I had just turned 9 in the summer of ’61 and looking back on things now the numerologists would go nuts with some of the numbers.

I was (and remain) a life long NYYankee fan, it was my dad’s favorite team, I was born and raised in the Bronx, living for almost 23 years right at the end of the D-Train subway line. (it was directly across the street from 3149 Perry Ave, the apartment I was moved to when I was 5 years old, it was where I shook hands with Bobby Kennedy during one of his campaign stops…but that’s a story for another day) For most of my elementary and HS years it was simple to take the train (a one way fare then was .15) to 161st Street and River Ave stop (right at Yankee Stadium). A general admission ticket was $1.50, it was easy to get a seat behind home plate in the upper deck, you were able to bring your own food and drink along in a paper bag, Sundays were double header days same price to get in, just needed to bring more food, so all in all I spent a lot of time there.

Roger Maris was my favorite player until they traded him to St. Louis, well I still followed his exploits in the NYDaily News but it was only the stats I could see, there was no SportsCenter, no QuickPitch, no internet and once he was traded, the radio and press really didn’t cover him in NY add on to that the fact that there were no interleague games so even that was hard.

I was totally enthralled by the ’61 home run chase and while I loved Mickey, I was pulling for Roger just that much harder. I wore #9 on my little league jersey and played right field also (not nearly as well as Roger other than in my mind). I remember where I was when he hit #61, in a neighbors apartment across the hall, and the screaming and happy yelling still reverberates in my head. It was the magic of youth and seeming life eternal.

That brings us to 2022…it is exactly 61 years later and the number, for the moment, is still #61…it remains, in my mind, the legit, untainted by steroids record in all of MLB. It is, currently, again under “siege”. By another Yankee mostly right fielder this time wearing not 9 but #99 and I am relishing every soundbite, every audio, every story about it. I remember talking with my dad about it, following the “tracker” in the Daily News (and then the afternoon NYPost), it was THE topic of conversation as the new school year started up. Every pick up game we played, everyone, at every at bat, was “Roger” trying to hit #61. The only current downside is that here in SC it is almost impossible to get a Yankee game unless it’s the national broadcast, however I suspect that now, as of this writing, that Aaron Judge is sitting on 59 with a lot of games to go, there will be a lot of “look ins” for each at bat moving forward.

It is such a refreshing respite from world events coupled with the fact that there is ZERO suspicion of any PED “assist”.

I’ll close with, what is to me, the astounding irony of it all:

1961, 61 years ago, Maris wore 9, I was 9, Judge wears 99, and as another interesting aside, Sue was born in 1961 (not till 12/61 but still part of that magical year for this then physically young and still mentally childish man). Also in the 9th inning of Game 3, of the World Series, Maris hit what turned out to be the winning home run…9th inning…..[Yankees won that series 4-1 also]

While the house agnostic does not really believe in much more than ashes to ashes…there is a small part somewhere that hopes he’s wrong and would like to think that Marty Fitzpatrick is up there smiling, sipping a Ballantine while listening to Mel Allen and Phil Rizzuto calling Judge’s #61 and beyond.

Holy Cow, THAT was a Ballantine Blast! (IYKYK).