***When The National Pastime Was the National Pastime-61*-The Roger Maris Story

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

61*, starring Thomas Jane, Barry Pepper, directed by Billy Crystal, 2001

 

If you can believe this there was a time before 24/7/365 ESPN all sports all the time when there were distinct seasons to sport and not so much overlapping. A time when, for example, the World Series in baseball was over before the chilly winds of November snow-delayed games in northern climes. A time when the national pastime was indeed the national pastime and life was, or seemed to be slower, slow enough to listen or watch a game for a couple of hours or occasionally go out to the ballpark and not put a big dent in your monthly discretionary budget. Hey, if you don’t believe me just as your fathers, or ouch, grandfather they will tell you true.

And if you can believe this as well there actually was a time, maybe not the best time for players who were more like low-paid indentured servants to the master ball club owners, when pennant races meant something other than about six million playoff games and when the pursuit of legendary records captured the nation’s attention, or at least baseball nation’s attention. And no record was more sacrosanct than that of New York Yankee Babe Ruth’s record of hitting sixty taters (okay, okay home runs) out of the ballpark in the 1920s. That is until the year 1961 when as is detailed in the film under review, 61*, both Yankee players Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle went toe to toe to break that record.

Here is the fun part for me anyway. In the year 1961 when the then lowly Boston Red Sox were out of contention for the pennant by May 1st or so I avidly followed that home run derby, followed it closely. So all who think the only history I know is confined to the study of revolutions, or the lessons of history about war and other social evils have just had their comeuppance. As a fourteen year old boy I was gripped with the mania. Personally I was rooting for the Mick to win the battle but I was not displeased with Maris’ victory even if for silly reasons it was not done in the Ruthian 154 games and for many years he suffered the knowledge that an asterisk would appear after that record. Jesus.   

Furthermore I would have been much more sympathetic to Maris’ struggle if I had known some of the details presented in this film about how the fans, hell, even Yankee fans, trashed Maris because they did not want to see Babe’s record fall or would rather have seen the Mick get it. The film shows Maris’ perseverance in the face of all those pressures from fans, from the parasitic sportswriters following the saga, and the effect it had on him personally and on his family. Moreover Mantle comes off here as a decent guy who was happy to let a teammate swing for the fences and for glory. Funny sports has changed a lot in the past fifty years since that feat (since broken several times in recent years although somewhat tarnished in the latter cases) but gnarly sport-writers and rabid fans (and here not  meaning devoted) are still with us.