numbers, Maris is nowhere close to HOF stature, in my book. This is not to denigrate him in any way or to say he should not be admired for breaking the record and for his other talents and accomplishments.

Deep down, Pete, I know you are right. I guess the magnitude of his one magnificent season, in my heart and mind, carries enough weight to put Roger in Cooperstown. That probably won't happen, which is why I wrote, as I did in my book, that at least Roger is in my own hall of fame. Regardless of whether he is enshrined, I will at least look upon him as a great player and family man. Amazing at it may seem, what soured Roger on playing baseball was not 1961; rather, it was 1962---with all the unreasonable expectations and miserable shellackings Roger got from the New York press. Many fans who carried the torch for the Babe, or Mickey, took great delight in booing and bashing Roger.

A couple other players had one outstanding season, to the extent that arguments could be made in their behalf.... I guess it boils down that it's just too bad that there isn't something to recognize a guy for one glorious season. The two I was thinking of were Colby Jack Coombs of Connie Mack's 1910 A's, and Smoky Joe Wood with the 1912 Red Sox. The chapter in THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES got me started on Mr. Wood, while the SABR entry on Mr. Coombs left me stunned. Talk about numbers and sheer superiority with these hurlers in their respective seasons. Right there with Big Ed Walsh's 1908 campaign, though Edward had sufficient numbers from other years to elect him back in 1946. Ty Cobb spoke glowingly of Big Ed, just as Walter Johnson claimed nobody was faster than Smoky Joe Wood.

Of course, few players were more modest than ol' Barney The Big Train!

Pete, thank you for dealing with me with dignity and respect. It was probably more than I deserved. Given the fact I've been a strong Roger Maris fan since 1961, a rooter for the underdog just like my dear mother was; well, I suppose I don't want to drop the torch for Roger.

Best regards, bro. ---Brian Powell

[Neal]

Maris is all over Cooperstown .... just not as a plaque on the wall.

Koufax became great because of the move to the Coliseum and Dodger Stadium, not steroids .....

[chaddurbin]

maris' appreciation is just fine looking at the prices of his cards. talk to jackie robinson about pressure. and being under-appreciated how about barry bonds (#1 barry bonds champion, that's me!).

the HOF does recognize great individual achievements, we don't need to induct the player in for one great season/feat. i'm sure a bat or jersey from his 61 hr year is in there, and vander meer back to back no hitters, harvey haddix 10in perfect game etc.

[packs]

If you look at cards of Maris before and after the record you can clearly see the toll it took on him. He was under constant death threats. That is not a media creation.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by brian1961

Deep down, Pete, I know you are right. I guess the magnitude of his one magnificent season, in my heart and mind, carries enough weight to put Roger in Cooperstown. That probably won't happen, which is why I wrote, as I did in my book, that at least Roger is in my own hall of fame. Regardless of whether he is enshrined, I will at least look upon him as a great player and family man. Amazing at it may seem, what soured Roger on playing baseball was not 1961; rather, it was 1962---with all the unreasonable expectations and miserable shellackings Roger got from the New York press. Many fans who carried the torch for the Babe, or Mickey, took great delight in booing and bashing Roger.

A couple other players had one outstanding season, to the extent that arguments could be made in their behalf.... I guess it boils down that it's just too bad that there isn't something to recognize a guy for one glorious season. The two I was thinking of were Colby Jack Coombs of Connie Mack's 1910 A's, and Smoky Joe Wood with the 1912 Red Sox. The chapter in THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES got me started on Mr. Wood, while the SABR entry on Mr. Coombs left me stunned. Talk about numbers and sheer superiority with these hurlers in their respective seasons. Right there with Big Ed Walsh's 1908 campaign, though Edward had sufficient numbers from other years to elect him back in 1946. Ty Cobb spoke glowingly of Big Ed, just as Walter Johnson claimed nobody was faster than Smoky Joe Wood.

Of course, few players were more modest than ol' Barney The Big Train!

Pete, thank you for dealing with me with dignity and respect. It was probably more than I deserved. Given the fact I've been a strong Roger Maris fan since 1961, a rooter for the underdog just like my dear mother was; well, I suppose I don't want to drop the torch for Roger.

Best regards, bro. ---Brian Powell

No right or wrong here, just opinion, and it certainly makes for good discussion. It's always interesting to think about guys who had these one or two phenomenal seasons relative to the rest of their careers -- Cash, Ron Bryant, Steve Stone come immediately to mind but I am sure there are many others.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by chaddurbin

maris' appreciation is just fine looking at the prices of his cards. talk to jackie robinson about pressure. and being under-appreciated how about barry bonds (#1 barry bonds champion, that's me!).

the HOF does recognize great individual achievements, we don't need to induct the player in for one great season/feat. i'm sure a bat or jersey from his 61 hr year is in there, and vander meer back to back no hitters, harvey haddix 10in perfect game etc.

Barry has only himself to blame. Unless you think he was juicing all along, and I don't, he was already a lock first ballot HOFer when his ego got the better of him after Sosa and McGwire.

[chaddurbin]

barry was a product of his time. i don't blame him for juicing when a majority of the players were and seeing lesser talents get more recognition.

what did him in was when you added PED on top of his enormous talent he made a mockery of all the numbers put up by historical immortals like ruth williams gehrig etc. but if scrubs like brady anderson and luis gonzalez can hit 50hrs with ped, what did you think bonds was going to do? his surliness with the media also got him no point there. there are already suspected juicers in the hall and looks like david ortiz is trending that way too, would be a real crime if bonds is shut out. bonds is penalized because he was TOO great with ped.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by chaddurbin

barry was a product of his time. i don't blame him for juicing when a majority of the players were and seeing lesser talents get more recognition.

what did him in was when you added PED on top of his enormous talent he made a mockery of all the numbers put up by historical immortals like ruth williams gehrig etc. but if scrubs like brady anderson and luis gonzalez can hit 50hrs with ped, what did you think bonds was going to do? his surliness with the media also got him no point there. there are already suspected juicers in the hall and looks like david ortiz is trending that way too, would be a real crime if bonds is shut out. bonds is penalized because he was TOO great with ped.

That was his justification I believe, and according to his GF -- it pissed him off to see McGwire and Sosa, who couldn't hold a candle to him talent-wise, get all that recognition.

[KCRfan1]

Originally Posted by Neal

Maris is all over Cooperstown .... just not as a plaque on the wall.

Koufax became great because of the move to the Coliseum and Dodger Stadium, not steroids .....

Koufax had to develop in the majors since he never was in the minors. He was also used very sporadically the first 4 or 5 years in his career. That changed in 1961 when he received regular turns on the mound.

He had great stuff in college at Cincinnati, but was wild. The arm was always there, it wasn't the stadium that made Koufax great.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by KCRfan1

Koufax had to develop in the majors since he never was in the minors. He was also used very sporadically the first 4 or 5 years in his career. That changed in 1961 when he received regular turns on the mound.

He had great stuff in college at Cincinnati, but was wild. The arm was always there, it wasn't the stadium that made Koufax great.

Supposedly Koufax made a quantum leap when Larry Sherry urged him to slow down his delivery after a particularly bad streak of wildness.

[KCRfan1]

+1

Walter Alston really yanked Koufax around. He was a manager who played veterans and didn't care for a bonus baby in Koufax.

[MCoxon]

Everyone in this thread keeps talking about 1 year; but he was a league MVP in 1960, not just 1961. And a starting RF in the 1959 AS game as a member of the KC Athletics.

After 1961, had a very decent 1962 with 33 HR, 100 RBI and again making the All-Star game. Ironically, he was voted "biggest disappointment" that year by some national news agency, which stung him very much.

He had an mis-diagnosed wrist injury that severely curtailed his effectiveness after 1964 (I'm sensitive, as I had a left scaphoid break undiagnosed for 8 months and played a season in tremendous pain with it)

I know it's a "first world problem" given that he was chasing baseball HR records, but to say that "millions of people had more stress every day" than he did in 1961, is not true, I don't believe. While some is self-imposed, the stress from the press, the stress of having Yankees fans boo him, created tremendous stress on a very private person. Whether he contributed to it or not does not negate the fact that he felt the stress (his hair was falling out in clumps, for goodness sakes, in September)

Anyway - we're talking Appreciated, vs. HOF-worthy. I think he is accurately appreciated, given many fans consider his 1961 one of the most memorable seasons of all time. And ironically, while had an asterisk around 61 HR for a while, I think most people today think he's the single-season HR champ these days, discounting McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds, and forgetting all about the Ford Frick asterisk.

And I like the quote from one of the posters that he's all over Cooperstown for his great accomplishments, just not with a HOF plaque. He is one of my favorite players and I enjoy collecting his master set...

[Peter_Spaeth]

You don't think millions of people living in poverty, caring for sick and disabled children or parents, dealing with their own chronic illness or addiction, facing discrimination, working two jobs to make ends meet, suffered more stress on a daily basis in 1961 than Roger Maris chasing a home run record? I guess we just seriously disagree on that one.

But yes I agree there is very good reason to appreciate him even if his career is not that of a HOFer.

[MCoxon]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

You don't think millions of people living in poverty, caring for sick and disabled children or parents, dealing with their own chronic illness or addiction, facing discrimination, working two jobs to make ends meet, suffered more stress on a daily basis in 1961 than Roger Maris chasing a home run record? I guess we just seriously disagree on that one.

But yes I agree there is very good reason to appreciate him even if his career is not that of a HOFer.

I think the circumstances and grimness you describe are far more dire for those people than Maris faced. I'm in no way comparing the difficulties others faced with Maris's

Still, I bet Maris had a significantly higher release of cortisol, a higher resting heart rate, and other markers of anxiety during that short stretch of time than most people do . Not saying it makes sense, but that his anxiety was significant (if misplaced and unfortunate)

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by MCoxon

I think the circumstances and grimness you describe are far more dire for those people than Maris faced. I'm in no way comparing the difficulties others faced with Maris's

Still, I bet Maris had a significantly higher release of cortisol, a higher resting heart rate, and other markers of anxiety during that short stretch of time than most people do . Not saying it makes sense, but that his anxiety was significant (if misplaced and unfortunate)

So ol Rog spent three months in flight or fight, eh? Perhaps he did. But I guess my point is that if he did, it was self-induced, not from inherent pressure.

[bravos4evr]

I think Maris can be woefully underappreciated by the casual baseball watching public AND not have a HOF career. Many fans probably think he was a flash in the pan who had one good season, when this is untrue. He had several really great seasons in his career. I don't think he has the body of work to be a HOF'er, but that's a very tiny % of all players. Hall of very good? Yep! and that's pretty damn impressive in my book.

[irv]

Hall of Fame candidacy[edit]
Maris has not been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Sportswriter Greg Hansen criticized baseball writers in the St. Petersburg Independent in 1977 for excluding Maris from the Baseball Hall of Fame by him only receiving 72 votes that year, writing that there were many Hall of Fame outfielders who had never won two MVP awards and that no one else had ever hit 61 home runs in a season ... "To show you what an injustice this is to the man, Maris finished just a notch ahead of Harvey Kuenn, for crying out loud."'[25] Hansen wrote that Maris had resented the media's intrusion on his privacy; he said that Maris's tense relationship with the media had affected the voting.[25] Hansen also wrote, Maris had commented to him by phone after the voting and said to him that he knew he would never get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, "I'll leave the Hall of Fame to the geniuses that vote on it. I will never get in. I have always known that. I will not argue with you about why or why not I should be elected."[25]

In 2011, George Vecsey of The New York Times called Maris "a terrific player for a few brief years."[26] He wrote that while Maris had two seasons where he played at Hall of Fame caliber, and while Maris played in an era that was not influenced by performance-enhancing substances, he did not believe that Maris had career statistics worthy of induction.[26]

The Baseball Hall of Fame established a Golden Era Committee (replaced the Veterans Committee) in 2010 to vote on the possible Hall of Fame induction of previously overlooked candidates who were active in baseball between 1947 and 1972. Beginning in 2011, this committee votes every three years on ten candidates from the era selected by the Baseball Writers' Association of America's (BBWAA) Historical Overview Committee. Maris did not appear on Golden Era Committee ballot in 2011 and 2014 (one former player was voted to the Hall of Fame in 2011 and no one was voted to the Hall of Fame by the committee in 2014, for the 2015 induction).[27][28]

[bravos4evr]

I actually have been happier with the reluctance of the recent veteran's committee to vote in players than the overzealous nature of the older one.

I'm a small hall guy tho. I think if you have to really argue for a guy, he probably doesn't deserve it. (but there have been some dumb omissions for players who really deserve it)