  |
 |
Mickey Mantle (1931-1995)
Roger Maris (1934-1985)
For more than three decades, Babe Ruth’s sixty home runs in the season of 1927 stood as baseball’s most legendary all-time record. In midsummer of 1961, however, as the New York Yankees’ slugging twosome, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, sent one ball after another over the fence, it began to seem possible that the mighty Babe’s record could at last be surpassed. And indeed it was. By season’s end, although Mantle’s home run total came to a non-record-setting fifty-four, Maris had bested Ruth by one. Some purists claimed that was not enough to eclipse Ruth, who hit his home runs in a shorter season. Such niggling was lost on most, however, and there was no doubt that Mantle and Maris had given baseball a memorable run for its money.
As Mantle and Maris closed in on Ruth in the summer of 1961, Time magazine decided to commission a cover featuring the two sluggers. The resulting image showed Mantle watching on the sidelines as Maris set out to round the bases, having just hit what could only be another home run. News of greater import, however, displaced Mantle and Maris as a cover story, and the picture was never used.
Russell Hoban (born 1925)
Casein on board, 1961
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine
|
Back to list of portraits
Back to "Sports and the Nation" introduction
