Summer Arithmetic

Most fans would remember it simply as the Year of the Home Run--the year in which more were hit in the major leagues than ever before, the year Roger Maris, who has never batted above .283, hit 61 homers and moved into baseball legend by breaking Babe Ruth's 60-home-run record set in 1927. But baseball had more to crow about in 1961. There were new records and achievements all around:

. PITCHING. Younger pitchers nursed sore arms and cursed the "rabbit ball," but New York's Whitey Ford, 33, and Milwaukee's Warren Spahn, 40, kept on winning ball games. Spahn's fast ball had lost its zip, and his legs were rubbery from 22 years on the mound, but he parlayed a new slider and an old pro's cunning into the best all-round record of any major-league pitcher. Spahn led the National League in complete games (21), earned-run average (3.01) and consecutive, victories (10), tied Cincinnati's Joey Jay for most games won (21). He also pitched a no-hitter--his second in two years. By season's end, Spahn had won his 30gth game, needed only 17 more to become the winningest lefthander of all time. With Maris and Mickey Mantle behind him in the Yankee lineup, Ford led the American League in victories (25). Other top pitchers: Washington's steady Dick Donovan, whose 2.40 earned-run average was the best in the American League; Los Angeles' fireballing Sandy Koufax, who broke Christy Mathewson's 58-year-old record by striking out 269 batters.

. BATTING. Although sluggers hogged the headlines, the batting championships went, as usual, to hitters who could slap a single to the opposite field as well as loft a homer into the bleachers. Pittsburgh's flashy Roberto Clemente hit only 23 homers, but he pounded out 201 base hits and led the National League with a .351 batting average. In the American League, no competitor came within 37 points of Detroit's Norm Cash, who hit 41 homers and drove in 132 runs while putting together a .361 batting average. Cincinnati's Frank Robinson and New York's Mickey Mantle won the major leagues' "slugging" championships (figured on the basis of total bases instead of base hits); Homer-Hitter Maris wound up fourth behind Mantle. But Maris--the A.L.'s Most Valuable Player for the second year in a row --topped both major leagues in home runs, also tied San Francisco's Orlando Cepeda for most runs-batted-in (142).

. FIELDING. Fans who hoped to see baseball's most exciting oddity were disappointed in 1961: for the first time in the memory of the oldest bleacherite, not a single triple play was made in either league. But fielding was as slick as ever. Milwaukee led all National League teams, New York topped the American League, and only five of the 18 big-league clubs were butter-fingered enough to commit an average of one error a game. The individual stars: Cardinal Veteran Stan Musial, better known for his hitting, set a record by becoming the National League's best-fielding outfielder for the third time; Red Sox Rookie Chuck Schilling booted only eight balls all season, set an American League mark for second basemen.

. ROOKIES. Boston's Schilling was one of 97 rookies who made the big time in 1961, as scouts scoured farm clubs and campuses, paid an estimated $10 million in bonuses to promising youngsters. For a change, the best newcomers played for the teams that needed them most. Lee Thomas batted .285 and drove in 70 runs for the lowly Los Angeles Angels; Kansas City's Dick Howser hit .280 and stole 37 bases. Both were only also-rans for Rookie-of-the-Year honors, won by power-hitting Cubs Outfielder Billy Williams, 23 (25 homers, 86 R.B.I.s), and fastballing Red Sox Pitcher Don Schwall, 22, who won 15 games, lost only seven.

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