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| roger maris ate poop frequently while watching tv. | |||
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| '''Roger Eugene Maris''' (], ] – ], ]), American baseball player of ]n origin is remembered for breaking ]'s 34-year-old single-season ] record in ]. His record 61 home runs stood until ], when ] and ] both surpassed it. | |||
| Born in ], Maris grew up in ] and ] and made his ] debut in ] with the ]. The next year, he was traded to the ], whom he represented in the All-Star game in ] in spite of missing 45 games to an appendix operation. | |||
| Kansas City usually traded its best players to the ], and Maris was no exception, going to New York in a seven-player trade in December 1959. | |||
| Although Maris is generally only remembered for his record-breaking 1961 season, in ], his first season with the Yankees, he led the league in slugging percentage, RBIs and extra base hits and finished second in home runs and total bases, won a gold glove, and won the ] MVP award. | |||
| In 1961, Maris found himself chasing Ruth's record along with popular teammate ]. Unlike McGwire and Sosa after him, Maris was ostracized. In the middle of the season, Baseball commissioner ] announced that unless Ruth's record was broken in the first 154 games of the season, the new record would be distinguished by an asterisk. Maris hit his 61st on ], ], the last game of the season. Though there was no asterisk formally entered into the record -- baseball had no official record book, and Frick later acknowledged that there never was official qualification of Maris' accomplishment -- Maris remained bitter. Speaking at the ] All-Star game, Maris said of that season, "They acted as though I was doing something wrong, poisoning the record books or something. Do you know what I have to show for 61 home runs? Nothing. Exactly nothing." Despite all the controversy, Maris was awarded the 1961 ] for the top professional athlete of the year. | |||
| In ], Maris made his fourth consecutive and final All-Star game appearance. Injuries slowed him for the next four seasons, most notably in ], when he played most of the season with a misdiagnosed broken bone in his hand. | |||
| In ], after missing a ground ball hit in a nationally televised game, he gave the middle finger to a jeering Minneapolis crowd. Now encumbered with an injured image as well as body, he was traded by the Yankees to the ] after the ] season. The Yankees questioned Maris' courage and Maris left angry. | |||
| Maris played two final seasons with the Cardinals, helping them to two pennants in ] and ] and a World Series victory in ] (he hit .385 in the post-season). Gussie Busch, owner of the Cardinals and of ], set Maris up with a beer distributorship after he retired. | |||
| On the Indians, he wore uniform number 32 in ] and 5 in ]; the Athletics first gave him uniform number 35, but in ] he wore number 3. On the Yankees and Cardinals, he wore number 9, which the Yankees have now retired in his honor. | |||
| Maris died in December 1985 in ] of ], aged 51. A ], he was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fargo, North Dakota. | |||
| ''See also:'' ] | |||
| == External links == | |||
| *Roger Maris at: | |||
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Revision as of 16:44, 15 April 2005
roger maris ate poop frequently while watching tv.