61*

In 2001, HBO aired the movie 61*, directed by Billy Crystal, written by Hank Steinberg, and starring Barry Pepper, Thomas Jane, Anthony Michael Hall, Christopher McDonald, and Bruce McGill. This is another made for TV movie from HBO that is one of the best sports movies ever made.

Set in the backdrop of the night in 1998 when Mark McGwire broke Maris' record of 61 home runs in a single season, this story is about the 1961 baseball season when Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle vie for breaking Babe Ruth's single season record of 60 home runs. The story goes that Mantle and Maris were rivals playing for the same team (the Yankees) and nobody liked Maris. The truth is that Mantle and Maris were great friends and even roommates. Maris is from the Midwest, so his family and baseball are first in his life. Mantle is partier, great at baseball, but loves to party. Maris calms down Mantle's partying and drinking, but injuries get the better of Mantle eventually. But then there's the media and what the public saw. Mantle was good with the writers and the journalists, but Maris was quieter and more reserved which the journalists mistook for arrogance. The media frenzy took hold of Maris and squeezed him. This movie shows the behind the scenes of this baseball legend. His death threats, the fans throwing chairs at him in the field, the nervous breakdown: it's all here in this amazing movie.

Class is one of those things that is talked about in sports, as in how classy one player is over others. Maris was a class act, and Pepper's performance shows that. Jane's performance of Mantle was spot on: good with the media, and good with the girls, but when on the field, he's all about baseball. Class act also fits with Joe Dimaggio who wasn't the nicest guy and isn't shown to be. Neither was Babe Ruth's widow. But when it comes home to 1998, and McGwire goes into the stands to the Maris family, what a classy move. Just like Maris was, McGwire showed what class was in that moment.

The title comes from the statistic in the baseball lore. It obviously stands for the number of home runs hit in that 1961 season by Maris, but the asterisk is one of the most vile exploits in sports. Because the 1961 season was a few games longer than the season that Ruth had, Ford Frick (the commissioner of baseball, and non-lover of Maris) announced that there would be two records: Ruth's of 60, and Maris' of 61* which denotes that he didn't hit 61 in the same amount of time. This of course is a baseball controversy ever since 1961.

This is baseball history movie that I think is not only one of the best baseball movies, but one of the best sports movies of all time. It is definitely a movie worth watching, even if you're not a baseball fan. It shows the triumph (or as much as he could have) of one man against the world that hated him for no good reason. Being born in the St. Louis area, and a diehard Cardinals fan, I also like this movie for the 1998 Cardinals' sequences, and for Maris himself, who left the Yankees, and found himself a Cardinal a few years later. He never really recovered from that 1961 season, and even regretted hitting all those home runs. But he serves as an inspiration to not give up or give in to pressure.

Here is a link to the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1po8PgfJU_Q

As a bonus, here is a link to a news short showing Maris' 61st homer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJnhHdjs0DI&feature=related