When Mickey Charles Mantle, the New York Yankees' man of muscle, drives a home run 450 feet into the bleachers, his feat touches upon the sublime.
When Roger Eugene Maris, Mantle's muscular teammate, powers four home runs in a double-header, his performance merits awe.
But when tiny, 145-pound Albert Gregory Pearson of the Los Angeles Angels, who once caught three straight fly balls in center field because, as a teammate explained, "the other team thought no one was out there", hits seven home runs in four months (three more than his total in 1958, 1959, and 1960), his achievement borders on the ridiculous.
This is Baseball 1961.
This is the year home runs ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.

It is the year when (1) amiable Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles ambled to the plate in consecutive innings with the bases loaded and, in unprecedented style, delivered consecutive grand-slam home runs;
(2) Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants borrowed a teammate's bat and became the ninth big leaguer to stroke four home runs in a game;
(3) the Milwaukee Braves tied a major-league record with fourteen home runs in three games and lost two of them;
and (4) catcher Johnny Blanchard of the New York Yankees matched a record with home runs in four successive times at bat, two of them as a pinch-hitter.

Pitchers grumble about lively balls and lively bats, the shrinking strike zone, and the fact that the knock-down pitch is now illegal.
Experts point to the thinning of pitching talent in the American League caused by expansion.
Whatever the reasons, not in 30 years has a single season produced such thunderous assaults upon the bureau of baseball records, home-run division.

Of all the records in peril, one stands apart, dramatic in its making, dramatic in its endurance, and now, doubly dramatic in its jeopardy.
This, of course, is baseball's most remarkable mark: The 60 home runs hit in 1927 by the incorrigible epicure, the incredible athlete, George Herman (Babe) Ruth of the Yankees.

Since 1927, fewer than a dozen men have made serious runs at Babe Ruth's record and each, in turn, has been thwarted.
What ultimately frustrated every challenger was Ruth's amazing September surge.
In the final month of the 1927 season, he hit seventeen home runs, a closing spurt never matched.

Double threat:

Always, in the abortive attacks upon Ruth's record, one man alone -- a Jimmy Foxx (58 in 1932) or a Hank Greenberg (58 in 1938) or a Hack Wilson (56 in 1930) -- made the bid.
But now, for the first time since Lou Gehrig (with 47 home runs) spurred Ruth on in 1927, two men playing for the same team have zeroed in on 60.
Their names are Mantle and Maris, their team is the Yankees, and their threat is real.

After 108 games in 1927, Ruth had 35 home runs.
After 108 games in 1961, Mickey Mantle has 43, Roger Maris 41.
Extend Mantle's and Maris's present paces over the full 1961 schedule of 162 games, and, mathematically, each will hit more than 60 home runs.
This is the great edge the two Yankees have going for them.
To better Ruth's mark, neither needs a spectacular September flourish.
All Mantle needs is eight more home runs in August and ten in September, and he will establish a new record.
In Ruth's day -- and until this year -- the schedule was 154 games.
Baseball commissioner Ford Frick has ruled that Ruth's record will remain official unless it is broken in 154 games.
)

"Even on the basis of 154 games, this is the ideal situation", insists Hank Greenberg, now vice-president of the Chicago White Sox.
"It has to be easier with two of them.
How can you walk Maris to get to Mantle"?

Roommates:

Neither Mantle nor Maris, understandably, will predict 60 home runs for himself.
Although both concede they would like to hit 60, they stick primarily to the baseball player's standard quote: "The important thing is to win the pennant".
But one thing is for certain: There is no dissension between Mantle, the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1956 and 1957, and Maris, the MVP in 1960.
Each enjoys seeing the other hit home runs ("I hope Roger hits 80", Mantle says), and each enjoys even more seeing himself hit home runs ("and I hope I hit 81").

The sluggers get along so well in fact, that with their families at home for the summer (Mantle's in Dallas, Maris's in Kansas City), they are rooming together.
Mantle, Maris, and Bob Cerv, a utility outfielder, share an apartment in Jamaica, Long Island, not far from New York International Airport.
The three pay $251 a month for four rooms (kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom), with air-conditioning and new modern furniture.
Mantle and Cerv use the twin beds in the bedroom;
Maris sleeps on a green studio couch in the living room.
They divide up the household chores: Cerv does most of the cooking (breakfast and sandwich snacks, with dinner out), Mantle supplies the transportation (a white 1961 Oldsmobile convertible), and Maris drives the 25-minute course from the apartment house to Yankee Stadium.
Mantle, Maris, and Cerv probably share one major-league record already: Among them, they have fifteen children -- eight for Cerv, four for Mantle, and three for Maris.

As roommates, teammates, and home-run mates, Mantle, 29, who broke in with the Yankees ten years ago, and Maris, 26, who came to the Yankees from Kansas City two years ago, have strikingly similar backgrounds.
Both were scholastic stars in football, basketball, and baseball (Mantle in Commerce, Okla., Maris in Fargo, N.D.);
as halfbacks, both came close to playing football at the University of Oklahoma ("Sometimes in the minors", Maris recalls, "I wished I had gone to Oklahoma").

To an extent, the two even look alike.
Both have blue eyes and short blond hair.
Both are 6 feet tall and weigh between 195 and 200 pounds, but Mantle, incredibly muscular (he has a 17-1/2-inch neck), looks bigger.
With their huge backs and overdeveloped shoulders, both must have their clothes made to order.
Maris purchases $100 suits from Simpson's in New York.
Mantle, more concerned with dress, buys his suits four at a time at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas and pays as much as $250 each.

Light reading:

Neither Mantle nor Maris need fear being classified an intellectual, but lately Mantle has shown unusual devotion to an intellectual opus, Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer".
Mantle so appreciated Miller's delicate literary style that he broadened teammates' minds by reading sensitive passages aloud during road trips.

Mantle is not normally given to public speaking -- or, for that matter, to private speaking.
"What do you and Mickey talk about at home"?
A reporter asked Maris recently.

"To tell you the truth", Maris said, "Mickey don't talk much".

This is no surprising trait for a ballplayer.
What is surprising and pleasant is that Mantle and Maris, under constant pressure from writers and photographers, are trying to be cooperative.

Of the two, Mantle is by nature the less outgoing, Maris the more outspoken.
But last week, when a reporter was standing near Mantle's locker, Mickey walked up and volunteered an anecdote.
"See that kid"?
He said, pointing to a dark-haired 11-year-old boy.
"That's (Yogi) Berra's.
I'll never forget one time I struck out three times, dropped a fly ball, and we lost the game.
I came back, sitting by my locker, feeling real low, and the kid walks over to me, looks up, and says: 'You stunk'".

Maris, in talking to reporters, tries to answer all questions candidly and fully, but on rare occasions, he shuns newsmen.
"When I've made a dumb play", he says, "I don't want to talk to anyone.
I'm angry".

By his own confession, Maris is an angry young man.
Benched at Tulsa in 1955, he told manager Dutch Meyer: "I can't play for you.
Send me where I can play".
(Meyer sent him to Reading, Pa.
) Benched at Indianapolis in 1956, he told manager Kerby Farrell: "I'm not learning anything on the bench.
Play me".
(Farrell did -- and Maris led the team to victory in the Little World Series.
) "That's the way I am", he says.
"I tell people what I think.
If you're a good ballplayer, you've got to get mad.
Give me a team of nine angry men and I'll give you a team of nine gentlemen and we'll beat you nine out of ten times".

Idols' idols:

One good indication of the two men's personalities is the way they reacted to meeting their own heroes.
Maris's was Ted Williams.
"When I was a kid", Maris told a sportswriter last week, "I used to follow Williams every day in the box score, just to see whether he got a hit or not".

"When you came up to the majors, did you seek out Williams for advice"?

"Are you kidding"?
Said Maris.
"You're afraid to talk to a guy you idolize".

Mantle's hero was Joe DiMaggio.
"When Mickey went to the Yankees", says Mark Freeman, an ex-Yankee pitcher who sells mutual funds in Denver, "DiMaggio still was playing and every day Mickey would go by his locker, just aching for some word of encouragement from this great man, this hero of his.
But DiMaggio never said a word.
It crushed Mickey.
He told me he vowed right then that if he ever got to be a star, this never would be said of him".
Mantle has kept the vow.
Among all the Yankees, he is the veteran most friendly to rookies.

Neither Mantle nor Maris is totally devoted to baseball above all else.
If laying ties on a railroad track, which he once did for $1 an hour, paid more than playing right field for the Yankees, Maris would lay ties on a railroad track.
If working in a zinc mine, which he once did for 87-1/2 cents an hour, paid more than playing center field for the Yankees, Mantle would work in a zinc mine.
But since railroading and mining are not the highest paid arts, Mantle and Maris concentrate on baseball.
They try to play baseball the best they can.

Each is a complete ballplayer.
Mantle, beyond any question, can do more things well.
("One of the reasons they get along fine", says a sportswriter who is friendly with the two men, "is that both realize Mantle is head-and-shoulders above Maris".
) Hitting, Mantle has an immediate advantage because he bats both left-handed and right-handed, Maris only left-handed.
They both possess near classic stances, dug in firmly, arms high, set for fierce swings.
Mantle is considerably better hitting for average (

, fourth in the league, to

for Maris so far this year).

Both are good bunters: Maris once beat out eighteen of nineteen in the minor leagues;
Mantle is a master at dragging a bunt toward first base.
Both have brilliant speed: Mantle was timed from home plate (batting left-handed) to first base in 3.1 seconds, faster than any other major leaguer;
Maris ran the 100-yard dash in ten seconds in high school and once won a race against Luis Aparicio, the swift, base-stealing shortstop of the White Sox.
Both are good, daring fielders: Mantle covers more ground;
Maris's throwing arm is stronger.

Yet with all their skills, the appeal of Mantle and Maris in 1961 comes down to one basic: The home run.
With this ultimate weapon, the two Yankees may have saved baseball from its dullest season.
(American League expansion created, inevitably, weaker teams.
Only two teams in each league (the Yankees and Detroit, the Dodgers and Cincinnati) are battling for first place.

Appropriately, the emphasis on the home run, at a peak this year, came into being at baseball's lowest moment.
In 1920, as the startling news that the 1919 White Sox had conspired to lose the World Series leaked out, fans grew disillusioned and disinterested in baseball.
Something was needed to revive interest;
the something was the home run.