That photograph, taken after Mantle’s magnificent Triple Crown season, when the Yankees were the defending World Series champions, but prior to the Copa brawl—before George Weiss sent Billy Martin to baseball purgatory—preserves an image of youthful innocence. It’s a snapshot of the good times, a scene that evokes Mantle’s and Martin’s glory days when they were untouchable and the world belonged to them.
Mickey would never forget the joy of 1956. He was the toast of New York, the champion of the boroughs, winner of the last Subway Series of the era, when the city was still baseball’s epicenter. That season crowds cheered his name in every stadium in the American League. As he clobbered majestic home runs, spectators honored him with standing ovations, chanting his alliterative name. Mickey Mantle. The name evoked power and poetry, arousing the kind of admiration reserved for baseball immortals.
Long after he retired, Mantle could still feel the thrill of hitting a home run—rounding the bases, his head down, the crowd roaring, his teammates jubilant in the dugout. No drink or drug could produce such a high. There was no greater sensation, he said, than to hear the fans cheering just for him. “I wish everybody in America could have that feeling just once.”24
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
From beginning to end, writing our second book together has proved as rewarding as it did the first time. But we could not have done it without the generosity of many people. Throughout our journey we have benefitted from a great team at Fletcher & Company. Sylvie Greenberg, Don Lamm, and Christy Fletcher helped us transform the proposal into a finished manuscript, offering endless support and sage advice along the way. We are especially thankful for the continued enthusiasm of our publisher, Lara Heimert, who has made Basic Books an ideal home. Her expertise and extraordinary trust in us has made our publishing experience thoroughly enjoyable. Basic’s stellar supporting cast, particularly Dan Gerstle, Betsy DeJesu, and Alia Massoud, have helped us in countless ways. Nate Corzine, who knows more about the history of baseball than just about anyone, offered a close reading of the manuscript. His suggestions helped us situate Mickey Mantle’s career in the broader history of the game. We also wish to thank Aram Goudsouzian for taking the time to carefully read parts of the manuscript as well. We are grateful to both for their insight and friendship.
A number of people and institutions made our research for this book possible. In particular we wish to thank the staff at the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center, especially John Horne with the photo archives; the staffs at the Library of Congress Newspaper and Periodical Reading Room and the New York Public Library; George Rugg at the University of Notre Dame Special Collections; and Barbara Becker of the Miami, Oklahoma, Public Library. In Commerce, Oklahoma, conversations with the encyclopedic Charles Duboise proved enormously helpful on subjects ranging from Mickey’s childhood to the history of mining in Oklahoma.
Our home universities have enabled us to write A Season in the Sun. At Purdue University, Randy Roberts’s distinguished professorship funded research trips and many of the images used in this book. He is especially thankful for the support department head R. Douglas Hurt has shown him throughout his career. Over the years Purdue has done everything possible to facilitate his research. At Georgia Tech, the School of History and Sociology and the Julius C. “Bud” Shaw Professorship provided research and travel aid to Johnny Smith. He wishes to thank his colleagues in the School, especially Chair Steve Usselman, and Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts dean Jacqueline Royster for their incredible support.
Finally, we wish to thank both of our wives for putting up with our occasional absences from home and our frequent mental absences from daily life. We owe Marjorie Traylor Roberts and Rebecca Smith for all that they do and all that they tolerate. We can only offer our love and gratitude.
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES
BD Baseball Digest
BG Boston Globe
BH Boston Herald
BM Baseball Magazine
DFP Detroit Free Press
DN Detroit News
NYDM New York Daily Mirror
NYDN New York Daily News
NYHT New York Herald-Tribune
NYJA New York Journal-American
NYP New York Post
NYT New York Times
NYTM New York Times Magazine
NYWTS New York World-Telegram and Sun
RD Reader’s Digest
SEP Saturday Evening Post
SI Sports Illustrated
TSN The Sporting News
WP Washington Post
WTH Washington Times-Herald
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adair, Robert K. The Physics of Baseball. 3rd ed. New York: Harper-Perennial, 2002.
Barnouw, Eric. Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Barra, Allen. Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age. New York: Crown Archetype, 2013.
. Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.
Berkow, Ira. Red: A Biography of Red Smith. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
Bouton, Jim. Ball Four. New York: Wiley Publishing, 1990; orig. 1970.
Bradlee, Ben, Jr. The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.
Bryson, Bill. One Summer: America, 1927. New York: Doubleday, 2013.
Burgos, Adrian, Jr. Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Burk, Robert. Much More Than a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball Since 1921. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Canale, Larry. Mickey Mantle: Memories and Memorabilia. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2011.
. Mickey Mantle: The Yankee Years: The Classic Photography of Ozzie Sweet. Richmond, VA: Tuff Stuff Books, 1998.
Castro, Tony. DiMag and Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2016.
. Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, Inc., 2002.
Corzine, Nathan Michael. Team Chemistry: The History of Drugs and Alcohol in Major League Baseball. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2016.
Cramer, Richard Ben. Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Creamer, Robert W. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974
. Baseball and Other Matters in 1941. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
. Stengel: His Life and Times. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.
Crystal, Billy. 700 Sundays. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2005.
D’Antonio, Michael. Forever Blue: The Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles. New York: Riverhead Books, 2010.
Dawidoff, Nicholas, ed. Baseball: A Literary Anthology. New York: Library of America, 2002.
Elias, Robert. The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad. New York: New Press, 2010.
Falkner, David. The Last Hero: The Life of Mickey Mantle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Frommer, Harvey. Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of “The House That Ruth Built.” Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2008.
. New York City Baseball: The Last Golden Age, 1947–1957. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.
Frommer, Myrna Katz, and Harvey Frommer. It Happened in Brooklyn: An Oral History of Growing Up in the Borough in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
. Manhattan at Mid-Century: An Oral History. London and New York: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2013.
Gabler, Neal. Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity. New York: Vintage, 1995.
Gems, Gerald. Sport and the Shaping of Italian-American Identity. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 20
13.
Gilbert, James. A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Goldman, Bob, with Patricia Bush and Ronald Klatz. Death in the Locker Room: Steroids and Sports. South Bend, IN: Icarus Press, 1984.
Golenbock, Peter. Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mineola, NY: Dover Books, 2010.
. Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949–1964. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1975.
. In the Country of Brooklyn: Inspiration to the World. New York: William Morrow, 2008.
Gonzalez, Evelyn. The Bronx. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.
. October 1964. New York: Villard Books, 1994.
. Summer of ’49. New York: Perennial Classics, 2002.
Hall, John G. Mickey Mantle: Before the Glory. Keawood, KS: Leathers Publishing, 2005.
Helyar, John. Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball. New York: Villard Books, 1994.
Hirsch, James S. Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend. New York: Scribner, 2010.
Holtzman, Jerome. No Cheering in the Press Box. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1974.
Howard, Arlene, and Ralph Wimbush. Elston and Me: The Story of the First Black Yankee. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001.
Hughes, Evan. Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2011.
Inside the Baseball Hall of Fame: The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.
Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
Jackson, Kenneth T., and David S. Dunbar, eds. Empire City: New York Through the Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. New York: Free Press, 2001.
Jamieson, Dave. Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010.
Jay, Kathryn. More Than Just a Game: Sports in American Life Since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Kahn, Roger. The Boys of Summer. New York: Perennial Classics, 2000; orig. 1972.
. The Era, 1947–1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
Kimmel, Michael. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1996.
Kirsch, Baseball in Blue and Gray: The National Pastime During the Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Lanctot, Neil. Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.
Larsen, Don, with Mark Shaw. The Perfect Yankee: The Incredible Story of the Greatest Miracle in Baseball History. Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, LLC, 2012.
Leavy, Jane. The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.
Lipsyte, Robert. SportsWorld: An American Dreamland. New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Books Company, 1975.
Malamud, Bernard. The Natural. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003; orig. 1952.
Mantle, Merlyn, Mickey E. Mantle, David Mantle, and Dan Mantle. A Hero All His Life: A Memoir by the Mantle Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Mantle, Mickey. My Batting Secret. New York: Mickey Mantle Enterprises, 1956.
. The Quality of Courage. New York: Bantam, 1970.
Mantle, Mickey, as told to Ben Epstein. The Mickey Mantle Story. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953.
Mantle, Mickey, with Herb Gluck. The Mick. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985.
Mantle, Mickey, with Mickey Herskowitz. All My Octobers: My Memories of Twelve World Series When the Yankees Ruled Baseball. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Mantle, Mickey, and Phil Pepe. Mickey Mantle: My Favorite Summer, 1956. New York: Island Books, 1992.
Margolick, David. Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and the World on the Brink. New York: Vintage, 2006.
Montville, Leigh. The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Nuttall, David S. Mickey Mantle’s Greatest Hits. New York: S. P. I. Books, 1998.
Oakley, J. Ronald. God’s Country: America in the Fifties. New York: Barricade Books, 1990.
Ogilvy, David. Confessions of an Advertising Man. London: Southbank Publishing, 2004; orig. 1963.
Oshinsky, David. A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
O’Toole, Andrew. Strangers in the Bronx: DiMaggio, Mantle, and the Changing of the Yankee Guard. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2015.
Paper, Lew. Perfect: Don Larsen’s Miraculous World Series Game and the Men Who Made It Happen. New York: New American Library, 2009.
Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Pennington, Bill. Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015.
Prince, Carl E. Brooklyn’s Dodgers: The Bums, the Borough, and the Best of Baseball. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Rader, Benjamin. Baseball: A History of America’s Game. 3rd ed. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books, 1997.
Ribowsky, Mark. The Complete History of the Home Run. New York: Citadel Press Books, 2003.
Riess, Steven. Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture During the Progressive Era. Rev. ed. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Roberts, Randy, and James Olson. Winning Is the Only Thing: Sports in America Since 1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
Schaap, Dick. Mickey Mantle: The Indispensable Yankee. New York: Bartholomew House, 1961.
Schoor, Gene. Mickey Mantle of the Yankees. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1958.
Seidel, Michael. Ted Williams: A Baseball Life. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
Shecter, Leonard. The Jocks. New York: Paperback Library, 1970.
Smelser, Marshall. The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography. New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co., 1975.
Stout, Glenn. Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
Sullivan, Neil J. The Diamond in the Bronx: Yankee Stadium and the Politics of New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Sullivan, Russell. Rocky Marciano: The Rock of His Times. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Surdam, David G. The Postwar Yankees: Baseball’s Golden Age Revisited. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
Tullius, John. I’d Rather Be a Yankee: An Oral History of America’s Most Loved and Most Hated Baseball Team. New York: MacMillan, 1986.
Tygiel, Jules. Past Time: Baseball as History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Wallop, Douglass. The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1954.
Weintraub, Robert. The House That Ruth Built: A New Stadium, the First Yankees Championship, and the Redemption of 1923. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011.
White, E. B. Here Is New York. New York: Little Bookroom, 2005; orig. 1949.
White, G. Edward. Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903–1953. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Whyte, William, Jr. The Organization Man. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956.
Williams, Ted, and Jim Prime. Ted Williams’ Hit List. Boston:
McGraw-Hill, 1998.
Williams, Ted, and John Underwood. The Science of Hitting. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Falkner, The Last Hero, jacket; Leavy, The Last Boy, xviii.
2. Barra, Mickey and Willie, 185–186; Castro, Mickey Mantle, 128–129; Leavy, The Last Boy, 84; Nuttall, Mickey Mantle’s Greatest Hits, 34.
3. For examples of Mantle telling the story about throwing Jackie Robinson out during the 1952 World Series, see Mantle with Gluck, The Mick, 90; Mantle with Herskowitz, All My Octobers, 30.
4. NYT, October 4, 1952; Milton Gross, “New Pride of the Yankees,” Sport, April 1953, 36.
5. NYP, September 23, 2015.
6. Richard Hoffer, “Mickey Mantle,” SI, August 21, 1995, 25; Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, xiv.
7. David Halberstam, “American Notes: Baseball and the National Mythology,” Harper’s Magazine, September 1970, 22.
8. Bruce Catton, “The Yankees,” in Jackson and Dunbar, Empire City, 789.
9. Halberstam, “American Notes,” 54.
10. Bruce Catton, “The Great American Game,” American Heritage, April 1959, 16–20, 86; Jacque Barzun, “America at Play,” Atlantic, February 1954, 38–41; Roger Angell, “Baseball—the Perfect Game,” Holiday, May 1954, 81; Robert Creamer, “The Great American Game—1956,” SI, April 9, 1956.
A Season in the Sun Page 27