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	• Roger Maris Maury Allen Dutton Adult, 1986 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews
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This book serves more as a biography of Roger Maris the baseball player and man who broke Babe Ruth's home run record than Roger Maris the person, and there's little on his personal and family life, perhaps echoing on page the private man he was in life. Nevertheless, it more than adequately creates a portrait of a small town hero whose devotion to baseball was never bested by his love for his family and friends.

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A flattering view of Maris- deservedly so

Roger Maris, the TRUE SEASON HOME RUN KING, was discredited during his playing time with the Yankees by New York fans, media, and baseball commissioner Ford Frick. This is a focused, well written book on the life & career of Maris as he really was, a talented no-nonsense player, one of the most competitive players who ever played the game. An all around athlete, he turned down a football scholarship with Oklahoma because he didn't want to deal with the academic burden (he still held at the time of writing the national high school record for most TDs (4) in a game following kickoff returns). He took a lot of crap from people in his quest for the season HR title in 1961, but persevered under enormous pressure and scutiny. He was a quiet person who was criticized for (among other things) having no media savvy. This book is at it's best when the narrative shifts to his fellow teammates who knew him best, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Mike Shannon and tons of others- they all loved him as a teammate. You never really get to know much about what he was like off the field, there isn't any comments from his devoted wife Pat. The author, Maury Allen, began writing this book just before Maris died from lymphoma in 1985 so I assume Murray, who was one of the few sports journalists who was sympathetic to Maris in the summer of '61, was aware of the family's need for privacy. Maris' dad was interviewed for the book, but he only supplies early vignettes of Maris as a boy. His parents divorce is never really mentioned. You never find out why his dad was seemingly ostracized from the family (he wasn't even invited to his own son's funeral). So the bulk of the book concentrates on his playing career, particulary that golden season of 1961 (the year I was born, and I've been a baseball fan ever since I saw Roger belt his 61st on t.v. as I lay in my crib). Almost every teammate interviewed thinks Roger should be in the Hall of Fame. He was a .260 career hitter, with 275 homers in 12 seasons, the last few slowed by injuries. A 2 time MVP, and an underrated defensive player, at least one of his teammates (I forget who said it) thought he was an even better right fielder than Roberto Clemente. Just by the fact that he hit 61 in a season is, according to some, enough reason he should be in the HOF. In these days of steroids and HGH, I'd say he's more deserving of the honor than Bonds, McGwire, or Sosa.

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