In Billy Crystal’s ‘61*,’ a slugger battles a commissioner over custody of a Frick-in’ word
Billy Crystal doesn’t want to believe it. But the 1961 home run chase never had a happy ending.
Take it from Roger Maris. “Do you know what I have to show for the 61 home runs? Nothing, exactly nothing,” the slugger complained, according to a July 9, 1980, article in the New York Times by Joseph Durso.
Crystal’s “61*,” a 2001 made-for-HBO movie, is something of a national apology to Maris (who passed away in 1985) and an alternate take on the lifestyle of Mickey Mantle (who passed away in 1995), which even the movie admits deserves an asterisk.
For a long time, “61*” flirts successfully with being a typical sports-overachievement story. But this material is best regarded as tragedy. What probably should’ve stopped Crystal in his tracks is when it came time to film the 61st homer. His movie is never sure what it means. Is it a massive triumph? Or an anticlimactic letdown?
“61*” in its ending will try to convince us that history, if begrudgingly, ultimately judged Roger Maris the winner of the Most-Home-Runs-In-A-Season dispute. The truth — to this day — is more complicated. Crystal would have a better movie if it were a downer — showing how something that should be so thrilling as a tremendous athletic feat could be parsed, qualified and watered down into one of 20th century America’s most unsatisfying dramas.
Crystal could inform us more about the significance of the 61st home run if he had any kind of handle on Roger Maris. His cast is an interesting collection of screen veterans with lesser-known regulars you’ve seen before. But maybe the best actor of all is the real Roger Maris. Neither “61*,” nor anyone else apparently, knows for sure what Maris thought of the record. Did he feel like Superman? Or did he believe, with just a .269 batting average, that he wasn’t the most worthy? Did he actually agree with Commissioner Ford Frick that it should be done within 154 games? Would his opinion on the 154-game question be different if only Mantle was challenging the record? “61*” only knows what Roger thought about talking about 61 home runs.
At one point in the movie, Roger tells Mickey, “I don’t care about the stupid record, Mickey. They can shove it up their a-- for all I care,” yet Mantle doesn’t believe him. “Aw c’mon, give me a break — why can’t you just admit you want it too?” Sports Illustrated in September 1961 quotes Maris telling a reporter, “I damn well want to break the record.”
Maris in the film makes the argument to writers that Ruth didn’t have coast-to-coast travel or night games. Perhaps night games are more difficult for hitters in terms of seeing pitches, particularly in older parks with poor lighting. In terms of travel, Maris may be suggesting that players of Ruth’s era would have had to take more days off. On the other hand, Maris and Mantle in 1961 played in a newly expanded, 10-team league that included at least a handful of pitchers who in previous years would’ve been in the minor leagues.
Based on the credits, “61*” was clearly developed in cooperation with the Maris and Mantle families and the New York Yankees. It would probably be impossible otherwise. The legal right to a player’s likeness is murky, as well as using official team logos. Crystal says in a making-of documentary that the Mantle family was on board all along. The Chicago Tribune’s Ed Sherman writes on April 23, 2001, that “The family of Roger Maris wouldn’t endorse “61*” until it saw the film.” Sherman writes that executive producer Ross Greenburg showed a cut to the family, and when “the tears were flowing,” Maris’ then-87-year-old mother, Corrine, announced, “That’s the story of my son.” Sherman says “the Mantle family also endorses the film despite some difficult moments.” Greenburg told Sherman, “They have come to terms with the life Mickey led.”
We definitely get the players’/families’ sides of the stories. The movie’s scenes often take place in apartments (the star players are apparently able to come and go in Queens without being noticed or hassled) or locker rooms or hotel rooms and include regular testimonials from the two stars explaining their comments or behavior that prompted bad press. Mantle tells why he wasn’t in the military. Maris tells why he signed a baseball with just an X. (It’s not the way he talks in the movie, but according to Sports Illustrated in 1961, “Maris’ speech is splattered with expletives common among ballplayers.”) Crystal does try to spread the faults around — early, Mantle often makes crude comments about women, and a laboriously long scene details how a writer expecting an interview with Maris got jilted.
But Mantle in “61*” is a remarkably humble hero. He doesn’t complain about being moved in the batting order to benefit Maris. He gives Roger tips. He quietly visits Roger’s family’s home. He’s nervous around Joe DiMaggio. He plays through enormous pain with Paul Bunyon-like results. He tries, in vain, to convey to Roger how Roger should answer media questions — the same kind of advice humorously shared through the ages in everything from You Know Me Al to “Bull Durham” — but Roger insists through the end on his own approach, which is to question the point of the question while maybe revealing a little too much truth. According to the movie, Roger’s main accomplishment off the field is convincing Mantle to adopt a healthier lifestyle. It worked for a while, but not the full season, and the rest of the decade for the Mick was marked by injury-plagued, if sometimes great, seasons.
“61*” tries really hard to tell us that Maris too is remarkably humble — but simply misunderstood. “61*” has a habit of showing the interview and then the resulting newspaper headline, which often isn’t a perfect match and may or may not reflect the truth of Maris’ comments. The writers will protest that they’re in a heated competition also.
Maris may have been misquoted. But he wasn’t necessarily so humble. “61*” refuses to believe that Roger Maris had an ego. According to Sports Illustrated in its September 1961 article by Roger Kahn titled “PURSUIT OF NO. 60: THE ORDEAL OF ROGER MARIS,” Maris “is impetuous, inclined to gripe harmlessly and truthful to a fault.” Asked whether the Tigers’ Al Kaline did a nice thing by retrieving Maris’ 57th home run ball and sending it to the Yankee dugout, Maris responded, “Anybody would have done it. It was nice of Kaline, but any ballplayer would have done it.” Maris regularly complained about his comments being taken out of context. “I been trying to be a good guy to the writers,” he says in Kahn’s article, but this came after he called the right field fans in Yankee Stadium “Terrible” and “Maybe the worst in the league,” and he actually “ran down the customers for 10 or 15 minutes.” Maris sparred through the media with “old-timers” who compared him unfavorably to Ruth. A notable critic was hitting legend Rogers Hornsby, whom Maris snubbed in a 1962 spring training photo shoot.
In the category of popular opinion, Maris in 1961 found himself incredibly battling — at the plate — not one but two Yankee legends. It was and is widely believed that the fans and even Yankee players wanted Mantle, not Maris, to break the record because of the former’s stature with the ballclub and in baseball. Maris was anything but a colorful figure. An astounding athlete, he had no use for the celebrity side of his profession. The majority of players are no different, but the majority do not win MVP awards and hit 61 home runs. In 1961, Maris was only in his second season with the Yankees, already his third team in the big leagues. Mantle was Yankee royalty. Were Mantle in ’61 enduring another injury-plagued season, which was the norm for him in the rest of the decade, Maris would’ve had the chase all to himself. And perhaps a friendlier crowd.
Bob Costas admits in the “Yankeeography” Maris documentary, “Like virtually every Yankee fan I knew, I rooted for Mantle. It wasn’t that I disliked Maris. But Mantle was our guy.” By the time the chase kicked into high gear and Maris gained a little distance, it wasn’t the Mantle supporters who were on his case. It was those clinging to the past. “Why can’t they understand? I den’t want to be Babe Ruth. He was a great ballplayer. I’m not trying to replace him. The record is there and damn right I want to break it, but that isn’t replacing Babe Ruth,” Maris told Kahn. Maybe if he just looked like he was enjoying it a little bit more ...
Hank Greenberg, the Tigers legend who chased Ruth’s record in 1938 (Greenberg finished with 58, unable to homer in the final handful of games with the record in reach), signed Maris for the Cleveland Indians in 1952. “I know him, and he’s just a boy. They get him talking and he says things maybe you don’t say to reporters,” Greenberg told Kahn. “But the writers protected me then. Why aren’t the writers protecting Maris now?”
Undoubtedly, the filmmakers behind “61*” and fans of that season had to be excited about a movie tackling this material. As a re-creation, Crystal has done a great job. But as a movie, visuals are a big challenge. The trainers room is often seen. There are the dreaded scenes of the successful male chided for not devoting enough attention to home. Crystal opts against including too much game action. That is probably the correct move. What he does show is typically a home run over the right field fence. His movie in the beginning and ending does drip at times with too much sports-movie sentiment, including an opening music score that sounds like how “Rudy” might begin.
The starring role goes to Barry Pepper, a prolific actor adept at the crew cut. He’d been in “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Green Mile” and would later appear in “25th Hour” and Jeff Bridges’ “True Grit.” He doesn’t look exactly like Maris, but he has that distinctive kind of look that works. Pepper is athletic enough for the role, though without the impressive biceps of Maris that Crystal chose not to feature. Mantle is played by Thomas Jane, also a close match but more believable off the field than on. Anthony Michael Hall, not as innocent as “The Breakfast Club” kid he once played, has a few lines as Whitey Ford. As Frick, Donald Moffat is again the reliable bad guy, but the most interesting casting is Seymour Cassel, associated with the movies of John Cassevetes.
Crystal reportedly consulted with Yogi Berra, another famous member of that 1961 team. But for whatever reason, while a character does depict Berra in the movie, Yogi is generally silent and out of the picture. The comic relief foil is Bob Cerv, a journeyman outfielder whom few must’ve heard of who was friendly — and neutral — to both Maris and Mantle. Perhaps Crystal feels that 1961 is just not Yogi’s story and doesn’t want audiences expecting a one-liner around every corner.
This is an HBO movie, not a cinematic release, so the ballgames are not going to look spiritual like, say, in “The Natural,” despite the fact Crystal landed Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler. Mostly, we have a movie in which the star regularly protests that he doesn’t want or deserve any attention, then goes on to prove it. One writer complains early that Maris is indeed the reigning MVP — “Most Vacant Personality.”
The season was about ... pressure. That’s hard to show. We get heckling fans in right field and reporters pushing microphones into Roger’s face, and it grows as tiresome for viewers as it was for Roger. Kahn in Sports Illustrated bluntly declares that Maris was experiencing “pressure such as no ballplayer has ever had to endure, not even Babe Ruth himself” and also observes, “Maris is being covered more intensely than any other figure in sports history.”
Hair is an interesting footnote to the Maris story. His most-often-recited physical setback in 1961 is hair loss, brought on by stress. It is briefly portrayed in the movie. However, he clearly never went bald. Lots of players wore crew cuts well into the 1960s. You can see it in baseball cards. These were kids whose dads were heroes of The Greatest Generation. Around 1970, all of those guys on baseball cards suddenly had long hair. But never Maris. He kept his crew cut into the ’80s.
Hank Aaron probably had it worse. His mail from 1973 and ’74 is well publicized. Race, unlike for Maris, was a factor. But Aaron had no deadline; he was eventually going to break the record. And by 1973, he had no current rival for the honor, as Willie Mays had faded. And there were no decrees from the commissioner about how Aaron must hit 715 within the 2503 games that Ruth played (it actually took Aaron more than 2,900). No asterisk.
The “61*” movie’s premise is that the goat of the film, 1961 Commissioner Ford Frick, was outvoted by the baseball world. That the mark under siege in 1998 was not Babe Ruth’s, but Roger Maris’. The debate in 1961 was not over how many home runs Roger Maris clubbed, but custody of a word — “record.” Frick pointed out that there was no actual asterisk, that he simply decreed that Ruth’s record 60 would be recognized (in some way) by baseball if not exceeded within the 154th game. There is certainly truth in “61*” that Frick, who was famously a close friend of Ruth, weighed on public perception of Maris’ feat. But neither Frick nor anyone else had ownership over what was deemed baseball “records.” And had Frick declared the opposite, that any home run total over 60 regardless of when achieved in 1961 would be the recognized “record,” there would’ve surely been counterarguments from writers and retired players. At the heart of Crystal’s movie is simple semantics.
No other sport regards statistics as religiously as baseball. It is a big part of the game’s appeal, the day-to-day compilation of numbers that provides extra drama beyond the wins and losses ... who’s going to win the batting title, will any pitcher ever win 30 games again, can someone win the triple crown? In basketball, stats are mostly referenced as per-game averages. Pro football has had no issues with the impact of expanded seasons on long-term comparisons. Its most famous statistic, O.J. Simpson’s 2,003 yards in 1973 in a 14-game season, was topped by Eric Dickerson in 1984 in a 16-game season to far less fanfare than what Simpson got. Six others since then have also surpassed Simpson’s total.
Plenty of people know that Maris and Mantle had an epic home run chase in 1961. Many people do not know of either player’s backstory nor even how their 1960 season went. So Crystal’s characters are reciting stats all the time and retelling stories that the players in the movie have likely heard many times previously. Maybe a little of this is needed; most of it is not. Mantle’s hard living is often attributed to his father dying young. But what does Joe DiMaggio have to do with any of this? And Mantle tripping on the grate in 1951? And Roger’s brother? Coincidentally, after 1962, Maris went on to have injury problems too. He nearly retired after the 1966 season and did call it quits after 1968, at age 34.
Locked into baseball, Crystal does not take advantage of the opportunities presented by 1961. Cars would be a natural emblem of the era; we see few. We had a young president. There was optimism. Americans watched TV, listened to music. They did think about Berlin and Cuba and space, but they didn’t think about Vietnam. People argued about Ruth and Maris, not Southeast Asia, and that is appealing at this particular time or any time. Crystal does show a clip from “The Andy Griffith Show.” A selection of familiar tunes are heard, but nothing like, say, the lineup in “American Graffiti,” set in 1962.
Incredibly, Crystal in 2001 was just a little early. It’s not only the 1961 home run race that’s controversial; the home run race of 1998 that bookends the movie is even more controversial. There were whispers of steroid use in baseball in the ’90s. Shortly after “61*,” federal authorities got involved and threw the acceptance/appreciation of baseball greatness into mass uncertainty, to this day.
The Tribune’s Sherman writes that, according to Ross Greenburg, the movie was “conceived in December 1997,” before Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa made a run at the record in 1998, an event that must’ve prompted rethinking of the “61*” project. The filmmakers may have thought that a movie about the 1961 season would be in demand in the wake of 1998, or they might’ve thought the opposite, that someone breaking Maris’ record in ’98 would diminish interest in 1961. At some point, the decision was made to go ahead, and weave the 1961 story into the 1998 story. At the time of the 2001 release, that maybe made sense. Within a short time, the 1998 race was deemed so dubious that it’s almost embarrassing as a bookend to “61*.” While there was great public interest in the Sosa-McGwire duel, there was hardly any drama in topping Ruth. McGwire hit 61 on Sept. 7, 1998, in the Cardinals’ 143rd game. He hit 62 the next night. So much for Ford Frick.
How hard is it to hit 60 home runs? Consider that in the 1960s only three players managed to hit even 50 home runs in one season — Mantle and Maris in ’61, and Willie Mays in 1965. That’s pretty good company. In the 1970s, only one player, George Foster, did it once. In the 1980s, nobody did. (Ruth, um, did it four times.)
“61*” was ahead of its time as an HBO movie. It’s the type of production that’s now commonplace on streaming services, which will greenlight almost any “documentary” about a notable news event, and many, in fact, are watchable. These productions are not to be praised for digging deep and detecting the “movie” within the material they’re presenting. It’s Joe Friday, Just the facts. But to Crystal’s credit, “61*” has a lot of facts, moves quickly, and presents an appealing chapter of sports history to those who want to relive it or those who never got to experience it live. Sherman says “the writers from that era ... might dispute their portrayal,” but he thinks the movie “deserves an exclamation point, not an asterisk.”
Mickey Mantle and Billy Crystal on a 1977 episode of Dinah Shore’s “Dinah!”
One hard truth pounded home by “61*” is that, while we’d like to think our greatest stars would hold the biggest records, those records are sometimes broken by mortals considered lesser players. Apparently only wanting one controversy at a time, “61*” doesn’t take up the fact that Roger Maris isn’t even in the Hall of Fame, even though Roger Maris was a helluva baseball player. A Gold Glove outfielder, outstanding baserunner, landmark power hitter. Despite injuries that prompted his unceremonious trade from New York, he was a major World Series contributor for the Cardinals in ’67 and ’68. He played in seven World Series in a nine-season span. Look up the highlights to see his contributions. The Hall is heavily biased toward career stats, and the voting — most of it anyway — is done by the writers. Sandy Koufax was quickly let in without the huge career stats, but according to Vin Scully’s comments on NBC during the 1965 World Series, Koufax by that point (his penultimate season) was getting ovations in every National League city. He wasn’t chasing Ruth.
Whatever his feuds with media or fans, Maris was baseball’s biggest star entering the 1962 season. He and Mantle were quickly enlisted for a movie rush job — a picture for kids called “Safe at Home!” that would be filmed during 1962 spring training and released by April. An extensive account of the movie by Robert Creamer in Sports Illustrated in April 1962 says “Roger has made so far about $120,000 from last summer’s big home-run splurge, Mickey about half that. But if ‘Safe at Home!’ were to do a $2 million gross the movie alone could bring them each about $125,000 — more, indeed, than either is making from baseball this year. Or any other year.” Reliable box office statistics from the 1960s are sketchy, but apparently, “Safe at Home!” did gross $2 million.
The “Safe at Home!” plot resembles that of a later, more famous “Brady Bunch” episode in which Bobby fibs about knowing Joe Namath. According to Creamer’s article, part of the “Safe at Home!” plot involved kids swarming the two superstars and firing off all kinds of questions of their own making, such as, “Do you think you’re as good as Ted Williams?” “Who’s the best player in the league?” “How come you hit 61 home runs?” “Why didn’t you hit 61 home runs?” “Do the Yankees own their own airplane?”) It was entertaining, and maybe a little out of control: “the kids stayed glued to Mantle and Maris, stepping on their feet, pulling their sleeves, firing questions. The kids hardly seemed to notice when they were on camera and when they were not.”
There were littler moments too. In the “Chip’s Party” episode of “My Three Sons” that aired on March 22, 1962, a boy offers Chip a Roger Maris baseball card if Chip will throw a party.
Maris’ life was cut short by non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He is very popular in today’s memorabilia world. A road jersey he wore during the 1961 season and also in the 1960 World Series brought more than $1 million in a May 2025 auction. Maris cards, autographs and bats do not go for the same price as Mantle’s — nothing does — but they get healthy bids. Fascination about his feat seems bound to last forever.
In the battle of time, youth always wins. Frick and the players of Ruth’s generation, and any skepticism they may have harbored for the 162-game season and “modern” player, have long since passed, most of them by the time “61*” was made. They’re no longer here to object. At the end of “61*,” Mantle tells Maris, “That record’s yours.” There’s that word again ...
3 stars
(May 2025)
“61*” (2001)
Starring
Barry Pepper as
Roger Maris ♦
Thomas Jane as
Mickey Mantle ♦
Anthony Michael Hall as
Whitey Ford ♦
Richard Masur as
Milt Kahn ♦
Bruce McGill as
Ralph Houk ♦
Chris Bauer as
Bob Cerv ♦
Jennifer Crystal Foley as
Pat Maris (’61) ♦
Christopher McDonald as
Mel Allen ♦
Bob Gunton as
Dan Topping ♦
Donald Moffat as
Ford Frick ♦
Joe Grifasi as
Phil Rizzuto ♦
Peter Jacobson as
Artie Green ♦
Seymour Cassel as
Sam Simon ♦
Robert Joy as
Bob Fishel ♦
Michael Nouri as
Joe DiMaggio ♦
Domenick Lombardozzi as
Moose Skowron ♦
Paul Borghese as
Yogi Berra ♦
Bobby Hosea as
Elston Howard ♦
Renee Taylor as
Claire Ruth ♦
Pat Crowley as
Pat Maris (’98) ♦
Joe Buck as
McGwire 60th & 62nd Home Run Announcer (archive footage) (voice) ♦
Dane Northcutt as
Randy Maris (’98) ♦
Chip Esten as
Kevin Maris (’98) ♦
Scott Connell as
Roger Maris, Jr. (1998) ♦
Rebecca Klinger as
Susan Maris (’98) ♦
Jon Miller as
McGwire 61st Home Run Announcer (archive footage) (voice) ♦
Cameryn McNabb as
Susan Maris (’61) ♦
Brynne McNabb as
Susan Maris (’61) ♦
Richard Brown as
Yankee Bat Boy ♦
Bob Sheppard as
Yankee Stadium Announcer (voice) ♦
Shannah Laumeister as
Pretty Young Woman ♦
Randall Godwin as
Fan #1 ♦
David Courtney as
Tiger Stadium Announcer (voice) ♦
Shiva Rose as
Toot’s Girl ♦
Mitchell Edmonds as
Hotel Manager ♦
Scott Waara as
Gus Mauch ♦
Robert Hunter Jr. as
Angry Fan ♦
Valentin Olteanu as
Yelling Senator’s Fan ♦
David Whalen as
Anchorman ♦
Jerry Coleman as
Angels Stadium Announcer (voice) ♦
Dell Yount as
Writer #1 ♦
Connor Trinneer as
Writer #2 ♦
Matthew Kaminsky as
Raytown Reporter #1 ♦
Kevin Kendrick as
Raytown Reporter #2 ♦
Kevin Kelly as
Raytown Reporter #3 ♦
J.D. Cullum as
Gabe Pressman ♦
Sean Marquette as
Young Boy ♦
Maile Flanagan as
Housewife ♦
David Dionisio as
Reporter #2 ♦
Donald Elson as
Older Man ♦
Juliet Naulin as
School Girl ♦
J.R. Remick as
Ball Hound ♦
Reuben Yabuku as
Roger Heckler ♦
Robert Costanzo as
Toots Shor ♦
K.J. Steinberg as
Picture Girl ♦
Jerome Zieminski as
Umpire ♦
Tim Hammer as
Angry Umpire ♦
E.E. Bell as
The Babe ♦
Jeffrey Herman as
Chair Umpire ♦
Kiff VandenHeuvel as
Detroit Fan #2 ♦
Haynes Brooke as
Detroit Bartender ♦
Scott Williamson as
TV Reporter ♦
Michael Gallagher as
Ford Frick’s Assistant ♦
Conor O’Farrell as
Luman Harris ♦
Dick Stilwell as
TV Station Manager ♦
Mike Carlucci as
Memorial Stadium Announcer (voice) ♦
Al Kaplon as
Memorial Stadium Umpire ♦
Tom Candiotti as
Hoyt Wilhelm ♦
Andy Strassberg as
61st Home Run Fan ♦
James Intveld as
Sal Durante ♦
Danny Mantle as
Father ♦
Will Mantle as
Son ♦
Anthony Martinez as
Luis Arroyo of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Brendan McCarthy as
Johnny Blanchard of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Brian Sperling as
Clete Boyer of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Justin Collins as
Jim Coates of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Kevin Wensley as
Joe DeMaestri of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Eric Orue as
Billy Gardner of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Paul Ambrus as
Bob Hall of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Joe Arnold as
Tony Kubek of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Donovan Wallace as
Bobby Richardson of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Scott Egan as
Bill Stafford of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Robby Welles as
Ralph Terry of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Scott Bibee as
Bob Turley of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Brian Smith as
Self - Pitcher of the 1961 Yankees ♦
Ted Billick as
Dick Hall of the 1961 Orioles ♦
Gaston Wurth as
Milt Pappas of the 1961 Orioles ♦
Marc Sherman as
Earl Robinson of the 1961 Orioles ♦
Jeffrey Dropps as
Al Kaline of the 1961 Tigers ♦
Luke Bonner as
Frank Lary of the 1961 Tigers ♦
Travis Hardin as
Jake Wood of the 1961 Tigers
Directed by: Billy Crystal
Written by: Hank Steinberg
Producer: Robert F. Colesberry
Executive producer: Billy Crystal
Executive producer: Ross Greenburg
Co-producer: Charles J. Lindsay
Co-producer: Nellie Nugiel
Co-producer: Joe Seldner
Co-producer: Samantha Sprecher
Line producer: Carl S. Griffin
Music: Marc Shaiman
Cinematography: Haskell Wexler
Editor: Michael Jablow
Casting: Mali Finn
Production design: Rusty Smith
Art direction: Denise Hudson
Set decoration: Anne D. McCulley
Costumes: Dan Moore
Makeup and hair: Bill Farley, Peter Montagna, Carol Branston, Stephanie Deweese, Lisa Gregar, Jack McQuisten, Nesco, Lora Rosenbaum, Hazel Catmull, Tyler Ely, Dino Ganziano, Roma Goddard, Robert Lattin, Lucia Mace, Violet Ortiz, Patty Bunch, Mark Landon
Unit production manager: Robert F. Colesberry
Post-production supervisor: Mark Marshall
Special thanks: Tyler Barnes, Rick Cerrone, Tom Folk, Russ Gabay, Dave Kaplan, Bill Liederman, Bart Maris, Michael Mascaro, Mark McGwire, Cindy McManus, Dina Panto, Commissioner Bud Selig, Paul Sheppard, Steve Sigler, George Steinbrenner, Jason Warzecha
Dedicated to: Jack Crystal
