Mickey Mantle his 49th and 50th home runs of the season on September 3, 1961. He joined Roger Maris in “the 50 home run club”. Maris at that point already had 53 homers. Both Mantle and Maris were now ahead of Babe Ruth’s 1927 60 home run (in 154 games, per Commissioner Ford Frick’s edict) pace.
Bob Holbrook, in the Boston Globe wrote.
Luis Arroyo said it nicely “You got those home run heeters, you don’t get hurt too much. You don’t get beat by one run.”
What Holbrook was referring to with his early sixties-era, pre-politically correct depiction of the Yankees’ star reliever’s Puerto Rican accent; was that in the ninth inning against the Tigers, Arroyo had blown a 4-3 lead. but the Yankees’ home run “heeters” bailed him out.
Mantle led off the ninth inning with the Yankees trailing 5-4. He homered to right field and tied the game. Yogi Berra singled and Arroyo sacrificed him to second. Moose Skowron was intentionally walked and Elston drove everybody home with a three run blast into the left field stands.
Arroyo got the win, but he would have also been tagged with a blown save if anybody had been tracking those statistics in 1961.
This was the only time in baseball history when two players hit 50 or more home runs in a season for the same team.
It was a pretty good game for a guy who the Chicago Tribune described as “The Magnificent Invalid”. Mantle commented on his performance, “Give the iceman an assist” he said, “The arm pained me considerably especially when I swung and missed. The ice really helped between innings”. The slugger explained how he managed to hit his two homers, “I was trying to swing hard most of the time”, he said, “but the times I did swing hard, I missed the ball. Both times I really tried to swing easy, the ball went out of the park.”