The film follows the real-life quest during the 1961 season of New York YankeesMickey Mantle and Roger Maris to break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record of 60 set in 1927. The asterisk in the title reflects the fact that Ruth had 154 games to set the record, while Mantle and Maris had 162 games. Then-baseball commissioner Ford Frick (Babe Ruth's ghostwriter) announced that unless Ruth's record was broken in the first 154 games of the season, the statistic would bear a "distinctive mark" (he never actually referred to it as an asterisk). The asterisk never actually entered the record book, but Frick's ruling led to two separate home run records, one for a 154-game season and the other for a 162-game season, even though no other single season records since then received that same treatment. Maris did not become the sole official record-holder until 1991, six years after his death.
The film chronicles the negative attention Maris received on his way toward hitting 61 home runs, which broke Ruth's record, while having eight more games than Ruth did to do so.
