Via Uni Watch comes this aerial shot of Kansas City's Municipal Stadium from 1961. The wire photo service added the supposed paths of two home runs Mickey Mantle hit in a game against the A's on June 21. Roger Maris of course ended up on top of the home run race in 1961, but on this day the Mick hit two and Roger none. Mantle's homers both came off A's starter Bob Shaw. Roger had to settle for a walk, single, triple and two runs scored. The Yanks prevailed 5-3. Mantle drove in all five runs.Eleven Yankees played in the game on June 21; No fewer than seven had called Municipal their home stadium previous to 1961:
Elston Howard: Monarchs 1948-50, Blues 1953
Mickey Mantle: Blues 1951
Bill Skowron: Blues 1952-53
Jack Reed: Blues 1953
Clete Boyer: Athletics 1955-57
Roger Maris: Athletics 1958-59
Bud Daley: Athletics 1958-61 (Daley had just been sent to the Yankees a week earlier)
Thank you Danny! I read excerpts of your Maris book on the Amazon preview recently, and look forward to reading it sometime. Even though I was born after his career, Maris is a special player to me, because he was a special player to my dad. My dad was a neighbor of his when the Marises lived in Raytown, MO, and my dad was a huge fan of Roger. My dad and a friend started up a Roger Maris fan club in '61 or '62. They interviewed Pat at the Maris home for their first newsletter. A local Raytown or KC paper ran a story on the fan club, and the AP picked it up, so they ended up being a national fan club!
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