One of the most coveted records in professional sports revolves around home runs in the game of baseball. New York Yankees player Babe Ruth embodied the roaring 1920’s as he lead the Yankees to six American League Pennants and three World Series Championships. During the 1927 season, Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs, the most of any player during a single season to that point in professional Baseball history.
Thirty-four years later in 1961, another New York Yankee named Roger Maris eclipsed Ruth’s single season home run record by a single home run. Maris’s sixty-one home run record would remain in place longer than Ruth’s, lasting until St. Louis Cardinals player Mark McGwire hit seventy home runs during the 1998 season. The race between McGwire and Chicago Cubs player Sammy Sosa to beat Maris’s single season home run record in 1998 captured the attention of the American public. In 2001, San Francisco Giants player Barry Bonds broke McGwire's record with seventy-three home runs in a single season.