The film

Before Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa injected themselves into the record books during the home run race of 1998, there was the home run race of 1961 between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.

61 stood as one of the most revered statistics in all of sports: the most home runs anybody had ever hit in a single season. 61* is the story of that 1961 season, when Roger Maris battled Mickey Mantle, the ghost of Babe Ruth, the New York sports media, and baseball commissioner Ford Frick for the title of home run king.

Why haven't you seen it?

Because you don't like the Yankees, and you don't have HBO. Or you don't like baseball. Or maybe you have a problem with golden-hued nostalgia about the days of yore.

Well guess what? The days of yore were awesome. The days of yore were just as filled with drinking and fucking and carousing as the days of today. Maybe even moreso, because you could bring a floozy back to your hotel room and not have TMZ all over your shit the next day.

Before I get too much further, I have to acknowledge that I am violating one of the rules of the Movie Night Movie Project with this pick: it exceeds the 105 minute length restriction by about 20 minutes. Well, guess what? It's my project, so suck on it.


Why should you see it?

Because it is an all-time under appreciated sports movie. For 37 years, Roger Maris held the most famous record in sports.  Yet for all its fame, there is so much about both the record and the man that you don't know. 

Director (and Yankees superfan) Billy Crystal brings the 1961 season to life with incredible detail. We get to see what Yankee Stadium looked like before its remodeling (is there any worse decade to have been remodeled in than the 1970s?) Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane look eerily like Maris and Mantle.  You get to witness historical events, like the famous press conference where Commissioner Frick announced that Maris' record would be branded with an asterisk if he failed to break the record in 154 games, or when Mantle hit a homerun with one functional arm.

The movie also helps put the steroids era in context. Really. Listen: despite all the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments, nobody gives a shit about the game or the children or whatever. They care about the numbers. If people cared about steroids, then why is Shawn Merriman a Pro-Bowler in the NFL? Why is Gaylord Perry in the Hall of Fame?

60. 714. Those numbers were sacred. When Maris hit 61, he wasn't supposed to, because he wasn't Mantle. So they hated him. When Aaron hit 755, he wasn't supposed to, because he was black. So some hated him. Now Sosa and McGwire and Bonds all broke 61, and Bonds broke 755, and they hate him, because they did it with steroids. But its not because of cheating. Its because of the numbers. In baseball, its always about the numbers.