53 years ago this week, on October 1, 1961, Roger Maris hit his 61st home run of the season to break Babe Ruth’s single-season record.

Maris had started the season slowly, with only one dinger in April. But things turned around quickly after he and Mickey Mantle became roommates, and embarked on a summer-long slugfest.

The press called it a heated battle, but when the M&M Boys weren’t smashing bombs, they were goofing around at home, Frisbee-ing their landlord’s Yiddish LPs across the Van Wyck Expressway from their balcony.

Mantle, who finished the season with 54 homers, was lying in a hospital bed with a fever as Maris took his 61st trip around the bases. Later that night, Maris paid his teammate a visit at the hospital. They hugged, and as Mantle’s eyes welled up, Maris told him, “It should have been you, Mick.”