When asked to comment during Barry Bonds's 2001 pursuit of the single-season home run record that he himself shattered in 1998, Mark McGwire said, "I was lucky enough to reach 70, and now they're all talking about it like it's a piece of cake." It wasn't for Bonds, it wasn't for McGwire, and it certainly wasn't for Roger Maris, who in 1961 competed with his much more popular teammate Mickey Mantle to break Babe Ruth's benchmark of 60 home runs. Originally broadcast on HBO, 61* is the movie that lifelong New York Yankee fan Billy Crystal was born to make; an affectionate but unflinching look at this historic season, the unlikely friendship between the two ballplayers (who were opposites on and off the field), and the pressures Maris in particular faced from a badgering media and increasingly hostile fans. The lineup, while not all-star caliber, is loaded top to bottom with MVP candidates, including a dead-on Barry Pepper as the stoic Maris and a pitch-perfect Thomas Jane as swaggering good ol' boy Mantle. Buffed-up former Geek Hall of Famer Anthony Michael Hall (Sixteen Candles) is pitcher Whitey Ford, and Bruce McGill goes from Animal House to the House That Ruth Built as manager Ralph Houk. Christopher McDonald, usually cast as a smarmy villain, is all smiles as legendary broadcaster Mel "How about that?" Allen.

Though R-rated, this is not as shocking as Jim Bouton's myth-shattering Ball Four. But when it comes to being politically correct, director Crystal plays hardball. Maris smokes, and Mantle drinks and carouses. There are a few errors, none costly. The welling music that accompanies the home-run heroics of "the M&M boys" is as bush league as Glenn Close rising in the stands to rally Robert Redford in The Natural. But baseball movie lovers wouldn't have it any other way. -- Donald Liebenson