1960 AMERICAN LEAGUE ALL-STAR
L-R. Still technically Indianapolis property, he's good bet to make it as Cleveland regular. Showed no obvious batting weaknesses once he became an Indianapolis regular in mid-'56 following orders from Cleveland to get Rog in the lineup. Hit .293 in 131 games, with 75 RBI's and 17 HRs.
Reminds many observers of Mickey Mantle because of his all-around ability and his proficiency at dragging and bunting. Has terrific speed and outstanding arm. Doesn't have Mantle-type power, but frequently hits for distance, especially with men on.
Broke in with Fargo-Moorhead (C) in '53, hitting .325 with 80 RBI's in 114 games. In '54 made 32 homers and drove in 111 runs in 134 games for Keokuk (B), hitting .315 and stealing 25 bases. In '55 he hit .289 in 113 games for Reading (A), with 78 RBI's, 19 HRs and 24 SB's.
Scouting Report: "An outstanding major league prospect, perhaps the best in American Association. Has good arm and power and runs well. Moved from Class C to B, then A to Triple A in four seasons."
Baseball Digest, March 1957
"The Yankees expect Roger Maris to furnish that little additional spark they feel is needed to get them back on top of the league. Roger, born in Hibbing, Minnesota, has always been among the brightest of all prospects, and he appeared on his way in '59 until an appendectomy slowed his progress. The lefty-hitting Roger finished with a .273 figure but his 72 runs batted across were only three behind Mickey Mantle. The Indians had Roger in 1957 and part of '58 before dealing him to the Athletics.
He has fine speed, an accurate arm and great power at the plate. Baseball people consider him a cinch for stardom."
-Don Schiffer, 1960 Mutual Baseball Annual
THE MARIS THE YANKS GOT
He Has All-Around Ability, But Still Has To Prove Self
"Most baseball men have been viewing Roger Maris with covetous eyes for the past few seasons. From a theoretical point of view, he represents the ideal young player because this 195-pound six-footer gets plus ratings in the three primary requisites. He can run, throw and hit with power.
But the 24-year-old blond has batted .235, .240 and .273 in three seasons in the big time. That hardly qualifies as super-sensational progress. However, the New York Yankees are manifestly more interested in Roger's future than his past. That's why they swung the deal with their country cousins in Kansas City for the young outfielder.
Growing alarmed at their inability to engineer the major trade that was so necessary to restore their fortunes, the Bombers stopped shooting at the moon and decided to shoot fish in a barrel. The Athletics have been so complacent about such matters in the past that the Yanks knew another deal would provoke violent criticism. But Maris was worth all the embarrassment.
It was a strange season that Roger had in 1959. A left-handed slugger- he throws right-handed- he was serenely moving at a .328 clip in late May when he was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. A month later, his appendix scar healed but his batting eye was hazy. His average dropped to .292. But then all that rich promise seemed to pay off at once as his new surge began. On July 27 Roger Eugene Maris was leading the American League in batting with .344.
'I still don't know what happened after that,' said Maris dazedly when this reporter conversed at length with him just before the end of the season. At that time there seemed to be no pertinency in relating the travails of young Roger. But at this late date his story assumes new interest.
'Nothing seemed to work,' he said, despair in his voice. 'My timing was off and I just had no luck. We played a double-header in Boston and I got three hits- which doesn't seem bad. But I slammed eight line drives that day. An inch or so either way with each and I'd have had eight hits. See what I mean?
'But the low point came in what should have been the happiest day of my career. When I was doing well early in the season, it was decided to hold an appreciation day for me in late August. By the time the date arrived I wasn't sure I'd have the nerve to show up.
'I was to have been honored between games of a double-header. I came into it with exactly three hits in my last 65 at-bats. Then I stepped to the plate with two outs in the ninth inning. The bases were full and I had a chance to win the ball game. I struck out. After that I was supposed to receive the tributes of the fans and be appreciated. Ugh!'
Maris smiled wanly. He's a quiet guy and mild of manner. The original impression was that he was not unlike Norm Siebern, his opposite number as the key figure in the seven-player trade. But his slump may have dampened his spirits.
There are a lot of questions in need of answering so far as Maris is concerned. But he's young and intelligent. He's eager to learn and he has all the physical qualifications for stardom. The only reasonably safe prediction is what is most likely to happen when he makes his debut as a Yankee.
'In my first time at bat in each season,' he says, 'I have always struck out.' "
-Arthur Daley, New York Times (Baseball Digest, March 1960)
1959
April 22: Hits three-run homer and double in loss to Indians.
May 3: Hits two-run homer and two singles in win over Red Sox.
May 10: Five RBIs with two home runs in 7-6 loss to Red Sox.
May 14: Beats Orioles, 2-1, with home run and single.
May 20: Three RBIs on home run and sacrifice fly in 8-2 win over Red Sox.
May 22: Undergoes emergency appendectomy.
July 11: Three RBIs on double and sacrifice fly in 8-3 loss to Indians.
July 23: Hits home run, double and single in 9-3 win over Orioles.
July 27: Hits grand slam in 7-6 victory over Senators; added to American League All-Stars for second game.
September 23: Beats Tigers, 7-6, with three-run homer.
Comment: "A rising star, Maris is fast, has fine power and is an improving hitter."
-Joe Sheehan, Dell Sports Magazine Baseball, April 1960
"A warm welcome to newcomer Roger Maris! Key man in a big mid-winter trade with the Athletics, the 25-year-old outfielder was slated to play left field, the difficult sun pasture at Yankee Stadium. Roger was giving it a good try in the spring, converting from his normal right field position.
Maris led the league in hitting for a spell last season. An operation for removal of his appendix weakened him and he slumped off to a .273 mark.
He came to the majors with the Cleveland Indians and was traded to Kansas City in a deal that sent Vic Power and Woodie Held to the Tribe. He's hit 44 homers in the last two seasons and hopes to up this a bit at the Stadium, in addition to increasing his batting average and giving the Yankees stronger defense."
-The New York Yankees Official 1960 Yearbook
Roger Eugene Maris (OF) #9
Born September 10, 1934 in Hibbing, Minnesota, resides in Raytown, Missouri. Height: 6-0, weight: 202. Bats left, throws right. Married and father of one girl, Susan Ann (2), and one boy, Roger Eugene Jr. (1).
-The New York Yankees Official 1960 Yearbook
"The Yankees finally landed Roger Maris from the Kansas City Athletics after rumors of his coming to the Stadium had been circulating for almost two seasons. In order to obtain the 25-year-old fly chaser, the Yankees had to part with Norm Siebern, Hank Bauer, Don Larsen and Marv Throneberry.
A left-handed batter, who Casey hopes to solve his left field problem, Maris broke into Organized Ball in 1953 with Fargo-Moorhead. He batted .325 and was moved up to Keokuk by the Cleveland chain in '54.
After stops in Tulsa, Reading and Indianapolis, Roger reached the American League with the Tribe in 1957. He batted only .235 his freshman but showed promise with both his bat and glove.
Cleveland dealt him to the Athletics in June of '58 in a deal for Vic Power and Woody Held. His batting average increased five points his sophomore season, but more important were the 28 homers and 80 runs batted in for the second division A's.
Last season Roger was batting well over .300 when he was stricken with appendicitis. He spent 30 days on the disabled list but managed to finish the season with a respectable .273 mark.
Originally from Hibbing, Minnesota, Roger and his family- two children- now live in Raytown, Missouri.
The short right field barrier in Yankee Stadium should make an inviting target for the 6' Maris. And Casey Stengel feels he'll be able to patrol the 'sun field' at the Bronx ballyard in big league fashion."
-New York Yankees 1960 Yearbook (Jay Publishing Co.)
YANKEE REBEL
Maris Likes To Play His Own Way
"Girls, add Roger Maris to your gallery of baseball's drool-boys besides Rocky Colavito, Jimmy Piersall and Harmon Killebrew. The Yankees' hitting right-fielder has green eyes and light-brown hair, a finely chiseled nose and firm jaw, and wears a devil-may-care expression on his handsome face. But, girls, Roger is married and has two children, and has nothing else on his mind besides baseball.
It's probable that the difference between the lackluster 1959 Yankees and the 1960 version is Maris. In June, when he was cooking home runs at a rate of one every other day, the Yankees were off on a tear. When he slumped late in July they backtracked like Ingemar Johannson in the third round of his second fight with Floyd Patterson.
Roger runs, throws and hits, especially hits. He has nothing on his mind but how to keep on hitting. Playing baseball to the best of his ability is enough for one man's time and energy, he believes.
Of course, there are times when Roger looks awful at the plate. He takes a golf swing at a breaking curve down low and misses. Every once in a while he fishes for a high, hard one and looks rather silly. But at any moment he is likely to break loose, and when he does it isn't in the late innings of a lost game with no one on base. It's usually in the clutch, as his RBI total, highest in the American League in early August, proves.
Between June 1 and July 20 Roger hit 21 home runs. He was harassed by newspaper and magazine writers who wanted to know what he eats for breakfast- and would he break Babe Ruth's record?
Suddenly he went kerplopf. He was 0-for-17 before the July 31 double-header with Kansas City. 'No, I'm not resting Maris,' Casey Stengel told vultures of the press who were hovering by for a feast. 'He's good enough for me on defense. He slumped before, two hits in 14 times up, chasing high pitches. He stopped then, and he'll stop soon now.'
Roger struck out three times that afternoon, once on a desperation drag-bunt on a third strike that went foul. Finally he looped one through the middle and Yankee fans cheered sarcastically. The next day he won a game from Detroit with a three-run homer. Afterward, he sat, legs up on a trunk in the Yankee clubhouse, analyzing himself. 'I made up my mind to bunt with two strikes on me yesterday,' he said. 'Left-handers have been bothering me all year. I was swinging bad, anyhow, and we were ahead by four runs, so why not? And I knew I'd break out of it soon.'
All of which leads to a question or two- how good is a batter who 'chases' high hard ones or misses low outside curves and is bothered by southpaws?
And logically, to another question- is Roger Maris as good as his current record seems to imply?
In fact, Roger is typical of the independent and consciously self-contained young player who comes into the big league these days with a basic philosophy about the game and his place in it. No one can operate him without a push button. About his hitting style he says: 'I always liked to hit for distance as a kid. Why should I change?
'I hit naturally. I don't think about it; I just do it. When I go to bat, it doesn't make any difference who's pitching or what he's throwing. I try to hit the ball hard. I don't even try to pull it consciously. I swing normally and try to make the ball go places. Sometimes my timing is off, or I foul off too many good pitches and then get caught with a third strike.
'But talking about it isn't going to help. That's the way I feel, and that's why I was tabbed as a player with a wrong attitude when I was in the Cleveland organization.'
Just to get things straight, Roger said: 'Let's begin at the beginning. For instance, I want to straighten out the facts about where I come from. I was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, but I'm not a Minnesotan as the papers and TV commentators say. My father, who's a railroad worker, moved to North Dakota right after I was born, so I'm a Dakotan from Fargo.
'Now that I've got that stuff off my chest, I can start by saying that I hit the long ball at Shanly High School in Fargo, and then got into American Legion ball and kept on hitting the long ball, especially at tournaments. Frank Fahey, a bird dog scout for the Indians, saw me and brought me to Cleveland where I worked out for Hank Greenberg and was signed up by Jack O'Connor in the fall of 1952, when I was 18 years old.'
Maris progressed smoothly through the Indians' farm system until one day in 1955. 'I was with Tulsa in the Texas League,' he continued. 'In a game with Dallas I tried to cut down a runner with a throw from right field to third base, and the ball went into the stands, losing the game.
'The next morning, the manager, Dutch Meyer, told me to go to right field for practice. For the next 45 minutes someone hit fly balls to me and after each catch I had to peg'em to third base. Finally, I decided I'd had it. The next fly ball that came my way I turned my back and let it roll to the fence.
' 'We're not through with you,' said Meyer.
' 'Maybe you're not through with me, but I'm through throwing my arm out. Ship me somewhere else.''
The next day Maris boarded a bus to Reading, Pa., in the Eastern League. 'A manager can kill a ball player in more ways than one,' he says. 'I never had any doubt I could make the big leagues, if I arrived there all in one piece.'
Roger didn't spare himself when it counted. He was Keokuk's center fielder in 1954, playing shallow for a player who wasn't considered a long ball threat. The ball soared over Roger's head; he chased it with speed that had won all-state honors for him as a high school halfback. He caught up with the ball and fence at the same time and was knocked out cold. Teammates carried him away on a stretcher. The ball still nested in his glove.
He was treated between games of the double-header and sat on the bench as the second contest began. In the fifth inning the manager told him to shower up and go home.
'I'm all right, just an ache in the back' he said. He went in as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning and socked a game-winning homer.
It sounds implausible but it's true that Roger repeated the same experience at Reading, after he had been sent there from Tulsa the following year. This time he crashed through the right field fence out of sight. He was knocked cold once more, with this difference- the ball wasn't in his glove. But again he returned to the bench for the nightcap of a double-header, and again he hit another game-winning home run.
Nevertheless, there was a black mark opposite Roger's name in the Indians' little red book when he finally arrived in the big leagues in 1957. The manager was Bobby Bragan, and Bragan kept a wary eye on the rookie. The rookie's record showed he was a potential home run hero: 32 homers for Keokuk, and a minor league lifetime average around .300.
Perhaps it was the chaotic Cleveland situation at that time which prevented the Indian brain-trusters from coming to the appropriate conclusion that Maris was a player with a future. 'I never had a chance there,' he says. 'Bragan didn't like me. I was tabbed for sale.'
Roger sighed with relief when he learned he had been traded to Kansas City on June 15, 1958. He needed work, encouragement and a chance to develop, and under Harry Craft all three opportunities came his way. He had trouble with high pitches, and left-handers could get him out on sweeping crossfire curves. He hit only .240 for the season, but that good natural swing earned 28 home runs.
By the opening of the 1959 season, Roger felt he was on his way. He was leading the A's in hitting in midsummer when he was stricken with appendicitis.
'It threw me off stride,' he says. 'I couldn't get back on the beam the rest of the year.' He finished with a .273 average and 16 home runs.
And then, the Yankees-
The deal which sent him to New York took place in midwinter. 'I couldn't wait to find out whether I was as good as I thought I was,' he says. 'Well, that first game proved it.'
Roger made four hits in five times at bat in the Yankees' opening game against the Boston Red Sox, including two homers, a double and a single. There was only one flaw in his happiness- Casey Stengel had assigned him to left field.
'I'm willing to play anywhere,' he told Casey. 'But right field's my spot because I break faster to my left than my right. If you'll put me where I belong I'll be the best right fielder in the league for you.'
At that moment Casey was moaning about left field at the Stadium. Norm Siebern had literally muffed his way off the Yankees playing the hexed position. Hector Lopez looked scared to death when a line drive came out of the grandstand's shadows and toward his jittery hands. Elston Howard and Yogi Berra stood by, dreaded the moment they would be called upon to abandon their safe spot behind the plate for the accursed pasture in left. Roger Maris could obviously play anywhere in the outfield. He seemed to be the answer to Casey's prayer for a left fielder with no more imagination than Charlie Keller or Gene Woodling.
But Casey is not one to scorn a direct statement from a player who has hit two home runs on Opening Day, especially when that player insists he is the best right fielder in the league. He shifted Roger to right.
Since then Roger has been the best right fielder since young Hank Bauer or, before Hank, Tommy Henrich. He breaks fast to his left for difficult one-hand catches against the short right field wall or in the coffin-corner near the foul line. He knows where the bases are, especially third base, and his arm jets the ball accurately to the bags.
'And no one's told me anything here,' he says. 'I've been playing the way I like to play. I'm willing to try, I'm willing to learn, but I think the best teacher is experience, not all sorts of different advice from all sorts of people.'
Roger's words may lend the impression that he is a cocky young man and even egotistical. Nothing is further from the truth. 'I don't think I've got it made here,' he says. 'I'm having a good year, that's all. I do the same thing every time I go to bat. I don't change stances or tinker around. I just try to hit. The hits came my way until late in July. Maybe they'll come back again for the rest of the season.'
Because Roger doesn't think he's got it made yet he has done nothing to become a member of the Yankees' colony of established stars in New Jersey, where they live in fine new houses from which they drive to the Stadium in shiny new cars.
'I still live in Kansas City, and I'm going to stay there. No, I haven't any business interests there. I have no business interests anywhere, except baseball. Oh, I do a little promotion for the Armour Packing Company wintertimes, but baseball's enough for me to live on.'
Then Roger returned to his favorite subject. I feel I can hit anyone, anytime, anywhere. A few left-handers still bother me, but I'm going to figure'em out.
'And there's one thing I know I can always do right ... I can throw straight from right field to third base.' "
-Charles Dexter, Baseball Digest, October-November 1960
"The first half of 1960 was the most spectacular to date in the rising career of Yankee slugger Roger Maris. In only his fourth big league season, Maris started out as though he might set new home run and batting marks. Though he fell off in the last half, 1960 certainly has been his most spectacular season to date. Most of the year he led the league in homers and runs batted in. And defensively, he was tops in right field.
This is his first Series."
-1960 World Series Official Souvenir Program
