Mickey Mantle

Mantle began his professional baseball career in Kansas with the semi-professional Baxter Springs Whiz Kids.[10] In 1948, Yankees scout Tom Greenwade came to Baxter Springs to watch Mantle's teammate, third baseman Willard "Billy" Johnson. During the game, Mantle hit three home runs. Greenwade returned in 1949, after Mantle's high school graduation, to sign Mantle to a minor league contract. Mantle signed for $140 per month (equivalent to $1,600 in 2021) with a $1,500 signing bonus (equivalent to $17,100 in 2021).[10]

Mantle was assigned to the Yankees' Class-D Independence Yankees of the Kansas–Oklahoma–Missouri League,[15] where he played shortstop.[10] During a slump, Mantle called his father to tell him he wanted to quit baseball. Mutt drove to Independence, Kansas, and convinced Mantle to keep playing.[10] Mantle hit .313 for the Independence Yankees.[10][15] Shulthis Stadium, the baseball stadium in Independence where Mantle played, had been the site of the first night game of organized baseball in 1930.[16] Mantle hit his first professional home run on June 30, 1949, at Shulthis Stadium. The ball went over the center field fence, which was 460 feet from home plate.[17]

In 1950, Mantle was promoted to the Class-C Joplin Miners of the Western Association.[15] Mantle won the Western Association batting title, with a .383 average. He also hit 26 home runs and recorded 136 runs batted in.[10] However, Mantle struggled defensively at shortstop.[10]

Mickey Mantle (1951)

Mantle as a 19-year-old rookie

Mantle baseball card

Mantle was invited to the Yankees instructional camp before the 1951 season. After an impressive spring training, Yankees manager Casey Stengel decided to promote Mantle to the majors as a right fielder instead of sending him to the minors.[10] Mickey Mantle's salary for the 1951 season was $7,500.

Mantle was assigned uniform #6, signifying the expectation that he would become the next Yankees star, following Babe Ruth (#3), Lou Gehrig (#4) and Joe DiMaggio (#5).[10] Stengel, speaking to SPORT, stated "He's got more natural power from both sides than anybody I ever saw."[19] Bill Dickey called Mantle "the greatest prospect [he's] seen in [his] time."[18]

After a brief slump, Mantle was sent down to the Yankees' top farm team, the Kansas City Blues. However, he was not able to find the power he once had in the lower minors. Out of frustration, he called his father one day and told him, "I don't think I can play baseball anymore." Mutt drove up to Kansas City that day. When he arrived, he started packing his son's clothes and, according to Mantle's memory, said "I thought I raised a man. I see I raised a coward instead. You can come back to Oklahoma and work the mines with me."[20] Mantle immediately broke out of his slump, and went on to hit .361 with 11 homers and 50 RBIs during his stay in Kansas City.[10]

Mantle was called up to the Yankees after 40 games with Kansas City, this time wearing uniform #7.[10] He hit .267 with 13 home runs and 65 RBI in 96 games. In the second game of the 1951 World Series, New York Giants rookie Willie Mays hit a fly ball to right-center field. Mantle, playing right field, raced for the ball together with center fielder Joe DiMaggio, who called for the ball (and made the catch). In getting out of DiMaggio's way, Mantle tripped over an exposed drain pipe and severely injured his right knee. This was the first of numerous injuries that plagued his 18-year career with the Yankees. He played the rest of his career with a torn ACL.

Mantle on the cover of Time (June 15, 1953)

Joe DiMaggio retired from baseball following the 1951 World Series. The following year, Mantle moved to center field.[10] He was selected an "All-Star" for the first time and made the AL team, but did not play in the five-inning All-Star game that had Boston Red Sox Dom DiMaggio at center field. In his first complete World Series (1952), Mantle was the Yankees hitting star, with an on-base percentage above .400 and a slugging percentage above .600. He homered for the third Yankee run in a 3–2 Game 6 win and he knocked in the winning runs in the 4–2 Game 7 win, with a homer in the sixth inning and an RBI single in the seventh inning. Mantle played center field full-time for the Yankees until 1965, when he was moved to left field. He spent his final two seasons at first base. Among his many accomplishments are all-time World Series records for home runs (18), runs scored (42), and runs batted in (40).[21]

Bowman's Mantle trading card, 1954

The osteomyelitic condition of Mantle's left leg had exempted him from being drafted for military service since he was 18 in 1949,[22][23] but his emergence as a star center fielder in the major leagues during the Korean War in 1952 led baseball fans to question his 4-F deferment. Two Armed Forces physicals were ordered, including a highly publicized exam on November 4, 1952, which was brought on by his All-Star selection, that ended in a final rejection.[23][24]

Mantle had high hopes that 1953 would be a breakout year but his momentum was stopped by an injury. He missed several weeks, so his numbers were modest but respectable, especially with 92 RBIs.

Mantle had his first 100 plus RBI year, in 1954, in a full season and regained .300 status .

The next was arguably his first great year, as he concluded with 37 home runs and a .306 batting average. With 37 homers, he was now a home run hitter, not just an all-around player with tremendous power.

Mantle had his breakout season in 1956 after showing progressive improvement each of his first five years. Described by him as his "favorite summer", his major league-leading .353 batting average, 52 home runs, and 130 runs batted in brought home both the Triple Crown and first of three Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Awards. He also hit his second All-Star Game home run that season. During Game 5 of the 1956 World Series—Don Larsen's perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers—Mantle kept the perfect game alive by making a running catch of a deep fly ball off the bat of Gil Hodges, and provided the first of the two runs the Yankees would score with a fourth-inning home run off Brooklyn starter Sal Maglie. Mantle's overall performance in 1956 was so exceptional that he was bestowed the Hickok Belt (unanimously) as the top American professional athlete of the year. He is the only player to win a league Triple Crown as a switch hitter.

Mantle signing an autograph in the early 1960s

Mantle won his second consecutive MVP in 1957[25] behind league leads in runs and walks, a career-high .365 batting average (second to Ted Williams' .388), and hitting into a league-low five double plays. His batting average in mid-season had climbed as high as .392. His on-base percentage at one point, reached .537. Mantle reached base more times than he made outs (319 to 312), one of two seasons in which he achieved the feat. The 1958 season started slowly for Mantle; the first half saw him at the .274 mark, as a shoulder injury from a collision with Braves’ Red Schoendienst in the 1957 World Series left him with permanent struggles in his uppercut from the left side. (Another story says, he was badly injured playing touch football, at home, in the late summer of that year). Although his injury affected his upper cut from the right side, it still can be said he was not injured in 1958. He did, however, regain his status, hitting .330 in the second half of 1958, and leading his team back to the Series. In January of 1959, the New York Times reported Mantle sought a contract raise to 85,000 dollars but he settled for 70,000. (His batting average closed 61 points lower than the previous year). The 1959 season was another frustrating situation; this time the first half of his season was good and his second-half comparatively bad. The season was bad for the Yankees, too, as they finished third. It was that year, also, he was timed running from home plate to first base in 3.1 seconds, considered outstanding for a heavy hitter. ‘59 was the first of four consecutive seasons that two All-Star games were played and Mantle played in seven of these games.[26] Mantle made the AL All-Star team as a reserve player in 1959, as his numbers had tailed off from previous seasons, he was used as a pinch runner for Baltimore Orioles catcher Gus Triandos and replacement right fielder for Cleveland Indians Rocky Colavito in the first game with Detroit Tigers Al Kaline playing the center field position. Mantle was the starting center fielder in the second All-Star Game's lineup, getting a single and a walk in four at bats. 1959 is said to be his only “off season “ in his prime, and historians point to 75 runs batted in as particularly low for him but as the team slumped overall , he was still the team leader in several departments , for example in base stealing (23), runs scored (104), on-base average /percentage (.399) and fielding (.995). Because of these comparatively low numbers , he took a salary cut of 10,000 dollars, down to 60,000 dollars. In 1960 Mantle started in both All-Star games, getting two walks in the first and a single in the second game. Mantle had another "off year", - indeed, the first week of June saw his batting average drop to .228—although by mid-August, he was back in his prime, leading the team to another World Series. Although his batting average was his lowest since his rookie year, his league-leading 40 home runs and 94 runs batted in, saw him come in a close second to Roger Maris’ MVP award. His on-base percentage was .400, for the year.

In the 1960 season, he hit what is still believed to be the longest home run in history. He hit one over the right center field roof at Briggs Stadium, which is said to have traveled 643 feet.

On January 16, 1961, Mantle became the highest-paid player in baseball by signing a $75,000 (equivalent to $680,000 in 2021) contract.[27] DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, and Ted Williams, who had just retired, had been paid over $100,000 in a season, and Ruth had a peak salary of $80,000. Mantle became the highest-paid active player of his time. Mantle's top salary was $100,000, which he reached for the 1963 season. Having reached that pinnacle in his 13th season, he never asked for another raise.[28]

Roger Maris and Mantle during the historic 1961 season, when they both chased Babe Ruth's home run record

During the 1961 season, Mantle and teammate Roger Maris, known as the M&M Boys, chased Babe Ruth's 1927 single-season home run record. Five years earlier, in 1956, Mantle had challenged Ruth's record for most of the season, and the New York press had been protective of Ruth on that occasion also. When Mantle finally fell short, finishing with 52, many of the traditionalists were relieved. The New York press was harsh in its treatment of Mantle in his early years with the team, emphasizing that he struck out frequently, was injury-prone, was a rube from Oklahoma, and was perceived as inferior to his predecessor in center field, Joe DiMaggio.

Over the course of time, however, Mantle (with a little help from his teammate Whitey Ford, a native of Queens) had learned to deal with the New York media and had gained the favor of the press. Maris did not follow suit, and many in the press viewed him as surly. In the 1961 season, the press appeared to view the Yankees as Mantle's team, with Maris often belittled and ostracized as an outsider and not a true Yankee. Mantle was hospitalized with an abscessed hip resulting from a flu shot that he had received late in the season, leaving Maris to break the record (he finished with 61). Mantle finished with 54 home runs while leading the American league in runs scored and walks. For the second consecutive year, he narrowly missed winning his third MVP award, finishing four points behind repeat winner Maris.

In 1962, Mantle batted .321 in 121 games. He was selected an All-Star for the eleventh consecutive season and played in the first game,[3] but because of a recurrence of an old injury, he did not play in the second game. Despite missing 41 games, he was selected as MVP for the third time, beating out teammate Bobby Richardson in the voting. In 1963, he batted .314 in 65 games. On May 22, Mantle hit a line-drive home run off the third-tier facade at Yankee Stadium, the closest that any hitter had come to hitting a fair ball out of the park.[29] On June 5, he tried to prevent a home run by Brooks Robinson in Baltimore when his shoe spikes were caught in the center field chain-link fence as he leaped against the fence for the ball and was coming down. He broke his foot and did not play again until August 4, when he hit a pinch-hit home run against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium. He returned to the center field position on September 2. He was selected an All-Star as the starting center fielder, but for the first time he could not make the 25-man roster because of the foot injury.[30] In 1964, Mantle hit .303 with 35 home runs and 111 RBIs, and played center field in the All-Star game. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 3 of the 1964 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Mantle hit Barney Schultz's first pitch into the right field stands at Yankee Stadium, which won the game for the Yankees 2–1. The home run was his 16th in a World Series, breaking Babe Ruth's record of 15. It also was perhaps his only "called shot," as he told on-deck hitter Elston Howard, "he might as well return to the dugout ...this game is over!" He hit two more home runs in the series to set a new lifetime World Series record with 18. The Cardinals won the World Series in seven games.

Mantle finished in second place in MVP voting for 1964, as Baltimore's Brooks Robinson won the award. In that season, he also hit another long home run at Yankee Stadium to left-center field that was reported to have traveled 502 feet.

The Yankees and Mantle were slowed by injuries during the 1965 season, and they finished in sixth place, 25 games behind the Minnesota Twins.[31] Mantle hit .255 with 19 home runs and 46 RBI in 361 plate appearances. He was selected an AL All-Star again, but as a reserve player, and he did not make the 28-player team for the second and last time because of an injury. To inaugurate the Astrodome, the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees played an exhibition game on April 9, 1965. Mantle hit the park's first home run.[32] In 1966, his batting average increased to .288 with 23 home runs and 56 RBI in 333 at-bats, in large part because of very strong June and July, when he returned to his 1964 form until he was sidelined with another injury. After the 1966 season, Mantle was moved to first base, with Joe Pepitone taking his place in the outfield. On May 14, 1967, Mantle became the sixth member of the 500 home run club.[33]

Mantle hit .237 with 18 home runs and 54 RBI during his final season in 1968. The low batting average caused his lifetime average to dip below .300, which caused him anguish the next year as he worked with a statistician to review all of his at-bats since 1951, hoping to find enough uncounted hits to elevate his average to .2995, but his lifetime average remained .298. [34] He was selected an AL All-Star and pinch-hit at the All-Star Game on July 11. Mantle was selected an All-Star every season during his 18-year career except 1951 and 1966, and did not play in the 1952, 1963, and 1965 seasons.[24][35]

Mantle announced his retirement at the age of 37 on March 1, 1969. He delivered a farewell speech on Mickey Mantle Day, June 8, 1969, at Yankee Stadium. Mantle's wife, mother, and mother-in-law were in attendance and received recognition at the ceremony held in honor of him.[36] When he retired, Mantle was third on the all-time home-run list with 536,[34] and he was the Yankees' all-time leader in games played with 2,401, a record that would be broken by Derek Jeter on August 29, 2011.[37]

Mantle hit some of the longest home runs in Major League history. On September 10, 1960, he hit a ball left-handed that cleared the right-field roof at Tiger Stadium in Detroit and, based on where it was found, was estimated years later by historian Mark Gallagher to have traveled 643 feet (196 m). Another Mantle homer, hit right-handed off Chuck Stobbs at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. on April 17, 1953, was measured by Yankees traveling secretary Red Patterson (hence the term "tape-measure home run") to have traveled 565 feet (172 m). Deducting for bounces,[5] there is no doubt that both landed well over 500 feet (152 m) from home plate. Mantle two times hit balls off the third-deck facade at Yankee Stadium, nearly becoming the only player to hit a fair ball out of the stadium during a game. On May 22, 1963, against Kansas City's Bill Fischer, Mantle hit a ball that fellow players and fans claimed was still rising when it hit the 110-foot (34 m) high facade, then caromed back onto the playing field. It was later estimated by some that the ball could have traveled 504 feet (154 m)[38] had it not been blocked by the ornate and distinctive facade. On August 12, 1964, he hit one whose distance was undoubted: a center field drive that cleared the 22-foot (6.7 m) batter's eye screen, some 75' beyond the 461-foot (141 m) marker at the Stadium. The Daily News reported it as a 502-foot homer.

Although he was a feared power hitter from either side of the plate and hit more home runs batting left-handed than right, Mantle considered himself a better right-handed hitter.[39] In roughly 25% of his total at-bats he hit .330 right-handed to .281 left.[40] His 372 to-164 home run disparity was due to Mantle having batted left-handed much more often, as the large majority of pitchers are right-handed. In spite of short foul pole dimension of 296 feet (90 m) to left and 301 feet (92 m) to right in original Yankee Stadium, Mantle gained no advantage there as his stroke both left and right-handed drove balls there to power alleys of 344' to 407' and 402' to 457' feet (139 m) from the plate. Overall, he hit slightly more home runs away (270) than home (266).[41]

Mantle was also one of the best bunters for base hits of all time. He is in 10th place in number of bases-empty bunt singles for his career, with 80 in only 148 at-bats.[42]

Mantle's career was plagued with injuries. Beginning in high school, he suffered both acute and chronic injuries to bones and cartilage in his legs. Applying thick wraps to both of his knees became a pre-game ritual, and by the end of his career simply swinging a bat caused him to fall to one knee in pain. Baseball scholars often ponder "what if" had he not been injured, and had been able to lead a healthy career.[43][44]

As a 19-year-old rookie playing right field in his first World Series, Mantle tore the cartilage in his right knee on a fly ball hit by Willie Mays. Joe DiMaggio was playing center field. Mays' fly was hit to shallow center, and as Mantle came over to back up DiMaggio, Mantle's spikes caught a drainage cover in the outfield grass. His knee twisted awkwardly and he instantly fell. Witnesses say it looked "like he had been shot." He was carried off the field on a stretcher and watched the rest of the World Series on TV from a hospital bed.[44] Dr. Stephen Haas, medical director for the National Football League Players Association, has speculated that Mantle tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during the incident and played the rest of his career without having it properly treated since ACLs could not be repaired with the surgical techniques available in that era.[45] Still, Mantle was known as the "fastest man to first base" and won the American League triple crown in 1956. In 1949, he received a draft-examine notice and was about to be drafted by the US Army but failed the physical exam and was rejected as unqualified and was given a 4-F deferment for any military service.[22][23]

During the 1957 World Series, Milwaukee Braves second baseman Red Schoendienst fell on Mantle's left shoulder in a collision at second base.[46] Over the next decade, Mantle experienced increasing difficulty hitting from his left side.

Mantle desired to be remembered as a stellar teammate.[47] Joe Collins, who played with him from 1951 through 1957, recalled that "Mickey was the type of guy who cared about you as a person. As a teammate, he never complained about his injuries and always tried to lead by example. He always had that country boy attitude that made you feel at ease. He was a huge star, but he never treated you like he was better than you."[47] Also displaying a sense of humor, he enjoyed playing practical jokes on his teammates. Frequently, he would dump ice water on those who were showering. Other times, he would leave fake snakes, bugs, or frogs around for Phil Rizzuto to find. Once, he put a live snake in Marshall Bridges's uniform, and another time he released a live mongoose into the visitors clubhouse at Tiger Stadium.[47]