Home Run King Maris in Hospital for Lymph Cancer

Roger Maris, who hit 61 home runs in 1961 to set major league baseball’s single-season record, is hospitalized at M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed today.

Although Maris’ family requested that information about his condition be withheld, Maris, 51, has been ill with lymphoma, a cancer diagnosed in November, 1983. At that time, a doctor said the cancer had gone undetected for five years.

The disease, which was said to be in remission earlier this year, began to advance again this fall. At the winter meetings in San Diego this week, a bloodmobile was set up to collect blood donations from baseball people for him.

Maris, with his 1961 feat, broke one of the game’s most revered marks, the 60 home runs hit by Babe Ruth in 1927.