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| Roger Maris, Cleveland Indians Baseball Digest March 1957 Wikimedia Commons |
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| Roger Maris, New York Yankees Baseball Digest October 1960 Wikimedia Commons |
baseball-reference.com:
June 15, 1958: Traded by the Cleveland Indians with Dick Tomanek and Preston Ward to the Kansas City Athletics for Woodie Held and Vic Power.
December 11, 1959: Traded by the Kansas City Athletics with Joe DeMaestri and Kent Hadley to the New York Yankees for Hank Bauer, Don Larsen, Norm Siebern and Marv Throneberry.
December 8, 1966: Traded by the New York Yankees to the St. Louis Cardinals for Charley Smith.
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Must have been the ballpark, Yankee Stadium. That's the usual knee jerk reaction. Click link to view detailed data.
| Year | home AB/HR | road AB/HR | Team | home AB | home HR | road AB | road HR | AB | HR | Year | Rate % Dif | Rate H-R | HR: H-R |
| 1960 | 17.85 | 10.27 | Yanks | 232 | 13 | 267 | 26 | 499 | 39 | 1960 | 42.46% | 7.58 | -13 |
| 1961 | 9.33 | 10.00 | Yanks | 280 | 30 | 310 | 31 | 590 | 61 | 1961 | -7.14% | -0.67 | -1 |
| 1962 | 14.42 | 22.57 | Yanks | 274 | 19 | 316 | 14 | 590 | 33 | 1962 | -56.52% | -8.15 | 5 |
| 1963 | 12.09 | 14.92 | Yanks | 133 | 11 | 179 | 12 | 312 | 23 | 1963 | -23.37% | -2.83 | -1 |
| 1964 | 23.70 | 17.25 | Yanks | 237 | 10 | 276 | 16 | 513 | 26 | 1964 | 27.22% | 6.45 | -6 |
| 1965 | 21.25 | 17.50 | Yanks | 85 | 4 | 70 | 4 | 155 | 8 | 1965 | 17.65% | 3.75 | 0 |
| 1966 | 24.29 | 29.67 | Yanks | 170 | 7 | 178 | 6 | 348 | 13 | 1966 | -22.16% | -5.38 | 1 |
| tot | 15.01 | 14.64 | Yanks | 1,411 | 94 | 1,596 | 109 | 3,007 | 203 | 2.45% | 0.37 | -15 |
Rate % Dif: Rate H-R (home rate - road rate) divided by home rate. Rates are AB/HR.
The home/road HR rates for Maris are pretty even, including for 1961, the season which would concern most people. But notice that Maris hit 26 HR on the road in 1960, before expansion diluted pitching and within the old 154 game schedule, which increased 5% in 1961 in the American League to 162 games. And his 1960 road HR rate was 42% better than his home HR rate in 1960.
25 HR either at home or, more importantly, on the road suggests that the batter is capable of hitting 50 HR in a season. That will be explored for all batters in subsequent posts.
How did Maris improve? No, it wasn't having Mickey Mantle batting behind him.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 Fat Mike gets it wrong ... again.
Fat Mike was droning on about how new Yankee manager Ralph Houk would eventually move Maris into the third spot in the Yankee lineup with Mickey Mantle fourth, i.e., switching and reversing their order in the Yankee lineup. WRONG!
Houk's predecessor Casey Stengel had already done that in 1960, the first Yankee season for Maris. In 1960 Mantle batted third in 67 games and fourth in 46; Maris batted fourth in 65 games and third in 40 games. In 1960 from Sept. 17 through Oct. 2 in the final 14 games of the regular season: Maris third, Mantle fourth...
It took Houk until game 30 in 1961 to finally put Maris in the third spot in the batting order for good. Prior to game 30 Maris started 11 games batting third. After that the only games that Maris started and did not bat third were three games in which Mantle did not start and Maris batted fourth. In 1961 Mantle batted fourth in every game that he started.
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So The Mick might have helped Maris in 1961 but not much in 1960. Drugs?
Tuesday, December 4, 2012 On the potential of a chemical Bonds: Possible effects of steroids on home run production in baseball
Just because a batter has a huge increase does not mean it's because of steroids. For instance Carl Yastrzemski hit 44 HR in his triple crown season, 1967. His previous HR: 11, 19, 14, 15, 20, 16. Yaz improved more than 100%.
Of course the coaches of the 1963 San Diego Chargers of the American Football League provided steroids to the players, so who the heck really knows what was going on even back then.
Football's first steroids team: the 1963 San Diego Chargers - ESPN
Pumped-up pioneers: the '63 Chargers
Updated: February 1, 2009
But Yaz did not break the home run record so he was OK with the baseball steroid zealots.
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That football article traces steroid use back to 1959. Probably Maris matured physically, especially as a ball player. Future posts on "25 homers home and/or road" will deal just with that fact, not possible use of performance enhancing drugs (PED).
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Somewhat related but cool on its own:
Saturday, December 14, 2013 Season Home Run record by team progressive.
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