Mantle, Mickey

Mickey Mantle

1931-1995

American baseball player

Many argue that he was the greatest baseball player ever, and were it not for the almost constant menace of alcohol and health-related maladies during his long and successful career as a New York Yankee, chances are there would be no argument. Mickey Mantle played in twenty All-Star games, and he holds the record for most career World Series home runs, runs scored and runs batted in. He subscribed to the old adage that, "It is just as important to be lucky as it is to be good." But Mantle's luck would eventually run out. His body, hindered by alcoholism and physical afflictions, would eventually give up on him. Too weak to fight any longer, he would die of cancer in 1995 at the age of 63. In spite of his personal hardships, however, Mickey Mantle remains a hero in America.

Growing Up

Mickey Charles Mantle was born October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma. His father, Elvin "Mutt" Mantle, worked in the Oklahoma zinc mines, and before his son could even walk, he was steering Mickey towards baseball (he named him after his favorite player, Philadelphia Athletics and then Detroit Tigers catcher Mickey Cochrane). When Mickey was four, Mutt went where there was work, and the family moved near Commerce, Oklahoma. Mantle's childhood was one marked by poverty, and as soon as he was old enough to help, he sought various odd jobs, as well as worked with his father in the mines to help make ends meet.

Mutt taught him to become a switch-hitter, knowing this would make Mickey even more of a threat at the plate. Mantle turned out to be a gifted athlete. He also played football in high school, but during a sophomore practice, he suffered the first of many physical afflictions.

After being kicked in the shin, he developed osteomyelitis—a chronic bone disease—a malady that would plague him for the rest of his life. At the time, his doctors felt it best to amputate the leg, but his father said no, and eventually, after many operations, the condition was arrested.

Semi-Pro During High School

In addition to playing football, Mantle played semi-pro baseball in high school. In a 1946 semi-pro game with his team, the Baxter Springs (Oklahoma) Whiz Kids, an umpire encouraged Mickey to try out for the pros. Mantle traveled to Joplin, Missouri, and tried out with the Yankees Farm club. A few years later, when Mickey Charles Mantle received his high school diploma, he also had a contract with the New York Yankees for $1000.

The Early Years

He began his professional baseball career in Independence, Kansas, playing on a Class D team. He was seventeen years old, shy, and insecure; in fact, Mickey was so in awe of the pros that, two years later, he found it impossible to speak to his teammate Joe DiMaggio .

When Mickey came up to the majors, Yankees Manager Casey Stengel created media interest by calling Mantle "my phenom." Stengel claimed he would be better than Babe Ruth or DiMaggio. Whether or not Stengel was right, Mantle soon became part of the Yankee legend, remaining with the team from 1951 to 1968. Number 7, the former "Commerce Comet"—the kid from Oklahoma—would become a baseball hero.

His first few months in the majors he struck out too much—a common problem with many power hitters. Yet it was too much for Stengel, and he sent Mantle back to the minors. A short trip, however; less than two months later he was called back up to the squad, in time to join the Yankees as they played in the world series. Yet once more injury found its way to Mickey, and his season would be cut short when, trying to avoid an out-field collision with DiMaggio, he tripped on a sprinkler and tore the ligaments in his knee. He underwent four knee operations.

Chronology

1931	Born October 20 in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, to Elvin "Mutt" and Lowell Mantle
1935	Family moves near Commerce Oklahoma
1946	Develops osteomyelitis, a chronic bone disease, after getting kicked in the shin in high school football practice
1948	Begins minor league baseball career in Independence, Kansas, with a Class D team
1951	Joins New York Yankees and becomes part of legendary team that would dominate baseball in the 1950s and 1960s
1951	Trips on sprinkler head in outfield, tearing ligaments in his knee. Undergoes first of five knee operations
1951	Marries Merlyn Louise Johnson, his high school sweetheart and a teller in an Oklahoma bank
1952	Learns that his father, Mutt, has died of Hodgkin's disease at 39. Mantle takes death hard
1953	Hits fabled 565 foot home run at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C.
1956	Wins triple crown with 52 home runs, 130 runs batted in and a .353 batting average
1963	Comes to within a few feet of hitting the ball out of Yankee Stadium
1963	Breaks his ankle while playing in Baltimore. On disabled list for two months
1969	Announces his retirement at Yankees spring training
1974	Inducted unanimously into Baseball Hall of Fame
1988	Mantle and his wife separate
1989	Mantle's old teammate and drinking buddy Billy Martin dies in drunk driving accident
1994	Confronts his alcoholism and checks himself into Betty Ford clinic
1994	Mantle's own son Billy dies of heart failure
1995	Undergoes liver transplant but would die weeks later, on August 13, at age of 63

The Powerful Star is Born

In 1952 he became the Yankees starting center fielder, soon known around the league as a prodigious power hitter. In fact, the length of Mantle's home runs became the stuff of legend. In 1953 he hit a 565-foot home run at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., one of the longest home runs ever hit in the major leagues. The ball sailed over 460 feet in the air, clearing the fifty-five foot wall and sixty foot sign, then landing in someone's backyard. Yankee pitcher Bob Kuzava said of the homer, "I never saw a ball hit so far. You could have cut it up into fifteen singles." The ball and bat are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Tragic Hero?

Mantle's rise in popularity paralleled the rise in America's obsession with the television. When he started playing in 1951, baseball was at the peak of its popularity. After the war, the country flocked to ballparks and gathered around radios (and televisions, if they could find them). With Mantle's strong bat, his good looks and charm, the chance that when you tuned into a Yankee game you might see or hear Mickey hit one out of the park sparked excitement in fans of every age.

In addition to his individual appeal, Mantle played on the New York Yankees, a team that had, of course, the legend of The Babe. Yankee Stadium was "the House that Ruth built," and add to that Willie Mays concurrently playing center for the New York Giants, and Duke Snider in center for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York was a media frenzy. When the Yankees made it into their innumerable World Series games in the fifties, fans would remember Mickey Mantle as the hero of many of the games. At the conclusion of his career, Mantle had hit 536 home runs, batted in 1509 runs on 2415 hits and had ten out of eighteen seasons when he hit .300 or better. But he had also struck out a record 1710 times.

Perhaps what he's best remembered for was the 1961 season, when he and teammate Roger Maris attempted to break Babe Ruth's thirty-four year old mark of sixty home runs in a single season. Throughout the year, the two matched each other homer for homer. The contest—in actuality two friends playing the best baseball they could—became a media circus. Babe Ruth had also been a Yankee, which only added to the hype as the season wound down.

A few weeks before the season ended, Mantle developed a bad pain in his hip after a doctor had given him an injection. The wound never healed, and as the abscess grew worse and more painful, Mickey's performance faltered. He was eventually sidelined at fifty-four home runs, while Maris went on to reach the fabled "61" first.

An interesting side note to the battle between Mantle and Maris is that Mantle had been the fan favorite. By this point in his career, Mantle could talk to the media. Maris, on the other hand, who was shy and didn't give the reporters much camera time, soon found out that beating "The Mick" for the record was more of a burden than cause to celebrate.

After the 1963 season, a year which saw him come within only a few feet of hitting a baseball out of Yankee Stadium, Mantle's career began to fade. His knees were gone (so bad that many were amazed he could play at all). While playing in Baltimore, Mantle broke his ankle and didn't see any playing time for two months.

The injuries were beginning to pile up, and he found he was always in pain, had difficulty throwing, and had trouble batting from the left side. Over the final four years of his career he would never bat above .300, he hit fewer than thirty homers a season, and never again batted in sixty runs. He announced his retirement in 1969 at spring training.

Awards and Accomplishments

1952-65, 1967-68	American League All-Star Team
1952, 1956-57	Sporting News Major League All-Star Team
1956	Sporting News Major League Player of the Year; Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year; Hickok Belt
1956-67, 1962	American League most valuable player
1956-62	Sporting News Outstanding American League Player
1961-62, 1964	Sporting News American League All-Star Team
1962	American League Gold Glove Award
1974	Inducted into National Baseball Hall of Fame
1999	MLB All-Century Team; Uniform number 7 retired by Yankees

Related Biography: Baseball Player Whitey Ford

Born on October 21, 1928, Eddie "Whitey" Ford earned his nickname as a towheaded boy playing baseball at the Astoria Boys Club. Yankees scout Paul Krichell saw him pitch his high school team, the Aviation Trades, to the New York Journal American Sandlot tournament championship. At the time, Ford was playing first base but had pitched in the game as a substitute.

In 1946, Ford signed a minor league Yankee contract. He would remain in the minors for several years, compiling a 51-20 record. When he finally made his way up into the majors, he was already pitching like a veteran player.

In his first season with the Yankees, Ford compiled a 9-1 record. He would leave for the next two seasons (1951 and 1952) to serve his country at Fort Monmouth.

When he returned, in 1953, Ford fell right back into the rotation. At 5'10" tall, Whitey was stocky, strong, and confident. It was his confidence that allowed him to make the high pressure pitches to get himself out of trouble.

In 1956 he led the league with a .760 winning percentage, winning nineteen games with a 2.47 ERA. In 1961, Whitey Ford won the Cy Young award with a record of 25-4.

After he retired, Ford spent two seasons coaching for the Yankees, later becoming a scout for the team. In his baseball career he amassed a won-loss record of 236-106, with a 2.75 ERA, forty-five shutouts and 1956 strikeouts.

One of Mantle's best friends during some of the most glorious years in Yankee history, Whitey Ford eventually joined Mantle in recalling the glory years in their 1978 book, Whitey and Mickey: A Joint Autobiography of the Yankee Years.

He was unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame in 1974, his first year of eligibility. The Yankees retired the famed "Number 7," the jersey of a man who played on twelve pennant-winning and seven World Series-winning teams. "Mantle" became synonymous with the New York Yankees and their mid-century dominance of baseball.

After the Game

Mantle was a heavy drinker during his baseball career. As with many celebrites, the success and glamour and the accompanying financial windfalls could become a burden, and for a star like Mantle, raised in poverty in the midwest, it was fame he had difficulty handling. During his years as a player, there was little public knowledge about his off-the-field exploits. He often teamed up with fellow Yankees Billy Martin and Whitey Ford, carrying on into the early hours of the morning. To many of his teammates and others who knew about the carousing, they often turned their heads. After all, he was still performing on the field, so wasn't this just harmless fun?

Reconciliation

Mantle later conceded that his drinking took years off his career. The bottle had deteriorated his health to the point that his body was unable to fight the diseases that afflicted him. Not sure of what to do once he retired, much of his time was spent drinking. He played in celebrity golf tournaments, took a shot at running a restaurant, and, like Willie Mays, did PR for an Atlantic City casino.

Mickey Mantle had married his wife, Merlyn, after the 1952 season, but after more than thirty years of dealing with his now infamous exploits, they separated in 1988. Merlyn, too, had problems with alcohol, but she sought help, something Mantle didn't do until it was too late.

In 1989 his old Yankee drinking buddy, Billy Martin, died in a drunk driving accident, but it would be almost five years before Mantle would seek help for his own problems. In early 1994, suffering from tremors and memory loss, he checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic. But it was too late. Mantle would soon see his son Billy die of heart failure, in March of that same year. Afflicted by Hodgkin's disease (the same disease that killed Mantle's father when he was only 39, as well as his grandfather), Mantle's son had become addicted to drugs.

Too Little, Too Late

After he was released from the clinic, Mantle seemed ready to make amends for the wrongs in his life. He appeared before the press as an optimistic man, and he told People that "…all those years I lived the life of somebody I didn't know. A cartoon character. From now on Mickey Mantle is going to be a real person. I still can't remember much of the last ten years … but I'm looking forward to the memories I'll have in the next ten."

Yet it was too late to make amends. On June 8, 1995, Mantle underwent a liver transplant to replace the one he had done so much damage to. Beset by cancer, hepatitis, and cirrhosis, the transplant was a success, but the cancer had spread beyond his liver to most of his internal organs. On August 13th, to the shock of much of the American public, Mantle died.

Career Statistics

Yr	Team	AVG	GP	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	E
NYY: New York Yankees.
1951	NYY	.267	96	341	61	91	13	65	43	74	8	6
1952	NYY	.311	142	549	94	171	23	87	75	111	4	14
1953	NYY	.295	127	461	105	136	21	92	79	90	8	6
1954	NYY	.300	146	543	129	163	27	102	102	107	5	9
1955	NYY	.306	147	517	121	158	37	99	113	97	8	2
1956	NYY	.353	150	533	132	188	52	130	112	99	10	4
1957	NYY	.365	144	474	121	173	34	94	146	75	16	7
1958	NYY	.304	150	519	127	158	42	97	129	120	18	8
1959	NYY	.285	144	541	104	154	31	75	93	126	21	2
1960	NYY	.275	153	527	110	145	40	94	111	125	14	3
1961	NYY	.317	153	514	132	163	54	128	126	112	12	6
1962	NYY	.321	123	377	96	121	30	89	122	78	9	5
1963	NYY	.314	65	172	40	54	15	35	40	32	2	1
1964	NYY	.303	143	465	92	141	35	111	99	102	6	5
1965	NYY	.255	122	361	44	92	19	46	73	76	4	6
1966	NYY	.288	108	333	40	96	23	56	57	76	1	0
1967	NYY	.245	144	440	63	108	22	55	107	113	1	8
1968	NYY	.237	144	435	57	103	18	54	106	97	6	15
TOTAL		.298	2401	8102	1677	2415	536	1509	1733	1710	153	107

The contribution of Mickey Mantle to the game of baseball, and the memories he gave fans of the game, are without equal. Many would argue that he was one of the greatest baseball players ever, and undoubtedly, one of the best of his generation.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY MANTLE:

(With Ben Epstein) The Mickey Mantle Story, Holt, 1953.

(With Whitey Ford) Whitey and Mickey: A Joint Autobiography of the Yankee Years, New American Library, 1978.

(With Herb Gluck) The Mick, Doubleday, 1985.

(With Phil Pepe) My Favorite Summer, 1956, Doubleday, 1991.

With Mickey Herskowitz) All My Octobers, Harper Collins, 1994.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Berger, Phil. Mickey Mantle. New York: Park Lane, 1998.

Castro, Tony. Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, Inc., 2002.

Creamer, Robert W, and Sports Illustrated. Mantle Remembered. Sports Illustrated Presents. New York: Warner, 1995.

Falkner, David. The Last Hero: The Life of Mickey Mantle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Honig, Donald. Mays, Mantle, Snider. New York: Macmillan, 1987.

Mantle, Merlyn, Mickey Mantle Jr., David Mantle, and Dan Mantle. A Hero All His Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

Mantle, Mickey and Ben Epstein. The Mickey Mantle Story. New York: Holt, 1953.

Mantle, Mickey and Whitey Ford. Whitey and Mickey: A Joint Autobiography of the Yankee Years. New York: New American Library, 1978.

Mantle, Mickey and Mickey Herskowitz. All My Octobers. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Mantle, Mickey and Herb Gluck. The Mick. New York: Doubleday, 1985.

Mantle, Mickey and Phil Pepe. My Favorite Summer, 1956. New York: Doubleday, 1991.

Netley, John. Mickey Mantle: The Unauthorized Biography. Melville, NY: Personality Comics, 1992.

Shapiro, Herb. Mickey Mantle and the Yankee's Greatest Decade, 1951-1961. San Diego: Revolutionary Comics, 1992.

Schoor, Gene. The Illustrated History of Mickey Mantle. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1996.

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000.

Periodicals

Life (July 30, 1965): 47-53.

Look (February 23, 1965): 71-75.

Newsweek (June 25, 1956): 63-67.

Newsweek (August 14, 1961): 42-46.

New York Times (August 14, 1995): 1A.

People (August 28, 1995): 76.

Washington Post (August 14, 1995): 1A.

Other

"Mickey Mantle." http://www.baseball-reference.com/(November 10, 2002).

"Mickey Mantle." http://www.pubdim.net/baseballlibrary/ (November 10, 2002).

FBI Documents Pertaining to Mickey Mantle. http://foia.fbi.gov/mantle/mantle.pdf/ (November 10, 2002).

Sketch by Eric Lagergren