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	Yankees	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	X	1	5	0

Listen to the radio broadcast Starters: Stallard vs. Stafford WP: Bill Stafford LP: Tracy Stallard SV: Luis Arroyo HR: NYY: Maris (4th)

The summer of '61 saw two Yankees, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, set a prodigious home run pace which threatened to supplant the Babe Ruth's cherished record of 60 circuit clouts, set in 1927.

Mantle was seen by most as a worthy successor to the Babe - like Ruth he was an accomplished longball performer, having already hit 320 homers over his 10 season career. Mantle's larger than life persona also made him a worthy successor to the flamboyant and much beloved Sultan of Swat.

But where Mantle was flashy and well-loved by baseball fans across America, Roger Maris was quiet, unassuming and professional. Before being traded to the Yankees from Kansas City after the '59 season, Maris was little known and had not reached 100 career HRs by the start of the 1961 season. Although he had earned Most Valuable Player honors for the American League in 1960, Maris played in the shadow of the man who next to him in the Yankee outfield.

As the '61 season progressed, the "M&M" boys, batting third (Maris) and fourth (Mantle) in the heart of the Yankee order, kept pace with the Babe. Because the AL had expanded by two teams for the 1961 season, Mantle & Maris would have a schedule eight games longer than the Bambino's '27 Yankees, setting the stage for a controversial decision. Commissioner Ford Frick, formerly Ruth's ghost-writer, declared that the record would have to broken before the 155th game of the season, or it would be marked by an asterisk.

Mantle suffered another in the long string of injuries which bedeviled his career, forcing him to the sideline in the home run race - he would finish with a career-best 54, six homers shy of the magic number. Maris, faced with increasing media pressure was unable to catch the Babe within the Yanks' first 154 games, but stood tied with the Bambino at 60 as the Yanks took the field for the final game of the 1961 season.

Tracy Stallard was on the mound for the Red Sox and was pitching a solid ballgame when Maris stepped up to the plate in the fourth inning. Maris blasted Stallard's offering into the right field stands for his 61st home run of the season, setting a new standard which would remain unsurpassed for 37 years, until finally broken by Mark McGwire in 1998.

Copyright 1961 by the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball