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What: “Roger Maris: Reluctant Hero”

When: Today

Where: ESPN (4:30 p.m.) and ESPN Classic Sports (7 p.m.)

This one-hour documentary is for young baseball fans unfamiliar with Roger Maris or what he went through in 1961 as he chased Babe Ruth’s hallowed record of 60 home runs in a season. It’s also for older fans whose memories have faded. In other words, it’s to be enjoyed by baseball fans of all ages.

“Roger Maris: Reluctant Hero” was expertly produced by Ron Yassen and Ouisie Shapiro and is narrated by Bob Costas. It’s chock full of old footage and interviews, including some interviews with Maris, who died from lymphatic cancer at 51 in 1985.

The film documents Maris’ life from its beginning in a small Minnesota town, to his family’s move to Fargo, N.D., in 1947, when Maris was in the seventh grade, to his days as a minor leaguer, to the Kansas City Athletics trading him to the New York Yankees on Dec. 11, 1959, to the ordeal of 1961 in detail, and finally to his last two years in baseball, 1967 and ‘68, with the St. Louis Cardinals.

There are many remarkable stories in the film. One deals with Maris, overcome by the pressure, asking Yankee Manager Ralph Houk to let him sit out the critical 154th game of the season. Houk convinces Maris to at least bat once, and Maris hits his 59th homer and plays the rest of the game, hitting two long fly outs.

Another angle is Maris’ relationship with teammate Mickey Mantle--the two were friends and roommates--and viewers learn that Mantle, at Maris’ funeral, told friends, “Roger was a better person than me, the better family man. . . . If anyone went early, I should have been the guy.”

Maris’ sometimes rocky relationship with the media is examined in-depth. The relationship soured in the spring of 1962, when Oscar Fraley of United Press International criticized him, and then the legendary Jimmy Cannon of the New York Journal American went after him in two successive columns.

Amazingly, only 23,154 showed up on Oct. 1, 1961, for the Yankees’ 162nd and final game of the season, when Maris set the record that at the time carried an asterisk. His place in the record book since has been restored.

Set the VCR. This film is a keeper.