Mantle Reality

[drmondobueno]

1. His legs were bad. After hurting his leg in 1951, he played in pain the rest of his career.

2. Both his father and grandfather died young, in their forties, and Mick was terrified the same was happening to him. He admitted later in life he did not take care of himself, and drank a little.

I am sure baseball historians could put things much more accurately than I have. I remember conversations between my dad and uncle talking about how Mick looked like he was always hurting when he ran. This was around 1959-1960. At the time I was a Yogi fan ( how many world series championships ?) at the age of seven and later would wear a Maris jersey before I saw Clemente play. Never saw Mantle in person but saw him play dozens of times on the tube. Mays was healthy, Mantle wasn’t.

[50sBaseball]

Keith posted an excellent thought to understand the mystique of Mickey Mantle. Indeed, Mantle played hurt most of his career and still put up incredible statistics. In a World Series game on October 6, 1951 -- 2 weeks from his 20th birthday -- Mantle injured his knee and had to have surgery to repair torn ligaments, the first of five knee surgeries over his career. Mike Lupica wrote a story in Newsday (6/10/1995) relating these facts and the fact that by the end of Mantle's career the cartilage in both knees was pretty much gone. Lupica noted that Mantle said in his book, "All My Octobers," that after the 1951 injury "I wouldn't play another game the rest of my career without hurting."
Mantle was a stud.

[tedzan]

I watched (on our TV) Mickey play from his rookie year in 1951 thru most of his career. Believe it or not, throughout the 1951 season Mickey was booed quite often.

It wasn't till the 1952 season when most baseball fans became quite excited over this 20 year old rookie. He had a great season in 1952 with 171 Hits and 23 HR's.
Scored 94 Runs....87 RBI's....and, batted .311.......what a coincidence, Mickey's BB card number in 1952, how did TOPPS know that ?

The most exciting game I saw as a young kid was on Oct 8th 1956. The day Don Larsen pitched his Perfect No-Hitter in the World Series vs the Dodgers. That day,
Mickey hit a HR. Plus, he made an unbelievable running catch of a 440-foot drive by Gil Hodges in deep Left-Centerfield (near the Yankee Stadium Monuments).

I could fill up this page with my Mickey Mantle stories. But, I'll leave you with this event......in July of 1973, my young daughters (avid Yankees fans) and I went to
the Oldtimer's Game. We saw Mickey hit his last HR deep into the Left-field seats at Yankee Stadium.


Here is the very Mantle card I acquired in the Fall of 1952. I paid a nickel at our neighborhood candy store, and opened up a Topps waxpack expecting to get Mickey.
I will never forget that day, as I very carefully shuffled thru the cards and Mickey was in the middle of the stack.

Also, I was very fortunate, as my folks stashed all my Sports and Non-Sports cards in our attic when I was in the Air Force.








I saw Mantle hit a number of 500+ foot HR's , but this one was one of his greatest.




TED Z

T206 Reference
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[nat]

"My Mickey Mantle picture was a "double exposure" with a view of Fenway Park."



You can't say something like that without showing us the picture!

[50sBaseball]

"NAT" -- your request to show the double exposure photo of Mickey Mantle and Fenway Park (August 1959) sent me on a search, and surprisedly I found the photo! Included the Ted Williams photo as well.
Would appreciate any technical support as to enlarging the photos. Thanks.

Jim