Documentaries: 61*

Over break I watched a documentary with one of my friends. The documentary was called "61*" and it was directed by actor Billy Crystal.

"61*" is about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle chasing down Babe Ruth's homerun record of 60 set in 1927. The documentary is set in the 1961 baseball season while Maris and Mantle play for the New York Yankees. It goes in depth to show how the media portrayed Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle during that season and how it affected not only them but their family and their playing ability.

The documentary shows Maris was portrayed by the media as the villain of the Yankees and Mantle as the savior. Maris was sent death threats, media talked bad about him even after games he won. His family was forced to move away from New York because there were so many death threats sent to his house. On the other side, Mantle was shown as the golden boy of baseball and could do no wrong. Despite his great labels Mantle was actually the one who would come into practice or games hung over or still inebriated from the night before.

The movie does a good job of going through the season showing what they did in each game and at the end of the movie it shows Mantle deteriorating from alcohol abuse and injury and Maris still the scapegoat of the media. Despite that, Maris was able to keep hitting homeruns on a daily basis and in the last game of the year Maris hits homerun 61 to break Babe Ruth's record. He broke it in a half-filled Yankee Stadium with fair-weather fans in attendance.

I believe that's the biggest thing that shocked me was the fact the media had portrayed Maris as such a villain that on the day he can break the biggest record in sports at the time and barely half the fans show up? I think that just proved the fans and media's udder disdain for Maris. In the film he is shown as a pretty good guy that is just not understood in the media, yet Mantle is shown as a savior and he has alcohol problems. This just proves how much authority and spin the media has on the working America.