COMMENTARTY - It was 45 years ago this week, and Roger Maris’ hair had not yet begun to fall out. A bigger milestone awaited, but on Aug. 22, 1961, Maris hit a home run off of Ken McBride of the Los Angeles Angels that had its own place in history.

It came in an unlikely place, a Wrigley Field that was in Los Angeles, not Chicago. It’s not likely many people remember, but the home run made Maris the first player to reach 50 in August.

I know because I was at the Roger Maris museum in Fargo, N.D., a few weeks ago, sitting in one of the old seats taken from Yankee Stadium, and watching grainy black and white films from that year.

Actually, museum isn’t exactly the word for the tribute to Maris tucked away next to a pet store in the West Acres Shopping Center. Exhibit case might come closer to describing it, though it’s more than you see anyone building for Mark McGwire these days.

The people who run the mall say 7 million shoppers visit every year. On this summer afternoon, none of them seemed to have any interest in Fargo’s hometown hero. The little museum was empty and quiet, save for the frenzied announcer in the video that kept running in a loop on a big screen TV.

Maybe the crowds are bigger in the winter when no one wants to be outside. Or maybe 61 just doesn’t mean that much anymore.

The record, of course, was shattered by sluggers bulked up on who knows what. During a stretch of four years it was broken six times, and now 73 stands almost obscenely on top of the single-season home run list.

Barry Bonds may have a giant asterisk placed next to his record, but it’s one home run mark that will likely never be broken. Baseball is testing for steroids, and home run totals are shrinking more than McGwire did after he retired.

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The post-juicing era is beginning to look like 1960 all over again.

A glance at baseball’s home run leaders in the last week of August says a lot about whether Major League Baseball’s testing program is working. It must be, because these are the kind of numbers your grandfather’s favorite sluggers were putting up.

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Fifty home runs by August used to be the defining line of whether to take any player’s chances of beating Ruth’s record of 60 seriously. Maris had 51 when the month ended, and 61 when his magical season was over.

McGwire had 55 by the end of August on his way to 70 in 1998. Barry Bonds had 57 when he hit 73 in 2001.