The 1961 Major League Baseball season. The New York Yankees defeated the Cincinnati Reds in five games in the World Series. The season is most well known for Yankee teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle's pursuit of Babe Ruth's prestigious 34-year-old single-season home run record of 60. Maris ultimately broke the record when he hit his 61st home run on the final day of the regular season, while Mantle was forced out of the lineup in late-September due to a hip infection and finished with 54 home runs.
This was the first season that the American League played a 162-game schedule; up until this time AL seasons had consisted of 154 games. The National League, however, continued to play a 154-game schedule for the final time in 1961 before switching to 162 games for the next season.
The American League expanded by two teams in the first MLB expansion since 1901. The original Washington Senators moved to Minnesota and became the Minnesota Twins. The American League therefore placed a new team in Washington, also called the Senators. Also, the American League placed a team in Los Angeles called the Los Angeles Angels.
Read more about 1961 Major League Baseball Season: Regular Season Standings, World Series, League Leaders, Events
Famous quotes containing the words major, league, baseball and/or season:
“Uncle Ben’s brass bullet-mould
And powder horn, and Major Bogan’s face
Above the fire, in the half-light, plainly said
There’s naught to kill but the animated dead;”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.
“Spooky things happen in houses densely occupied by adolescent boys. When I checked out a four-inch dent in the living room ceiling one afternoon, even the kid still holding the baseball bat looked genuinely baffled about how he possibly could have done it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Business by no means forbids pleasures; on the contrary, they reciprocally season each other; and I will venture to affirm that no man enjoys either in perfection that does not join both.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)