By Andrew Malekoff

I turned 10 years old 61 years ago, in the magical year when Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris battled to match and then top Babe Ruth’s 34-year-old single-season record of 60 home runs.

Mantle and Maris, known as the M & M boys, were friendly competitors. Nevertheless, many fans resented the Rajah, an import from the Kansas City Athletics. Afterall, he was in the hunt with their hero – the Mick, who played his entire career with the Yankees.

Ruth was also an import. The Bambino was traded to the Yankees by the Boston Red Sox, presumably because he drank and fought too much, not to mention that the Yankees paid top dollar for him.

The trade, the pretext for the so-called “Curse of the Bambino,” was widely believed to be a bad omen that kept the Red Sox from winning a World Series for almost a century, from 1918 until 2004.

Full disclosure: I was a Dodgers fan back in those days. Having grown up a Jersey kid, I was clueless about the devastating local impact of their move to Los Angeles.

In any case, I was an all-around baseball fan first and I was glued to our black-and-white TV, watching the home run lead change hands all summer.

Maris broke the record in the 162nd and final game of the season. Mantle developed a hip abscess in September and had to bow out of the home run race with 54 dingers.

Yankee fans have embraced Aaron Judge and his quest to pass Ruth and then Maris. Packed houses in Yankee Stadium, including Roger Maris’ children and Aaron Judge’s mom, dad and wife, cheered him on at every turn as he approached 60 and 61 during their late September series with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Red Sox.

I spoke with a couple of eyewitnesses that remarked about the eerie silences in the stands during each opposing pitcher’s windup and pitch to Judge.

As Maris closed in on 61 home runs in game 162, Yankee Stadium was less than half-full, with only 23,154 fans in the stands. Three days later, more than 60,000 Yankees fans attended Game 1 of the 1961 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

The Yankees’ organization did little to publicize Maris’ final regular season game, largely in deference to Major League Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick’s ruling regarding how many games played would qualify as home run record-breaking territory.

Frick, Babe Ruth’s close friend, didn’t help to generate support for Maris when he declared that Ruth’s record could only be tied or broken in 154 games. The baseball season had since been extended to 162 games.

Although he did reach 61 home runs in game 162, the fact is that Maris slugged his 60th home run in fewer plate appearances (684) than Ruth (689). Frick’s ruling was petty and unfair. The number of games played cannot be compared to plate appearances.

Judge’s quest for 61 (and more) in 2022 brought me back to 1961; but, not so much to 1998 and 2001, when National Leaguers Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds hit 70 and 73 home runs respectively. Later reports that they were using performance enhancing drugs put a damper on their accomplishments.

When I think of single-season home run champs, Ruth, Maris and Judge will always be my guys.

In addition to holding the American League and New York Yankees home run record for 61 years, Roger Maris was a seven-time all-star, three-time World Series champion, two-time American League MVP and a Gold Glove winner.

Now that the Baseball Hall of Fame has established the Golden Era Committee to admit overlooked players, I await the day Roger Maris is admitted into that exclusive club in Cooperstown to which he deserves full membership.

Once Rajah becomes a Hall of Famer he will join Babe and, somewhere down the line, Gentleman Aaron Judge, who just hit his 61st home run in Toronto on September 28.

Bravo, Aaron Judge!