Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle race to break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record.

Aiming for one of the most famed records in sports history, a pair of very different baseball players hit home runs at an impressive rate. Roger Maris, a reserved sort, is much less popular than his hard-partying New York Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle, the player who many observers think will be the one to challenge Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in one season. But in the summer of 1961, Maris surges ahead of Mantle, making a run at Ruth's mark.—Jwelch5742

1961. Two New York Yankees batters, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, are chasing Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs. The two couldn't be more different - Maris quiet and reserved and relative newcomer to the Yankees, Mantle larger-than-life and hedonistic and a lifetime Yankee. The closer they get to the record, the more the pressure builds.—grantss

Summer, 1961: Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle are on pace to break the most hallowed record in U.S. sports, Babe Ruth's single-season 60 home runs. It's a big story, and the intense, plain-spoken Maris is the bad guy: sports writers bait him and minimize his talent, fans cheer Mantle, the league's golden boy, and baseball's commissioner announces that Ruth's record stands unless it's broken within 154 games. Any record set after 154 games of the new 162-game schedule will have an asterisk. The film follows the boys of summer, on and off the field: their friendship, the stresses on Maris, his frustration with the negative attention, and his desire to play well, win, and go home.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>