One of the fellow customers I met in the jewelry store said I should write about baseball on my blog.

Well, here it is, a post inspired by a Sunday New York Times’ column by presidential historian Michael Bechloss about a friendship/rivalry – should that be frivalry? – between the New York Yankees’ Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.

In the summer of 1961, the “M & M Boys,” as they were known, electrified the nation as they pursued Babe Ruth’s single season home-run record, 60, together. It helped that they were teammates who had a lot in common. (Although not all teammate rivals are friendly: Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, anyone?)

Both Mantle and Maris were big corn-fed blonds from the Middle West, Mantle from Oklahoma and Maris from North Dakota. But they were also complements. Mantle, whose father had died young, lived a life of reckless abandon in the big city. Maris never lost his small-town, family roots. Long before “The Odd Couple,” Mantle and Maris roomed together with outfielder Bob Cerv in Queens – cooking out and shopping local. Once a stock boy was so stunned to see the diamond demigods doing something as mundane as grocery shopping, that he took out a row of cans as he fell off the ladder. The M & M Boys had that effect on people, who would reach out to touch them everywhere they went. ...