Don't tamper with my heroes. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were two of the greatest baseball players of the early 1960s whose accomplishments on the baseball field is now legend and to portray these two great athletes, these two great baseball players, these two great men who became legends in their own time, these icons of American sports history, as little more than spoiled, temperamental substance-abusers is outrageous. Mantle and Maris had personal weaknesses? So what? Who cares? What counts is what they did ON THE FIELD, in front of the ENTIRE WORLD!!! The year 1961 was one of the greatest years in the history of baseball. The Detroit Tigers won 103 games that year yet failed to win the American League pennant by SIX games because the Yankees won 109 games that year. Nary a mention is made of that important fact in the movie. What the Yankees accomplished that year was legendary and is talked about to this day and cannot be ignored when considering what Mantle and Maris did that year. This movie completely fails to capture the excitement and intense public interest in Mantle and Maris's chase of one of sport's most sacred records and further fails to place it within the context of the what was one of the greatest seasons in the history of the American league. No mention is made of the incredible pennant race between the Detroit Tigers and the The New York Yankees, a critical piece of information that is essential to better appreciating the circumstances surrounding the quest to break Ruth's record. Breaking Babe Ruth's single season record of 60 home runs was like breaking the sound barrier but this movie reduces the event to a hokey, schmaltzy mess and strangely attempts to portray Maris as a surly chain-smoking malcontent and Mantle as a temperamental, philandering alcoholic. I don't need Hollywood to show me that Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were human beings with human frailties. I don't need Hollywood cutting down my heroes. What Maris and Mantle accomplished in 1961 speaks for itself. Breaking Babe Ruth's home run record is something that happened on the field, for the whole world to witness. How Maris and Mantle handled it is best left to the audience's imagination.<br /><br />Any treatment of the subject of Mantle and Maris must include a more than just passing mention of the entire 1961 baseball season. The competition to break Ruth's single season home run record was brisk. That year SIX players in the American League and two in the National League hit more than 40 home runs. Also a relief pitcher, Luis Arroyo of the New York Yankees, had 15 WINS in addition to 29 saves, an incredible performance that is all but forgotten yet actually happened. Any relief pitchers winning 15 games nowadays?