On Tuesday, September 19, 1961, the New York Yankees had played 151 games. They were in Baltimore to play the Orioles as part of a twi-night doubleheader. Remember those, baseball fans?
Roger Maris had hit 58 home runs. Rappin’ Roger needed two more to tie Babe Ruth’s single season home run mark of 60. The Major League Baseball schedule had been expanded to 162 games that season, but Commissioner Ford Frick had decreed that Maris had to break the record in 154 for the achievement not to have an asterisk next to it in the record books.
Three home runs in three days. A tall order. And the Orioles pitchers did not want to be the ones to give up the record setting gopher balls. Headlines in the Baltimore sports pages that day read “Dame Fortune, Lady Esther Loom As Big As The Oriole Pitchers for Maris.”
The Lady in the headlines was Hurricane Esther, a powerful 150 mph hurricane that was about 350 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras at the lunch hour. Despite the fact that there were gale warnings on the Chesapeake, and hurricane warnings as far north as the Virginia Capes, the teams prepared to play baseball in Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium.
Would the bad weather postpone the games, and give the bone tired Maris a much needed respite? Or would the swirling, gusting winds wreak havoc with his power? As game one started, the winds of Hurricane Esther were already buffeting Memorial Stadium and it was spitting rain. Maris went 0 for 3 against Steve Barber in the first contest.
In game two, Maris went 1 for 5. He hit a long fly in the 7th to center, but the gusting winds blew the ball back. Maris came up again in the ninth, but the Orioles brought in knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm and the Yankee superstar struck out.
Maris would go on to hit number 59 the following night against Milt Pappas. He hit number 60 on the 26th. He would break the record on the final day of the season. But there would be that asterisk, until Mark McGwire came along.
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