Roger Maris

As New York Post sportswriter Allen suggests, if ever a sports celebrity was victimized by the press, and by his own shyness, it was Maris. Happy with the Kansas City Athletics, Maris was dejected on being traded to the Yankees, but resolved to do his best nonetheless. His best included a record-setting 61 home runs in 1961, a season when he was virtually besieged by reporters, whom he met after every game and whose questions he answered politely though tersely. Overshadowed by his popular and extroverted teammate Mickey Mantle, he developed a reputation as being thorny, difficult, even hostile. In interviews with many who knew Maris, Allen shows him to have been a warm and friendly, if private, man. The book is an unabashed pitch for Maris, who died in 1985, to be elected to the Hall of Fame, but it is also most affecting, and the opening chapter is sportwriting at its best. Photos not seen by PW. (October 1)