Roger Maris Hits His First Home Run of the 1961 Season

On April 26, 1961, Roger Maris connected for his first home run of what would become the most scrutinized season in baseball history. It was an unassuming start. Nobody in the Yankee Stadium crowd that afternoon could have known they were watching the opening act of a 61-homer campaign that would break Babe Ruth's single-season record and haunt Maris for the rest of his life.

Maris had hit 39 home runs the previous year, enough to win the AL MVP award. But the 1961 season would be different in scale and in toll. Commissioner Ford Frick's infamous "asterisk" ruling, the relentless media pressure, the clumps of hair Maris lost to stress, all of it was still months away on this April afternoon.

Home run number one landed in the seats, and Maris jogged the bases the way he always did: head down, no flair, business concluded. Sixty more were coming.