1960, 1961, 1962 are also the first three Yankee seasons for Roger Maris. So, maybe it was playing his home games in Yankee Stadium with its short porch in right field that helped his home run hitting. Maris batted lefty so right was his power pull field.
Maris was American League MVP in 1960 and 1961.
Let's start with full stats for those three seasons. Fields added: 1B, AB/HR.
The second table shows the percent of hits for each type.
Maris had the exact same At Bats (AB) in both 1961 and 1962 but his HR dropped from 61 to 33. However, his 2B increased from 16 to 34.
Home/Road:
Maris AB/HR on the road was almost exactly the same in 1960 and 1961. Maris hit 26 HR on the road in 1960, so he could have hit over 50 HR in 1960 before expansion in 1961. Maris had many fewer AB at home in 1960 than on the road due to injury.
The second table shows the percent of hits for each type. Not surprisingly, 1961 HR% is 39%.
Maris HR% in 1961 was higher on the road.
Against RHP and LHP (Righty/Lefty) pitchers:
In 1961 Maris hit 12 HR against these lefty pitchers:
In 1961 and 1962 Maris has similar HR% against lefties but less than half in 1962 against righties. Part of why Maris hit only a little more than half as many HR in 1962 in the same number of AB was difficulty homering off righties in 1962.
Roger Maris on pace in 1960 for 53 Home Runs. That's 1960, NOT 1961. Saturday, October 1, 2022
Other details in this 2017 post:
Roger Maris 1961 home run splits. Monday, May 15, 2017
Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961, breaking the old record of 60 set by Babe Ruth in 1927. Ruth set the season HR record four times:
1919 29 Red Sox, home park: Fenway Park
1920 54 Yankees, home park: Polo Grounds
1921 59 Yankees, home park: Polo Grounds
1927 60 Yankees, home park: Yankee Stadium
In 1961 the American League expanded by 25%, increasing from 8 to 10 teams. The National did the same in 1962. The schedule increased five percent from 154 games to 162. Five percent of 60 is 3. In a general sense to equal 60 HR in 162 games the total should be 63 HR.
In 1961 the Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis and became the Minnesota Twins and were replaced by a new expansion team called the Washington Senators. The other expansion team was the Los Angeles Angels.
The two new teams were stocked with players drafted from the 8 AL teams...
Did Maris specifically take advantage of the two new expansion teams? It doesn't really matter as all teams were impacted...
Among the HR leaders, only Mickey Mantle had a better HR rate than Maris...
The Senators pitching staff had the second best AL HR rate but the Angels had the worst. Maris had his fewest HR against the Orioles and they allowed the fewest HR...
It's not clear that Maris took particular advantage of the two expansion teams: Senators and Angels. Here is how Maris did by ballpark...
Mantle was not protecting Maris in 1960 as he did in 1961. In 1960 Yankee manager Casey Stengel moved Maris to number 3 and Mantle to 4 in September and in all seven World Series games Stengel batted Mantle lower in the Yankee batting order than Maris. It was Stengel, not his replacement in 1961 Ralph Houk, who switched them to have Mantle protecting Maris. The pattern was largely in place in early September 1960 and for Yankee games 147 (9/23/1960) though 155 (10/2/1960) it was Maris 3, Mantle 4 in every game. Roger Maris had become a Home Run hitter in 1960.
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