A whole new generation of fans got a chance to know my dad. "It's not like we want him condemned to hell or anything."Īdds Roger Jr.: "That home run chase in '98 brought Dad's name and his accomplishments back into the public eye. "We still consider Mark a friend," Richard Maris says. admits, "but what was I going to do?"Įven now, despite what has become public, the Maris family remains gracious and grateful to McGwire for including them in the festivities during the memorable (but now fraudulent) 1998 home run chase when McGwire broke Maris' record and finished with 70 home runs. "I had suspicions even back in '98 when Mark broke the record," Roger Jr. Yes, they are disappointed, but not shocked. The two Maris sons I interviewed say they admire McGwire for coming clean earlier this week. It's no secret that McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds – the only three players to surpass Maris' 61 homers - have either admitted or been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe, deep down, this is why the Maris kids aren't bitter about McGwire's confession earlier this week: Because they know as the reputations of McGwire and his juiced-up contemporaries shrink away, their dad's legend grows even larger. Too bad his record and accomplishments weren't as appreciated during his life as they've been since his death. Roger Maris died of cancer in 1985 at the relatively young age of 51. In fact, they're probably what drove him to his grave." "That's how he bulked up and got those big arms he had – by working on the railroad when he was younger."Īdds Richard Maris: "The only thing Dad was on was unfiltered Camel cigarettes, and I'm pretty sure those didn't help him hit any more home runs. "I always said my dad was on Rail 'Roids," chuckles Roger Maris Jr. But that can't be the entire explanation, can it? Not that I have the answer, except to wager that on any similar occasions, Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park would certainly be jam-packed today.*Did it cleanly and legally – without the benefit of performance-enhancing drugs, human-growth hormone and other assorted steroids. True, the two games were played in the afternoon, and 50 years ago adults went to work (had the notion of "flex time" even been invented?) on weekdays and parents made sure that their children went to school. The thinness of the crowds was apparently regarded as nothing out of the ordinary-baseball business as usual for end of the season games with no pennant on the line. Fifty years later, this indifference at the turnstiles seems unfathomable. So two of baseball's most historic days, and two mostly empty ball parks. If there were any Harvard professors of the type who nowadays want everyone to know that they are fans of the Bosox and therefore just one of the guys (or gals) or hedge fund managers on hand, they passed unrecorded by Updike.
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But truth to tell there were just not that many of those Hub Fans on hand-"I, and 10,453 others " as Updike wrote.Īnd the fans who did turn out, and did get to see (in person, and not in the retelling) Williams end his tour of duty at Fenway with a home run in his final at bat, were an unremarkable, unfashionable, and decidedly ordinary lot. John Updike, who did appreciate that it was not just another day at the ball park for a seventh-place team at the tail end of a horrible season, recorded it all in his classic account of the game, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu. But any sense that it was indeed a historic occasion was apparently lost to the multitudes. Williams announced beforehand that he would be retiring at the end of the 1960 season, and that the Sox's final home game on September 28 would be his last appearance before the Boston fans-the termination of what was probably the most intensely tangled love-hate relationship in all of baseball. Much the same had been true the year before when Red Sox legend Ted Williams played his last game at Fenway Park.
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