SportsCentury - Mickey Mantle

his image burns bright in the memory of millions who yearned for a vanished America his speed could blur your eye his swing could skip your heart and when he smiled girls giggled and boys caught the mischief in his eyes Mickey Mantle he was baseball's number one pinup however mutual the affair became it took years for Mickey and the city to warm to each other mantle did not at first react well to New York mantle was very much small town Oklahoma he didn't know how to play the media game at first I go to the cage and I go to now and I said no Mickey can I get you on the emotional after the game why don't you interview him he pointed to love how do you tell me unfilled really working out he'd be sitting there at his locker and you'd be interviewing him and when he had enough he'd never say excuse me or anything just get up and walk away burdened by heavy media expectations it took Mantle's several years to bust out of his country boy cocoon but impressive numbers on his contract and in the box score didn't earn him the respect of a city enthralled by the mystique of Joe DiMaggio finally in 56 he won the Triple Crown that he was a tall finally now here he is he'll win the Triple Crown every year will he didn't first he was booed for not being Joe DiMaggio something he never claimed to be then he was booed as a draft dodger because his knees kept him out of the Army during the Korean conflict and then he was just booed because they got used to booing him Maddow was booed a tremendous lot in Yankee Stadium until 1961 when Maris and he started going after the homerun record Mickey became the crowds beloved [Music] [Applause] imagine after all this is over somebody may write a story about the pressure from May through early September mantle and Roger Maris traded shots like a pair of heavyweights as their respective home run totals reached into the 50s the national I fixed on their pursuit of Babers cherished record meanwhile a long overdue transformation was in progress by that time Mickey Mantle had been around the Yankees for ten years and he became sort of the Babe Ruth of his time the icon that everybody loved we're all sure for Mickey to break the record more than Roger Mickey had the reputation of power and home runs Roger didn't have the reputation moves with Kansas City or Cleveland mantle had more color more Flair more box office more marquee value than Maris during that homerun streak to Pitt fans in the press would you know came right out and said they'd rather mantle win in that project [Music] [Applause] [Music] battling a severe head cold on September 10th the People's Choice at his 53rd Homer to pull within three of Marys two days later battle was in Lennox Hill Hospital being treated for an abscess caused by an injection meant to cure his Pole I remember the night when mantle said to Maris I can't do it anymore ROG it's up to you go get him [Music] [Applause] while Maris gained immortality Nana won New York with the fans on his side he took on a new shine and the press started reconstructing his image the mick was the hottest interview in baseball when they would first arrive on the scene they were new faces they were unknowns to him he got much more comfortable and what to expect as he came to know the various people better Mickey all of a sudden be Famer achhamma he was approachable a problem then he was the wounded hero he always said there are things about Roger never showed any jealousy towards over bitterness that established for all time Mantle's personality and his position as the hero and all the worship of mantle later really dates from the juxtaposition with Maris and not with the Mickey Mantle these were there come on out Mickey and get back your play [Applause] [Music] by 1961 47 million American households had televisions and mantle with his near perennial appearances in the Fall Classic became prime Talent for sponsors looking to cash in on his white-hot support celebrity I mean it was the first time that the fans had an opportunity to see what the player was really like he became the new all-star and superstar and MVP when I was three years old and watching on a black-and-white TV back in Oklahoma I looked at my dad I said you can be from Oklahoma and play in the major leagues that's what I want to be if the annals of baseball are filled with talented country boys not many arrived in the majors at 19 and even fewer had a fraction of his skills mantle had the greatest natural ability of any player that ever played running fast throw it as hard and hit him further man Oh coming to the plate man Oh running the bases here's a white boy that runs like a horse I don't know anybody that has gone to first base as fast as each other [Applause] man I'll hit those home runs over those monuments and you remember mounds is how you submitted raw power when I enjoy the Washington bull I'm one of the first things they told me when I went into Griffith Stadium and there's where Mickey hit that ball out of the ballpark it off the sign and went out of the stadium Arthur Patterson who was the Yankees PR director went chasing after the ball he said he went across streets and lawns finally found him and he gave the measurement 565 feet which nobody questioned and that day we sat there and Mickey got up left-handed against Pedro Ramos hit a ball off the facade and I remember it just kept going and just grazed the facade as it went and hit and then it came back and feeling everybody just one Mick had been chasing homerun number 500 as we rode to the stadium he said that he had called Merlin back in Dallas and it was Mother's Day and he told her he said I'm gonna try to get number 500 today as a present for you and sure enough he hit number five [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a decade earlier while the Cold War raged across the globe New Yorkers from Harlem to Canarsie hotly debated the merits of three local baseball heroes each the center field we had Mays up at the Polo grass we had to duke over its field and we had panel at Yankee Stadium every street corner it was well he's the best centerfielder the Yankee fans a giant fans the Dodger fans were were comparing the numbers to the three of us and getting into very heated arguments we've created a Ward caller we'll be making a Duke the water when Mickey Mantle got up he said there was always this great big argument over who was the best you said I want to tell you Willie for the record I'm glad to be tied with Duke for second place man was the most humble man that I've ever met in sports the rolling humility the mix off field behavior was reminiscent of another Yankee who's nocturnal exploits were more suited to confidential magazine he was a lowercase Babe Ruth he just loved to party Mickey whitey Ford and Billy Martin added all night bench and a taxicab ride rolling the windows down and throwing up but then drinking some more next day Larry I couldn't talk he had cotton in his mouth he plopped down on the bench in case he came in took one look he said gets her ass out there now so they respect the homerun and crawled home when he reached the dugout steps and puked all over Casey he was a true mythological sports figure back in those days you know man who to go out play the game hard win the game and then drinking corrals all night and would be a champion in the bar as well I thought that that was a special gift why shouldn't he be able to drink more and do these things look at all the other things that he's exceptional at we were not willing because of our athletic background I think the macho image that we thought we had to say hey I've got a problem I need to do something about it they feed it drink and he that act the way he did and he did stay out late like he did he may have had the greatest player that ever played the game there was enough hours the day for Mickey he played the game hard on and off the field men like Mickey because he was a man's man he conducted himself like a guy would when we hooked up in the evening it was very sociable you know I mean it was a fun time women threw themselves off of nine story buildings to make he had that beautiful young all-american face he enjoyed women no matter where he went if few would go the mule box where they stayed can city and you go up there well you couldn't believe how many women would be up on that floor as the father of four sons and still married to his teenage sweetheart mantle sacrificed his family on countless bar stools and illicit beds it was a behavior kept from the public by a journalistic code of ethics prevalent at the time there seemed to be a general feeling that it was the media's duty to let these players be lionized idolized by the young fans and not be disillusioned by some of their habits but in 1970 Jim mountains bestselling ball four delivered a play-by-play glimpse of life as a Yankee mantle was portrayed as a man-child emotionally immature and self-centered for his kiss-and-tell effort the former Yankee pitcher was deemed a pariah Bofors represents one tenth of the gathered material I spent a page and a half on Mickey Mantle if I was looking to get back at somebody I certainly you know would've spent more than a page and a half on it there was a feeling you know the bouton had violated the code do you know what the Yankee ballplayers did they took battens uniform they threw it into the toilet and defecated on it if ball four exposed Mantle's social misbehavior to the public it was no surprise to a family frozen in the silent void of addiction the first thing in an alcoholic family is communication and our family had zero the only way we could ever communicate was when we were all drinking the first conversation I ever actually had was I was probably 16 17 years old when I was actually able to start going out and having drinks the alcohol actually helped us get to know one another Mickey was an absentee father Mickey couldn't wait to leave home because the proverbial girl in every port was at his disposal there was never a town that he ever hit that he didn't have some luxurious moments with female companions often leading the way on Mantle's late night excursions were playmates Billy Martin and whitey Ford these were people who were eternal 16 year olds the whitey was often the catalyst he was the brains behind the operation they reached conclusion that they ought to be an easy we're chasing women so they just said they would just walk in a bar and each one pick them out a girl and say would you like to ever at me I knew about a lot of the women but I never would have left Nick I loved him dearly I adored him I really think Mick was my addiction because no matter what he did I always went back for more while the Yankees protected their less-than-perfect stars from public scrutiny their general manager kept close tabs on them for future reference especially Mickey man judge wife's hired private detectives to follow the players around when the players would leave the bar with a girl the detective would follow the player to wherever they went maybe the girl's apartment or maybe a motel room and he would write all these things down and he would give them to George Weiss Mickey I had asked for rays and George wise said to him Mickey I'm not gonna give you that kind of money you don't deserve it that Mickey said okay I'm not gonna play and why said what the hell makes you think you're this important and he took some interesting photos of Mickey in stages of things that Mickey didn't want he said you want me to show these the newspaper guys I know that they would have people watching him and their drinking but I really didn't know they had a file on him in the early morning hours of May 16th 1957 a half-dozen Yankees including mantle Ford Martin and Hank Bauer were celebrating Martin's birthday at the Copacabana a popular New York City nightclub there was also a bowling team in the Copa at the same time this big heavyset guy came by me and he says don't test your luck too far tonight Yankee and he kept loving me and pretty soon he went back to the restroom and Billy and Mickey followed him back there and somebody said the wrong thing and so like a belted hey Allen next morning Dan topping the other owner called us in and the first thing he said I warned you he says hey whitey Mickey yogi Billy cost you a thousand bucks apiece the incident cost mantle much more a month later Martin was traded to the Kansas City Athletics George Weiss didn't like Billy before that but that was the last straw they said that Billy it was a bad influence on Mickey with Billy they won the pennant in 55 and they won the pennant in 56 at the won the pennant in 57 how bad an influence could Billy Martin possibly have been shipping off Martin did little to change mantle whose self-destruction seemed preordained from those early days as a boy under the fierce eye of his father I don't know how much a man who was following his own dream or how much was he following the dream that mutt mantle the semi-pro had dumped on his shoulders and his gloriously gifted kid when Mickey Mantle joined the Yankees in the spring of 1951 he was country shy and baseball brilliant bill Dickey of the year before said Wade you see this kid where he got down at Joplin when Mickey came to New York I don't know what kind of fancy hat on but they were rolled up at the bottom and he had white sweat socks on them any more hush puppies and he had a tie on and it was about that wide and it had a big peacock on it first time you ever went to Yankee Stadium you got lost taking a subway wound up at the Polo Grounds had to walk over the bridge to get to the stadium he was so shy and frightened that we had them almost fortune to take infield practice with us because of the the pregame crowd he said that there were more people in two sections of the Yankee Stadium than there were in the whole Joplin ballpark switch hitters you know he said I come to the Yankees and my locker is right next to Joe DiMaggio's and I'm having a hell of a time just getting used to being next to Joe DiMaggio and all of a sudden I got 20 guys standing around me asking me questions like I'm the President of the United States the Yankees did a very cruel thing they put number 6 on his back now Ruth was going Gehrig was going they'd retired numbers threes and four the man was wearing number five and you knew that was a mini retire as soon as he stopped playing now here's this kid hasn't played immediately game yet and they put number six on his back advertisers were okay this is the next imagine [Music] he had such high goals set for himself and when he didn't measure up to those goals then I think you know it made his self-esteem think he isn't doing what he needs to do they fed upon his own self-hatred his own self fury and they boot him when he struck out he was losing his confidence so they sent him back to Kansas City but the miners offered mantle no answers unable to regain his batting stroke Mickey's confidence was running on vapors he called his dad and he said dad come get me he says I can't I can't play a major league baseball so much said well you just get your clothes together we'll go home he said if that's all the man you are then Mickey started crying and he said dad give me one more chance mantle was caught in an emotional squeeze play between too much too soon in New York and the towering expectations of his father a gifted semi-pro player in Oklahoma who groomed him to be a major leaguer almost from birth in 1931 he named him Mickey if the Mickey Cochrane he gave him a name he was born to play ball he was programmed at the age of two to play baseball Mick told me once he knew what he wanted to be when he was five years old he said he never got anything for Christmas but a new ball glove nut pushed Mickey hard and he'd make him bat right-handed hidden make him bat left-handed at 14 Mantle was kicked in the shin during football practice a medical examination of the wound led to a diagnosis of osteomyelitis and infection of the bone the prognosis was scary his mother father drove him to the hospital the doctor there took one look at it told the mother father they have to come off and the mother almost pulled his hair out and the father was quaking because that's the end of the biggest career he was one sick boy he was really sick I'm amazed he didn't die at that time penicillin came into being in World War two Mickey of course having been given the penicillin the infection was essentially controlled having survived childhood illness and the later disapproval of his father in that Kansas City hotel room man will return to New York wearing number seven for the final two months of the 1951 season but in Game two of the World Series his young career suffered another bad twist Willie Mays hit a fly ball between DiMaggio and mantle and about you at the last minute said I got it and Mickey caught a spike against the drain when he stuck his foot in spikes got caught in a dream and had me pop you could hear like a cannon shot it was awful madam said DiMaggio could have called it early but he wanted to make sure he could look good cashing him and he called it late and that's why I had a break so hard and that's why I tore apart my knee toe resented Mickey Mantle he just wonder whether if there was anyone else in the outfield with him whether he would have been called off Joe should have called him off at that particular time because if I was playing centerfield I would have caught the ball coming in and then a very traumatic thing happened to Mantle his father was dying of cancer and they were put in the same room and then after the series they got out and of course Mantle could barely walk so as he was stepping into the taxi he leaned on his father and his father collapsed under Mickey's arm so how traumatic must that be your pain isn't there by spring but was gone at just 39 he joined his father and two brothers all of whom succumbed to various forms of cancer before Mickey was out of his teens a few of a close relationship with your father for all of your life and suddenly he's taken away from you that has to have a profound effect on on anyone because all the men and the man Sam have died young he thought he would - that's how he lived his life just thinking I'm going to die young just like my dad and my uncles [Music] mandal was good to his word he captured the Triple Crown in 1956 and for the first time drew comparisons with the greatest Yankees but if he failed to reach that exalted level of Ruth Gehrig and DiMaggio his teammates testified to a special brand of greatness Mantle was the ultimate players player when you get a guy like Mickey you you know you put him up here he can do no wrong you know you think that he's immortal he was just like this with his teammates they were all in the same level in the five years that I was in the Yankee clubhouse I never saw another team mate of Mickey Mantle that didn't seem to thoroughly enjoy being associated with him being on the same team with him and really kind of hold him on a pedestal in all metal was tremendously popular with the other players he was much better like my Yankee teammates and DiMaggio was he was a team player always wanted to win never played for himself he hated to lose 62 was a year when I had my biggest honor I was voted runner-up to Mickey Mantle for Most Valuable Player and then he made the statement Bobby should want it and to me that was better than winning mandals classy words came in the wake of back to back World Series titles and a third MVP award Mick was reaping his just rewards [Music] great day for me it's a big fool to make that much money I just hope our earnest he was a superstar who was so fragile and so vulnerable he was movie star handsome he looked perfect very handsome blond blue-eyed muscular you know with a kind of gee whiz personality so everybody identified with Mickey Mantle he had a very cool name Mickey Mantle he looked like a baseball hero should look like a guy out of a chip Hilton novel or something energy to play my basketball few said Mickey you didn't think about Mickey Mouse or Mickey Cochrane was Mickey Mantle and it didn't have to be New York in the 1964 World Series against st. Louis Mantle hit three home runs though the Yankees lost their second straight Fall Classic meanwhile beneath his pinstripes pain was radiating through Mantle's battered physique yet he continued to play without complaints I remembered he put out a pad on his leg and he was taking batting practice and the blood was coming out of the pad and and into the uniform he beat out a hip the first place and there was blood dripping from home plate right the first base there's a quirk in American hero worship and that if you have sort of a tragic weakness or if you've been humbled a couple times people love you even more people loved Mickey Mantle because he had those sore knees mantle was also tormented by an increasing dependence on alcohol he didn't have sip a drink he gulped a drink you know so he'd usually drink more twice as much as anyone else if he was out alcohol just totally pickled his brain probably 70% of us were into the area of alcohol abuse but that went unnoticed it was very hard for me to think of make as an alcoholic for many years because no matter how much he drank the night before he could always get up and do his job the next day he never missed the ballgame but he was show up drunk he would take Listerine out in the field with him just to make sure that nobody would accuse him of being drunk we had to wake him up to come to a game Mickey struck out four times and he dropped a fly ball in center field and we got beat one to nothing and coming to clubhouse I remember Frank Crosetti says that's our hero you'd be out and he was drunk he would never let you have the keys to drive home we'd been out to eat with Carmen and yogi berra and as we got in the car to drive away yogi said to me Merlin I wouldn't ride with him if I were you well I get in the car and we're going and he's speeding BAM we had a telephone call and I went through the windshield we could have been killed in the spring of 1969 it was clear that alcohol late nights and chronic injuries had claimed his talent I don't hit the ball when I need to I can't steal second when I need to I can't go from first to third or score from second on base hits and I just think it's time that I quit trying after 18 seasons Mantle finished with 536 home runs and helped the Yankees win seven World Series ever since writers have speculated on what might have been he realized that he had led his youth under a false premise which was the belief that he would die young there was a movie at the time called knock on any door and the famous line was live fast die young and have a good-looking corpse and I think mantle try to get absolutely as much out of life as he possibly could get before the inevitable happened and then the inevitable didn't happen [Music] [Applause] [Music] On June 8th 1969 one month before Neil Armstrong embarked on his moonshot Mickey Mantle was given his own historic send-off at Yankee Stadium to this day I don't think I've ever experienced the same chills that I did you know on Mickey Mantle day he always felt that such a day like that he would come up inadequate because he thought everybody would be inadequate with whatever they said after Lou Gehrig made his remarks on his day [Music] [Applause] [Music] that was a big day for the family but it also a very sad day because after Mick retired we both got ulcers from worrying about what are we going to do now [Music] the celebration at Yankee Stadium was wonderful but the aftermath of the retirement was a nightmare when he was through and the crowds weren't there and the aura being the greatest player that ever lived wasn't there and it started to dissipate he went into business he lost money after mantle became a flack for an Atlantic City casino in 1983 for which he was banned from baseball for two years he met Greer Johnson a young attractive Georgian who took his career in hand being the public relations person for the casino it was really not what Mickey Mantle was about in the mid-80s is when the baseball card shows the memorabilia industry really started to grow it was very easy for me to improve Mickey's appearances his value because he was so loved grid Johnson saw money when she saw Mickey the first time he was so head over heels with sex and her she had him in the palm of her hands she made deals that he wasn't even aware of until it was over that doesn't mean that she was stealing anything she was just doing what she thought was right for him we had a great relationship we had fun it was 10 of the best years of my life and it really doesn't matter to me what other people might think I know in my heart what we had and I know the love that we had and that's all that's important to me although mannose extramarital affairs were a matter of public record Merlin did not seek a divorce not even when Johnson became Mickey's manager and companion in the mid-80s she said the boss you so fine go get a divorce not cut you off from every penny you'll have nothing you'll have no house your lives are just the clothes on your back that's your name I knew that it was hurt but all of us had starved for dad's attention for so long that we didn't want to say nothing to her because we thought that might jeopardize our relationship with him I was asked one time how did I feel being the other woman and make his life and my true feeling is I wasn't the other woman I was the woman and make his life I wanted to get rid of this anger that I was going to have to pray for him and I can tell you at that time the only prayer I could think of is that maybe he'd get hit with the Mack truck because I I was so angry that I really used to think about killing him there were times she wanted to kill herself because she felt so ashamed that she could live under these conditions never knowing for a moment a moment what he was gonna do or say to make her life miserable in spite of everything she was committed to him finally in 1994 man'll acknowledged he was killing himself with alcohol and began a personal quest for forgiveness he came to realize that he had the same problem that I did he'd asked me what it was like at the Betty Ford Center did I have any fun at the Betty Ford Center I said Mick you're nuts going to have fun you well if you ever go well really kind of worried us the most though is you know right after he got out of bed esport our little brother Billy passed away and when Billy passed away that Saturday we were really worried that that might send dad over the edge again but he hung in there he said I want you to promise me something and I said what he said when I get out of here if I ever take another drink and you see me take another drink I want you to promise you'll kill me and I said make you know who you're asking too much there's only one person that can do that and he's a whole lot bigger than I am it took a real man like Mickey Mantle to say hey what I did was not good I can't tell you why I did it but I did it nobody made me I did it on my own I'll pay the price during a nationally televised interview with Bob Costas the mick expressed regret for a life lived on the edge one thing that I really do feel I was not not a good father really I mean I wasn't ever there I liked him better once his force became known I like the fact that Mickey had very visible weaknesses I find a flawed human being much more appealing than someone who is or pretends to be perfect Oh chao-li said our sweetest songs are those that tell of sad has thought the nature of the human stories the greatest stories are tragedies not comedies when we return a repentant Mickey Mantle bids us goodbye through the specter of death Ruth Built Sunday we celebrate the life and career of Mickey Mantle only on ESPN Classic it's been five years since the big tide but his legacy remains the greatest Triple Crown winner at baseball history the most World Series RBIs and the most powerful switch-hitter ever classic mental I would like to say to the kids out there to take a good this is a role model don't be like me I mean God gave me a body give me everything I just I guess he's trying to say you know he made a mistake and he should have been there and I think he was wanting to say that you know I'm kind of sorry and I wish I could have been any more for you or maybe he was just trying to make statement for maybe other fathers too that you need to be there for your kids mantle who lived in controversy seemed destined to die the same way he was given a liver transplant in June 1995 just days after being diagnosed with cancer and placed on a waiting list the sickest with the highest acute risk of dying nobody pulled any strings they can't put people in front of other people it was that he was the sickest person in Texas at that time I do not think Mickey Mantle himself ever felt that there was preferential treatment if he had felt he would have been the first one to say I don't want it despite his new liver man who lasted just two months not nearly enough time to exchange proper goodbyes I wrote him a letter and I put everything in it that I was feeling thanking him for being so nice to me through the years and just lots of things like that I never got to read the letter to him I was not allowed to go to the hospital and that's probably the thing that has made it hardest because I never knew he was passing away at one time when I happened to be at the hospital in his room the phone rang and someone was calling in her behalf and when the conversation ended after he had told them no tell her I do not want to see her I do not want her to come here in the waning weeks man will informed his doctors he no longer wanted updates on his prognosis old teammates were beginning to arrive in Dallas the mick had only days to live Hank and I would grabbed his hand and we said we love you he said I love you guys too he suffered Nikki suffered a lot it was all of any heavy in the legs and his stomach and he was already yellow we didn't expect him to go that fast they all worked very hard to have a smile on their face whitey brought him a baseball signed by all of the members of the present New York Yankee club and Mickey Beach Dover and got it and he said you know it's the first time anybody ever brought me something autographed by other people my dad had had a dream that he died and you know was gone up to heaven and they told him Mick you know we can't let you in because of the things you've done on earth but before you go would you mind signing these two dozen balls for God he called me one day and after he he knew he was gonna die he said you have been baptized what's it like they used water on you don't they I said I think there's some water involved he said well you know I can't swim you tell him I can't swim and in the closing days of his life he was baptized [Music] Mickey Mantle one of baseball's all-time greats suffering cancer mental died Sunday at the age of 63 Vic will be buried in Dallas tomorrow continue to grieve over the death of Mickey Mantle as we all remember Mickey Mantle someone like Mickey passes all you know it was kind of like a pinstripe had fallen off the Yankees Mickey Mantle was family he was as important as uncles and cousins and nephews he was part of our lives in a very very meaningful way there's no one who had the romance at this guy head you know with with the public he was the American dream to this day they still love when he couldn't play blowing war a whole generation felt older when he had cancer a whole generation felt the fear of death I just hope God has a place for him where he can run again where he can play practical jokes on his teammates and smile that boyish smile as God knows no one's perfect it's dangerous to make cardboard figures out of people you're always gonna be wrong he was neither entirely this nor entirely that but there's always the possibility for redemption there's always the possibility that the better angels of your nature will take over in the end just before he died Mickey mail gave us a reason to love him he was willing to use himself as almost an anti role model in a very heroic way there's a picture and he was kind of like hanging his head down and he seemed like throwing his batting helmet away but for some reason I just said to him oh how the words came to me but it just said can I touch your face can I hold your hand can I give you a hug again and again can I say I love you you're also my friend my father and just seeing that picture I felt like I wish I could have been there for him before that moment [Music] don't just kind of say that's life and you're gonna strike out the more people wrote questioning perhaps how he lived his life the more of the general public embraced him and wanted to say hey he's still my hero [Music] Mickey Mantle represented the 50 is so evocatively both he and the times were a lot different than they seemed and perhaps with his death the afore ik barroom glow of that era has finally dimmed the two things most truthful about Mickey Mantle were the way he played and the way he died [Music]

Channel: Rounding Third

Views: 487,675

Keywords: Mickey Mantle, New York, Yankees

Id: UT5AYxwTj2c

Length: 42min 7sec (2527 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2017