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Article: Getting to Roger.(baseball player Roger Maris)
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- September 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For a couple of months in that splendid late summer of 1998, we all remembered the name of Roger Maris, as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa shattered his 1961 record of 61 home runs. The next year, however, when McGwire and Sosa surpassed the old record again, there was scant mention of the New York Yankee outfielder who had set it. Baseball, the media--we had all moved on. The former benchmark was no longer the benchmark. Then, last spring, the HBO movie 61 * recreated Maris's difficult record-breaking season, and his name was in the papers again, this time in the Arts & Entertainment pages. There was a flurry of ads, reviews, and photos of a Roger look-alike swinging for the ...