Durante, one year after catching Maris' record home-run ball in 1961, was was brought to Seattle and offered $1,000 to catch a ball thrown from the Space Needle.
On Oct. 1, 1961 – in the fourth inning of the last day of a 162-game baseball season – New York Yankees right fielder Roger Maris hit his 61st home run off Tracy Stallard, Boston Red Sox pitcher, to break one of baseball’s most hallowed records: Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in a season, set in 1927.
The history-making home-run ball was caught by Sal Durante, a 19-year-old Brooklyn truck driver who was seated in the tightly packed right-field bleachers with his girlfriend Rosemarie and a cousin and his girlfriend.