Once again he made the Dream team, and as of August 6 had homered 35 times in 99 games, topped by 3 in a two-day span in Kansas City. Once again, he had a hard time to the goal, missing 15 video games in the second half of August due to bruised ribs and completing with 39 homers, one less than Mantle.
283/. 371/. 581, and led the league in slugging portion, RBI (112 ), and WAR (7. 5) while ending up second to Mantle in both homers and OPS+ (160 ). The Yankees won the pennant by 8 games. Maris played fairly well on the planet Series versus the Pirates (. 267/. 313/. 500) but his two homers, both solo shots, can be found in losses.
After the season, he directly beat out Mantle for AL MVP. Need More Info? included his only Gold Glove, one backed by off-the-charts defensive metrics (+19 runs). For 1961, the American League included teams in Los Angeles (the Angels) and Washington (changing the old Senators, who relocated to Minnesota and became the Twins), and with it, the schedule expanded from 154 video games to 162.
Through 81 video games, the midpoint of the season, he 'd hit 32 homers, putting him more than midway to Ruth's record of 60, embeded in 1927, while Mantle was close behind with 29. Coverage of the Yankees and the home run race magnified, with much of the media pitting the super star Mantle, a career-long Yankee and by that point currently a two-time MVP and four-time league-leader, versus the upstart Maris, a personal male unaccustomed to the spotlight.
As told by Mantle in his 1985 autobiography, The Mick: How he stood up I'll never ever understand. An author once asked him, "How come a. 260 player like you manages to get more home runs than Babe Ruth?' And Roger answered, 'What are you a newspaperman or a goddamn idiot?" A while later on he came to me and said, "Mick, I can't take it any longer." I had to tell him, "Simply hang in there.