"When I Am Hitting .. ."

"When I'm not hitting," says New York Yankees Right Fielder Roger Maris, "my wife could be pitching and get me out." Then he adds: "But when I am hitting, you watch out." With the 1960 baseball season entering its steaming final phases, there is no question at all about whether Roger Maris is hitting: as of last weekend, with a respectable batting average of .296, he was leading both leagues in home runs with 35, and in runs-batted-in, with a remarkable 94. By near-unanimous agreement the Yankees' Roger Maris, at 25, has played his way into the ranks of the tiny band of baseball's true stars.

Blond and crewcut, with a jutting jaw and cold green eyes, Maris is all athlete. He stands an even 6 ft., weighs 202 Ibs., and although by baseball's terms he is known as a wrist hitter, the description is not quite accurate. "Maris," says Yankee Coach Ralph Houk, "is powerful all over." Raised in North Dakota, the son of a supervisor for the Great Northern Railway, he was a phenomenal high school football player. But as he himself admits, Maris is something less than cum laude off the athletic field, and though scouted as a promising halfback by the University of Oklahoma, he got no further than high school. Says he: "I guess I wasn't smart enough."

Long Trail Unwinding. A natural athlete, it still took him a while and some frustrations to get where he is. As a Cleveland Indians rookie in 1957, he fractured a rib in a collision at second base, hit a sorry .235 in 116 games. Traded the next season to the Kansas City Athletics, Maris doubled his home run output to 28, batted-in 80 runs--but still fell far short of promise. Last year in Kansas City, he led the league in batting at one point despite being sidelined for an appendectomy. But he ended the season with a disappointing .273 and was traded during the winter to the Yankees.

On the opening day of the 1960 season, Roger Maris served notice that he had finally come into his own: he smashed two homers, a double and a single. He has been going ever since. Says Yankee Superstar Mickey Mantle, just a little wistfully: "I never saw anybody hit so much." What is more, Maris is an all-round star who has speed on the basepaths and a flat-trajectory arm in right field.

Sixty in '60? Maris' phlegmatic front conceals an intense competitive spirit. Where others go through the motions in batting practice, Maris digs in, swings as though the deciding game of the World Series is at stake. In a late inning of a recent game, with the Yankees far out in front, Maris broke up a double play by almost tearing the legs off Athletics Second Baseman Jerry Lumpe as he slid in. He has tumbled over the fence in Yankee Stadium while trying to get his glove on a home run. After a game, Maris, brooding over a Coke or a beer, is one of the last Yankees out of the dressing room, taking an hour or more to unwind.

Last week, playing his usual rough game, Maris banged up his ribs in a collision on the basepaths and had to leave the field. But no one thought the injury would keep Maris out of the line-up for long. For the only real difference between the Yankees who finished a dismal third last year and this season's pennant contenders is Maris. What the injury certainly did was to hurt Maris' chances of bettering Babe Ruth's 1927 record of 60 home runs. But that was the last thing Roger Maris was worried about. Said he: "I don't care about Babe Ruth's record. I don't give a damn if he hit 900 home runs. It doesn't help me or the team any."

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