This biography of the Yankee slugger shows that Maris was much more than a flash in the pan, documenting Maris's amazing home run record, which he achieved in the face of great adversity SOFT

A really great bio. I already knew a lot about Maris since he's one of my favorite past players but I felt I learned so much more about the man behind the record. The only thing that I was disappointed about was towards the end, the authors got a major fact wrong. They said the Yankee Stadium that closed in 08 was the same stadium Ruth had played in which isn't true. The new stadium that was built is the 3rd one. Being a huge Yankee fan, this fact was important to me and something I wish they double checked. ( )

Well written, well documented. I'm a lifelong baseball fan. I still have many clippings of Maris's 1961 home run campaign. And yet, I learned many things in this book about Maris the baseball player and the person. As much as I enjoyed reading about the baseball player, I really enjoyed reading about the person. The bonus was reading about the many other players who were his friends. Clavin and Peary brought them to life as well. I saw countless names in the book that I've not thought of in decades. ( )

As someone who sat in the bleachers at old Yankee Stadium in the early 1960s, I heard and saw the abuse "fans" heaped on Roger Maris. This biography of Maris not only describes the abuse Maris endured but analyzes its causes. I would have loved this book for its descriptions of baseball as it was in the 1960s, the players I idolized in those days, and the dramatic story of Maris and Mantle's race to break Babe Ruth's single season record. What I love most about the book is the three dimensional portrait of Maris and the time and attention paid to his life after the Yankees, and after baseball. Spoiler: It turns out Maris is a hero. ( )

"Roger Maris: Baseball's Reluctant Hero" is the complete Roger Maris biography. And, because Maris was a private person who shared very few personal details with writers of the day, the book holds surprises even for those who witnessed the pressure-packed 1961 season and believe they already know the Roger Maris story. Few, for instance, are likely to know that Maris was not born in North Dakota as he claimed or that "Maris" is not the original spelling of his surname - or about the dysfunctional family dynamic that caused the spelling to be changed.

The biography, however, rightfully focuses on the way New York sportswriters and broadcasters conspired to ruin a good man's reputation and to make him miserable during what could have been the best year of his life. Old-school writers, in particular, hated to see Babe Ruth's home run record fall and, if it had to be broken at all, the last thing they wanted to see was someone like Roger Maris do the breaking. Because they did not consider Roger Maris to be a "true Yankee," this unethical group of writers trashed his reputation on a daily basis. They portrayed him as surly and unappreciative, a man who refused to play through his injuries the way Mantle played through his own. They even covered for Mantle's drinking problems and resulting lack of hustle while attacking Maris for not going full out even when ordered to play at a slower pace (to protect an injury) by his manager. And it worked - fans in every American League city hated Maris and never failed to boo or jeer him, even in his home ballpark.

That was bad enough. But just as bad was the unethical way Commissioner Ford Frick decided to protect the home run record of Babe Ruth, a friend of his, by hanging the infamous "asterisk" on Maris, insisting that Ruth was still the single season champion for a 154-game schedule and that Maris was only the champion for a less impressive 162-game schedule (even though Ruth had three more overall at-bats than Maris). But it gets still worse because, later in his Yankee career, the full extent of a hand injury was kept from Maris by the Yankee front office and his manager, Ralph Houk, a decision that all but ensured he would never fully regain the grip in that hand or be able to pull a ball like he did when it was healthy. This is the same front office that failed to protect Maris from the rabid press in 1961 or even to promote his continuing chase to catch Ruth after the 154th game of the season, the same people who would send him off to St. Louis without ever recognizing what a great Yankee player he actually had been.

Understandably, Roger Maris hated the Yankee organization and Yankee fans by the time he was traded to St. Louis in an underhanded deal that turned out to be the biggest blessing of his career. That he would be able to reconcile with the Yankee organization, thanks to the efforts of George Steinbrenner, and that he would learn to love baseball again because of his experiences with the St. Louis Cardinals, is the best part of the Roger Maris story. When he died at age 51, still in the prime of life, baseball lost one of its all time greats, a man that, in my opinion, deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame despite the successful efforts of a group of despicable writers to keep him out of it.

"Roger Maris: Baseball's Reluctant Hero" is not just a book for baseball fans because Roger Maris is a true American hero, a man whose story will be an inspiration to anyone who reads this revealing biography.

Rated at: 4.5 ( )