If the new HBO film "61*" (premiered April 28, 9-11 p.m. ET) was director/executive producer Billy Crystal's excuse for not hosting this year's Academy Awards, perhaps he can be forgiven.
    The comedian turns out to be equally adept behind the camera, as indicated by his entertaining exploration of the 1961 home-run battle between New York Yankees teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. 
    Crystal's passion for the project suffuses the film, which manages to authentically recreate the baseball of yesteryear and still make it feel relevant today.
    "61*" (the asterisk denoting the qualifier then-league-Commissioner Ford Frick tacked on to Maris's homer total because previous record holder Babe Ruth played eight less games) is by no means a great film. 
    But its true marvel is how a seemingly simple story resonates in 2001 for reasons not concerning baseball. 
    Sure, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa had a record-smashing long-ball derby of their own in 1998, but "61*" isn't really about sports. The real focus of the film is fame, in all its fickle superficiality.
    The nuances of hype may have been understood by few in 1961, but 40 years later our celebrity-obsessed society remains very much in its thrall. 
    "61*" reawakens viewers by chronicling an earlier example of how mass-marketed celebrity infected a time as innocent as the early '60s and a pastime as pure as baseball.
    As the 1961 season progressed, Maris and Mantle were depicted in a bitter rivalry that was anything but, and the charismatic Mantle (played by Thomas Jane) was far more popular with fans. "Why does everybody only have room in their hearts for one guy?" asks Maris, played by Barry Pepper.
    The question reveals the rightfielder's naiveté and straightforwardness, but it also reflects on the oddly arrayed boundaries the American media has always set for the cult of personality.  
    Instead of simply appreciating both sides of a healthy competition, an overzealous press twisted it into a lopsided struggle favoring Mantle, whose matinee-idol looks and personality obscured the fact that his excessive carousing was recklessly aggravating his injuries.
    Nevertheless, he was cast as the underdog opposite the quietly intense Maris, who committed the cardinal sin of being boring in the public eye. 
    Maris also toils in the shadow of Ruth, whose legendary status is keenly protected by Commissioner Frick (who also was the ghostwriter of Ruth's biography) and even the Babe's wife, who has a standoff with Maris's wife in the film. Despite enough pressure to cause him to break out in a rash and lose hair on his head, Maris tops Ruth's record. His friendship with Mantle is tested but intact.
    "61*" lavishly reconstructs not only the beauty of Yankee Stadium (with the help of the vacated Tiger Stadium and computerized imagery) but also the din of pestering reporters, blaring headlines and catcalling fans.
    Without ably capturing both aspects, Crystal wouldn't have been able to fully convey the tragedy of spoiling a great episode in sports history by transforming it into a petty popularity contest. 
    Strangely enough, the Maris-Mantle rivalty might recall another contemporary rivalry besides McGwire-Sosa: the 2000 presidential election. With his Maris-like demeanor, Al Gore always paled in comparison to the Mantle-esque bravado of George W. Bush in terms of public affection. 
    It's to the credit of "61*" that its themes can reverberate in the political realm. Behind his loving re-creation of a bygone era of baseball, Crystal transcends sports by delivering a stinging critique on the corrosive influences of fame.

April 30, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Andrew Wallenstein is the television critic for Media Life.

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