A Yankees uniform, worn by Roger Maris during his record-breaking 1961 season, has surfaced at auction for the first time, carrying a hefty estimate of $1 million and up.
The home jersey, pants and stirrups harken back to one of the greatest and most unlikely feats in baseball history: Maris’ 61 home-run season that broke Babe Ruth's then-record of 60.
The jersey is photo-matched by MeiGray to 13 different dates from the season. Though not matched to the record-breaking game which passed Ruth’s 60, it’s believed Maris only wore two pinstriped jerseys during the season.
A Maris road jersey from the 1960 World Series and the 1961 season sold for more than $265,000.
Current bidding on Maris' 1961 jersey has reached $353,800 (with buyer's premium).
The potentially $1 million jersey at Heritage Auctions represents much more than a record, but also the complex journey and hardships withstood by Maris in the lead-up to the record homer and for years after.
Maris’ 1961 campaign saw him battle teammate Mickey Mantle to break Ruth’s long-standing single-season home run record, ultimately prevailing with 61 to achieve the one of the most famous records in sports.
With the pair dubbed the “M&M boys” as the duo fought for the record throughout the season, Mantle was widely viewed as the rightful successor to surpass Ruth. Maris, who was viewed as an outsider compared to the fan-favorite Mantle, was uninterested in the media attention and faced a cacophony of abuse from fans and press alike.
“Mobbed on road trips, hounded in the streets, Maris could not even attend Catholic mass in peace,” recounts the Society of American Baseball Research. “It was not a life he wanted or accepted–he wanted to be a ballplayer, not a celebrity … Amidst the tension Maris‘s hair felt out in clumps, and he had trouble sleeping.”
The pressure of facing down the ghost of the Bambino and competing with Mantle was only compounded when Commissioner Ford Frick, a former ghost writer and friend to Ruth, ruled in the midst of the season that in order to break the home run record, a player would have to complete the task in 154 games, which was the length of the MLB season until the expansion to 162 games in 1961.
“Ford Frick threw a protective screen around Babe Ruth's season record of 60 home runs,” the New York Times reported in July 1961. Otherwise, “there would have to be some distinctive mark in the record books,” suggesting a pre-steroid era asterisk for the record.
As the 152 game mark arrived, Maris fell one short of the record 60 mark (Mantle had 54) and Frick said, “Both names will appear in the book as having set records, but under different conditions.”
On the final day of the regular season, Maris smashed his 61st home run. Game No. 162. “There it is …. 61,” said WPIX-TV’s Red Barber on the broadcast. “$5,000, somebody.”
The ball landed in the hands of 19-year-old Sal Durante in the right-field bleachers of Yankee Stadium, who told the Seattle Times in 2016 he was immediately surrounded by Yankees ushers. He told them he wanted to give Maris the ball personally.
Durante was brought to see the newly minted single-season home run king, walking up to Maris and saying “Here’s the ball, Roger.”
To Durante’s surprise, Maris signed and dated the ball and handed it right back to him, telling him to “Keep it, kid. Put it up for auction. Somebody will pay you a lot of money for the ball. He’ll keep it for a couple of days and then give it to me.”
Durante sold the ball for $5,000 to a California restauranteur, according to the Times, who returned the ball to Maris.
Frick’s defense of Ruth’s record relegated Maris to a secondary position in the record books for decades, denoted by a parenthetical. It was only in 1991, when commissioner Fay Vincent — apparently convinced by the arguments of Roger Angell in “The New Yorker” — ensured the mark would be officially established as the unblemished record.
"They acted as though I was doing something wrong, poisoning the record books or something,” Maris said in 1980. “Do you know what I have to show for 61 home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing."
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.