Honoring A Home Run King

You can learn a lot more about Maris, and see mementos commemorating his achievements during his 12 years as a big-league player, at a museum in Fargo, North Dakota.

A unique aspect of the Roger Maris Museum is its location — the West Acres Shopping Center. Who puts a museum in a mall, even if it is the biggest one in Fargo?

While it might not sound like much of a tribute to the man who broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, Maris never sought accolades and honors. At first he rejected the idea of a museum about his career. When he agreed to have a museum created in his name, and his family agreed to donate many of his baseball mementos to it, he stipulated the museum had to be free and available to everyone. And what is more accessible and free than a shopping mall?

Like a lot of other people, I thought Maris’ home run record was his only claim to fame. After visiting the museum, I came away with a greater appreciation of him as a baseball player, husband, father, and businessman.

Even without the home run record-breaking season, Maris was an outstanding player. He appeared in seven All-Star games, all with the Yankees, and played in seven World Series, five with the Yankees and two with the St. Louis Cardinals.

He was the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1960 and 1961, leading the league in home runs and runs batted in both seasons. And he was no slouch in the outfield; he won a Gold Glove award in 1960 for his defensive play.

Maris was born in 1934 in Hibbing, Minnesota, but his parents moved to Fargo when he was about 10, and he considered it his hometown. He was a star football and basketball player at Fargo’s Shanley High School. The school didn’t have a baseball team, so he played American Legion baseball during the summer months. One season he led the American Legion team to the state championship. The University of Oklahoma offered him a scholarship to play football for the Sooners. He turned it down when the Cleveland Indians came calling in 1953 and offered him a $15,000 baseball contract (and a $10,000 bonus if he made it to the majors).

Nothing in his first few seasons suggested he would one day threaten, let alone break, Ruth’s single-season record. In fact, his stats for the first couple of years were good, but not overwhelmingly so.

The museum chronicles Maris’ baseball career from his early days in 1957 with the Cleveland Indians through his last season, 1968, with the St. Louis Cardinals. But it doesn’t stop there. It addresses his life after baseball as a businessman, fundraiser, and family man.

The museum is a series of displays in the mall, and it has just one room: a small theater. Inside, photos of key moments from Maris’ career cover the walls. You can sit in one of the 10 wooden seats taken from the right-field stands of 1961 Yankee Stadium and watch a 15-minute video about Maris’ career. The historic seats give you a tiny taste of what it was like to be in the stands of “The House that Ruth Built.”

The film includes highlights of Maris’ career with the Cleveland Indians and the Kansas City Athletics. Its focus, of course, is on the Yankees years, especially the record-setting year of 1961. One segment of the video zeros in on his last 12 home runs of the 1961 season.

Baseball bats and balls from noteworthy moments include the bat he used to hit his 60th homer and tie Ruth’s record, along with the number 60 home run ball. What you won’t find, however, is the bat and ball for home run number 61. They’re in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, even though Maris has not yet been elected to that grand place.

Maris appeared on the cover of numerous sports magazines in 1961, including Sports Illustrated, Baseball Digest, Sport, and Sports Stars. Framed copies of these and other magazine covers fill the exhibit. His 1960 Gold Glove award, as well as one of his MVP awards, are also on display. Not to be overlooked is a golden crown atop a pedestal draped in blue: Maris’ 1961 Sultan of Swat award.

In 1961 Maris was named Sport magazine’s Man of the Year, Sporting News‘ Player of the Year, and the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year, and he received numerous other awards.

The museum includes a reproduction of his surprisingly utilitarian locker at Yankee Stadium. It contains items that were in his real locker, including a pair of his plain black baseball shoes, his Yankee home jersey, a couple of his bats, and even a can of prickly heat powder.

Along the upper length of the museum’s exhibit area are small blue, white, and red flags numbered 1 through 61. They aren’t just decorations, but rather a chronology of his 1961 home runs. Each bears the date, the city, and the stadium where he hit the home run.

A photo in the museum’s theater was taken a second or two after he hit homer number 61. Frozen in time and place are Maris, Boston Red Sox catcher Russ Nixon, and home plate umpire Bill Kinnamon. They are looking toward right field, tracking the flight of the ball — each of them knowing they are not only witnessing baseball history, but they are also a part of it.

Below that image, Maris is quoted as saying: “I never wanted all this hoopla. All I wanted was to be a good ballplayer and hit 25 or 30 home runs, hit .280, and help my club win pennants. I just wanted to be one of the guys, an average player having a good season.”

An adjacent picture shows Maris on the dugout steps, waving to the crowd after hitting his 61st home run. He seems to be happily and graciously taking a bow, but that wasn’t so, according to his teammate, Mickey Mantle:

“When he hit it, he came into the dugout and they were all applauding. I mean, this is something that’s only happened once in baseball, right? And the people were applauding. They wanted him to come back out. He wouldn’t come out, so the players had to push him back out. They forced him to take a bow. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

For a good part of the 1961 season, both Maris and Mantle were pursuing Ruth’s record. The press spun the story as a rivalry, and the two men as antagonistic toward one another. But that wasn’t the case. In fact, the pals shared an apartment in New York when the Yankees played there during the baseball season.

Incidentally, Babe Ruth’s home run record stood for 34 years, but Maris’ record held for 37 years until Mark McGwire hit 70 homers in 1998. And Maris’ 61 home runs still stand as the American League single-season record.

The United States Postal Service issued its “Roger Maris, 61 in 61” stamp in 1999. He is one of only 30 baseball players ever featured on a U.S. stamp.

Maris retired from baseball after the 1968 season with the St. Louis Cardinals. He bought a Budweiser beer distributorship in Gainesville, Florida, and became a successful businessman. He died in December 1985 from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was just 51 years old.

The Roger Maris Museum is not a traditional museum, but it’s the only public tribute to a record-setting and often overlooked baseball player. A bronze plaque at the museum’s entrance in part says this of Maris: “Author of one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of Major League Baseball.” It’s a fitting tribute to the man and the ballplayer, a guy who didn’t want a big fuss to be made over him. When you’re in Fargo, or close by, stop in.

The West Acres Shopping Center is at 3902 13th Ave. S. in Fargo. The free museum is open when the mall is open. To verify current hours of operation, call (800) 783-6450 or (701) 282-2222; for more information, visit www.westacres.com/roger-maris.php

2001 44th St. S.

Fargo, ND 58103

(800) 235-7654

(701) 282-3653

This is the place for visitors to gather information, maps, and brochures about things to do in the Fargo-Moorhead area. The website has a list of area parks and campgrounds. If you visit the office, you will see it is inside what was once a grain elevator and is home to an infamous prop from the film Fargo — the wood chipper! (You can even have your picture taken with it.)

Besides numerous golf courses, excellent restaurants, and other distinctive attractions, Fargo is home to:

1351 W. Main Ave.

West Fargo, ND 58078

(701) 282-2822

Open daily May-October only. Admission is charged.

Bonanzaville, operated by the Cass County Historical Society, sits on 12 acres in West Fargo. Its 43 historical buildings include a prairie church, a general store, a schoolhouse, and a fire station. More than 400,000 artifacts are displayed throughout the complex.

704 First Ave. N.

Fargo, ND 58102

(701) 551-6100

Open Tuesday through Saturday, year-round. Admission is charged, but free entry is given on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

A renovated International Harvester warehouse in downtown Fargo is home to the Plains Art Museum. Celebrating 40 years this fall, this accredited museum has approximately 4,000 works and includes American Indian art, traditional folk art, photography, sculpture, and more.

4255 23rd Ave. S.

Fargo, ND 58104

(701) 277-9240

Open year-round; days and hours vary, depending on the season. Admission is charged.

This isn’t a huge zoo, but it nonetheless has hundreds of animals, including red pandas, and an impressive gray wolf exhibit. You can see the wolves from either outside or inside a “trapper’s cabin” that has two large viewing windows. A North American river otter exhibit includes an indoor and underwater viewing area, and the Russian red tree squirrels are visitor favorites.

1609 19th Ave. N.

Fargo, ND 58102

(701) 293-8043

Open year-round. Call for information about special events and seasonal hours. Admission is charged.

The Fargo Air Museum has a well-maintained collection of historical aircraft in two hangars. Flying planes include a North American P-51D Mustang and a Chance-Vought F4U Corsair; static aircraft on rotation include a Polish Iskra Jet and a Huey helicopter. A half-scale, flyable Focke Wulf also is on hand.