Maris- why is he under appreciated

[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 .

[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. 😃

[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.

[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

[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...

[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.