A Season in the Sun

by Randy Roberts

  5. Nack, “The Colossus.”

  6. Bryson, One Summer, 421; Nack, “The Colossus”; Creamer, Babe, 309.

  7. Creamer, Babe, 309.

  8. “April Chills Kill Flowers—and Gates,” TSN, May 2, 1956.

  9. NYDN, May 2, 1956; NYP, May 2, 1956; NYDN, May 3, 1956.

  10. NYDN, May 3, 1956; Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 60–63.

  11. NYDM, May 6, 1956; NYHT, May 6, 1956; NYT, May 6, 1956; NYDN, May 6, 1956.

  12. WP, May 7, 1956.

  13. NYT, May 6, 1956.

  14. BG, May 8, 1956.

  15. NYDM, May 9, 1956, May 10, 1956.

  16. Pennington, Billy Martin, 110–115.

  17. Jackson, The Encyclopedia of New York, 1036.

  18. Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 69–70.

  19. Frommer and Frommer, Manhattan at Mid-Century, 213–214.

  20. Frommer and Frommer, Manhattan at Mid-Century, 209–210.

  21. John Bainbridge, “Toots’s World: II—Friendship,” New Yorker, November 18, 1950, 54.

  22. Michael Hainey, “Everybody Went to Toots’s Place,” GQ, October 2001, 198 (emphasis in the original).

  23. Bainbridge, “Toots’s World: II—Friendship,” 53.

  24. Bainbridge, “Toots’s World: II—Friendship,” 53; Frommer and Frommer, Manhattan at Mid-Century, 210.

  25. John Bainbridge, “Toots’s World: I—How Far Can We Go,” New Yorker, November 11, 1950, 50.

  26. Hainey, “Everybody Went to Toots’s Place,” 200.

  27. Corzine, Team Chemistry, 14.

  28. Bainbridge, “Toots’s World: II—Friendship,” 69–70 (emphasis in the original).

  29. Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 74.

  30. Corzine, Team Chemistry, 11.

  31. Mantle et al., A Hero All His Life, 16, 5.

  32. NYP, May 11, 1956; NYP, May 14, 1956.

  33. NYWTS, May 14, 1956; NYP, May 14, 1956.

  34. NYP, May 14, 1956.

  35. NYDM, May 17, 1956; TSN, May 16, 1956.

  36. Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 77.

  37. NYWTS, May 22, 1956; Pennington, Billy Martin, 121.

  38. NYHT, May 19, 1956.

  39. NYHT, May 19, 1956; NYP May 22, 1956.

  40. NYWTS, May 23, 1956.

  41. NYWTS, May 23, 1956.

  42. NYP, May 23, 1956.

  43. NYP, May 23, 1956; Mantle et al., A Hero All His Life, 65–66.

  44. NYHT, May 25, 1956; NYJA, May 25, 1956.

  45. NYJA, May 26, 1956.

  46. BG, May 30, 1956; NYDM, May 30, 1956.

  CHAPTER 6

  1. Unless noted otherwise, this section is drawn from Crystal, 700 Sundays, 69–72.

  2. Robert Creamer, “The Mantle of the Babe,” SI, June 18, 1956; Roger Kahn, “Oklahoma’s Mickey Mantle: Can the Young Yankee Beat the Babe?” Newsweek, June 25, 1956, 63.

  3. Creamer, “The Mantle of the Babe”; TSN, June 20, 1956; NYT, May 31, 1956; NYDM, May 31, 1956.

  4. NYDM, May 31, 1956; BG, May 31, 1956.

  5. NYT, June 6, 1956; TSN, June 13, 1956.

  6. Montville, Ted Williams, 128–129; Seidel, Ted Williams, 154–155.

  7. NYJA, June 1, 1956.

  8. TSN, June 6, 1956; Ed Linn, “If You Were Mickey Mantle,” Sport, August 1957, 60; NYT, May 31, 1956; NYJA, June 1, 1956.

  9. “A Prodigy of Power,” Life, June 25, 1956, 100.

  10. Whyte, The Organization Man; K. A. Cuordileone, “‘Politics in an Age of Anxiety’: Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis in American Masculinity, 1949–1960,” Journal of American History 96 (September 2000): 522–526; Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “The Crisis of American Masculinity,” Esquire, November 1958, 246.

  11. Kimmel, Manhood in America, 223, 241; Dan Wakefield, “In the Defense of the Fullback,” Dissent 4 (summer 1957): 313–314.

  12. NYJA, May 27, 1956; George Roy, dir., Mantle: The Definitive Story of Mickey Mantle, DVD (New York: Home Box Office, 2005).

  13. Leavy, The Last Boy, 156; United Press International news clipping, August 13, 1995.

  14. Kahn, “Oklahoma’s Mickey Mantle,” 64; Shirley Povich, “Mickey Mantle, Incorporated,” SEP, February 2, 1957, 20, 72; TSN, April 18, 1956.

  15. Linn, “If You Were Mickey Mantle,” 60; Joan Flynn Dreyspool, “Breakfast with Mickey,” SI, June 18, 1956; Gerald Holland, “All Hail the Hero Mighty Mickey,” SI, March 4, 1957, 54.

  16. Dick Young, “The Man Who Handles Maris and Mantle,” Sport, May 1962, 52.

  17. TSN, April 18, 1956; Young, “The Man Who Handles Maris and Mantle,” 52, 101–102.

  18. TSN, October 24, 1956.

  19. Young, “The Man Who Handles Maris and Mantle,” 103; Povich, “Mickey Mantle, Incorporated,” 20.

  20. Ogilvy, The Confessions of an Advertising Man, 13.

  21. Schaap, Mickey Mantle, 120.

  22. NYJA, May 31, 1956.

  23. Mantle et al., A Hero All His Life, 6.

  24. TSN, July 4, 1956; NYJA, May 31, 1956; NYHT, June 2, 1956; NYWTS, June 4, 1956; “A Prodigy of Power,” 102; Povich, “Mickey Mantle, Incorporated,” 73.

  25. NYWTS, June 4, 1956.

  26. Mickey Mantle, Federal Bureau of Information file.

  27. Surdam, The Postwar Yankees, 94–95; NYT, June 10, 1956.

  28. NYJA, June 11, 1956.

  29. For Larsen’s early career, see Frank Graham Jr., “The Great Larsen,” Sport, April 1957, 55; Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 219; Arthur Richman and Milton Richman, “Is Larsen a One-Game Wonder?” SEP, March 30, 1957, 25; NYT, April 4, 1956; Paper, Perfect, 16.

  30. Kahn, The Era, 331.

  31. Graham, “The Great Larsen,” 55–56; Paper, Perfect, 17.

  32. NYJA, June 4, 1956; Povich, “Mickey Mantle, Incorporated,” 73.

  33. Kahn, The Era, 285; Surdam, The Postwar Yankees, 128.

  34. TSN, April 18, 1956; Povich, “Mickey Mantle, Incorporated,” 73.

  35. Linn, “If You Were Mickey Mantle,” 58; Povich, “Mickey Mantle, Incorporated,” 20; Bill Bryson, “Whopping Salaries Usually Are Part ‘Paper’ Money,” BD, April 1956, 61–62; Hirsch, Willie Mays, 241.

  36. Jamieson, Mint Condition, 89–100; Burgos, Playing America’s Game, 223–224.

  37. Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment, 337.

  38. Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 101.

  39. “Damn Yankees,” I:i, in Dawidoff, Baseball, 269–274; Wolcott Gibbs, “Beelzebub Blanks Yanks,” New Yorker, May 14, 1955, 132, 134.

  40. Wallop, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant; Douglass Wallop, “How the Yankees Get That Way,” NYTM, September 30, 1956, 78.

  41. Creamer, Baseball and Other Matters in 1941, 20–23; Milton Gross, “Why They Hate the Yankees,” Sport, September 1953, 10.

  42. James Murray, “I Hate the Yankees,” Life, April 17, 1950, 25–36.

  43. Burk, Much More Than a Game, 110–111; Surdam, The Postwar Yankees, 170–177.

  44. Gross, “Why They Hate the Yankees,” 81; Helyar, Lords of the Realm, 365.

  45. Wallop, “How the Yankees Get That Way,” 26; Charles Einstein, “The Yankees: There Oughta Be a Law,” NYTM, September 8, 1957, 96; Gay Talese, “There Are Fans—and Yankee Fans,” NYTM, June 29, 1958, 18.

  46. Charles Dexter, “New Reign of Terror,” Sport, February 1954, 90.

  47. TSN, June 27, 1956.

  48. SI, June 18, 1956; NYJA, June 19, 1956.

  49. DN, June 19, 1956; NYWTS, June 19, 1956.

  50. DN, June 19, 1956; DFP, June 19, 1956; NYDN, June 19, 1956.

  51. DFP, June 21, 1956; NYJA, June 21, 1956.

  52. “Mantle’s Marauding,” Newsweek, July 2, 1956, 51.

  53. NYJA, June 23, 1956; NYT, June 22, 1956; NYP, June 19, 1956.

  54. NYWTS, June 25, 1956; TSN, June 27, 1956, July 4, 1956.

  55. NYT, June 22, 1956; NYDM, June 22, 1956.

  56. NYDM, June 22, 1956.

  57. James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, 220–221; NYT
, June 29, 1956; “The Growing Boys,” Time, July 9, 1956, 46; Dave Grote, “Livelier Ball? No, Heftier Hitters!” BD, August 1956, 26–28.

  58. NYT, June 29, 1956; Creamer, “The Mantle of the Babe”; Montville, The Big Bam, 261.

  59. NYT, July 4, 1956.

  60. “League by League Totals for Home Runs,” Baseball Almanac, http://www.base ball-almanac.com/hitting/hihr6.shtml; TSN, July 4, 1956; NYT, July 4, 1956.

  61. James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, 148, 224; “League by League Totals for Batting Average,” Baseball Almanac, http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting /hibavg4.shtml; Grote, “Livelier Ball?,” 28.

  62. NYWTS, July 2, 1956.

  63. NYP, July 2, 1956.

  CHAPTER 7

  1. Roger Kahn, “Oklahoma’s Mickey Mantle: Can the Young Yankee Beat the Babe?” Newsweek, June 25, 1956, 63.

  2. NYT, June 29, 1956; TSN, July 4, 1956.

  3. Shirley Povich, “As High and as Far as Ruth,” BD, July 1956, 14; NYP, July 10, 1956; NYJA, April 25, 1956; NYT, May 25, 1956; NYWTS, July 10, 1956.

  4. Halberstam, The Fifties, 496–497, 506.

  5. “Why Do Our Cars Look the Way They Do?” Popular Mechanics, January 1959, 282, 284.

  6. John Updike, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” New Yorker, October 22, 1960, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1960/10/22/hub-fans-bid-kid-adieu.

  7. Bradlee, The Kid, 370, 401; Robert Creamer, “Ted Is Hope,” SI, March 12, 1956, 41.

  8. Ted Williams as told to Joe Reichler and Joe Trimble, “This Is My Last Year,” SEP, April 10, 1954, 17; Al Hirshberg, “Handsome Bad Boy of the Boston Red Sox,” Cosmopolitan, July 1956, 126; “A Question of Age,” Newsweek, March 19, 1956, 68.

  9. Halberstam, Summer of ’49, 181; “A Question of Age,” 68.

  10. “A Question of Age,” 68. On Williams’s hitting approach, see Williams and Underwood, The Science of Hitting.

  11. Seidel, Ted Williams, 277.

  12. Updike, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.”

  13. Seidel, Ted Williams, xvi.

  14. BG, July 4, 1956; NYT, June 6, 1956; Hirshberg, “Handsome Bad Boy of the Boston Red Sox,” 123.

  15. BG, July 5, 1956; NYT, July 6, 2002; Bradlee, The Kid, 23.

  16. Joan Flynn Dreyspool, “Conversation Piece: Subject: Ted Williams,” SI, August 1, 1955, 58.

  17. BG, July 5, 1956; NYJA, July 6, 1956.

  18. NYDN, July 5, 1956; BG, July 5, 1956.

  19. NYT, July 6, 1956; BG, July 6, 1956; NYDN, July 6, 1956.

  20. NYWTS, July 2, 1956; NYDN, July 7, 1956; TSN, July 4, 1956; NYJA, July 7, 1956, July 9, 1956.

  21. NYT, July 9, 1956; WP, July 9, 1956.

  22. WP, July 11, 1956; Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 124.

  23. Hirshberg, “Handsome Bad Boy of the Boston Red Sox,” 127; Richard Ben Cramer, “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?” Esquire, June 1986, http://www .esquire.com/features/biography-ted-williams-0686; Bradlee, The Kid, 300–304; Halberstam, Summer of ’49, 189–191.

  24. Cramer, “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?”; Bradlee, The Kid, 344.

  25. Mantle with Gluck, The Mick, 131–132; Mickey Mantle FBI file.

  26. Cleveland Amory, “I Wanna Be an Immortal,” SEP, January 10, 1942, 74.

  27. Mickey Mantle with Jill Lieber, “Time in a Bottle,” SI, April 18, 1994, http://www.si.com/vault/1994/04/18/130871/time-in-a-bottle-after-42-years-of-alcohol-abuse-a-legendary-ballplayer-describes-his-life-of-self-destructive-behavior-and-hopes-his-recovery-will-finally-make-him-a-true-role-model.

  28. Ed Linn, “Ted Williams: The Kid Comes of Age,” Sport, August 1954, 61; Halberstam, Summer of ’49, 189; Dreyspool, “Conversation Piece,” 29.

  29. Arthur Daley, “A Prideful Man,” BD, August 1956, 58; Dan Daniel, “Mickey Mantle,” BM, August 1951, 11.

  30. Bradlee, The Kid, 423; Shirley Povich, “Ted’s Big Itch: To Outhit Mantle,” BD, September 1956, 44.

  31. Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 125.

  32. Williams and Prime, Ted Williams’ Hit List, 67; Tom Meany, “As Casey Stengel Sees Mickey Mantle,” Collier’s, July 20, 1956, 76.

  33. WP, July 11, 1956; Robert Creamer, “The All-Star Idea,” SI, July 9, 1956, http://www.si.com/vault/1956/07/09/582286/the-all-star-idea.

  34. Rader, Baseball, 153–154; White, Creating the National Pastime, 118–122.

  35. NYDM, July 11, 1956; NYHT, July 11, 1956.

  36. TSN, July 18, 1956; NYT, July 11, 1956.

  37. NYP, July 11, 1956.

  38. NYHT, July 12, 1956.

  39. NYHT, July 12, 1956.

  40. NYT, July 15, 1956.

  41. NYT, July 15, 1956; NYDM, July 15, 1956.

  42. Robert Creamer, “Casey Puts It on Ice,” SI, July 23, 1956.

  43. NYDM, July 19, 1956.

  44. NYDM, July 19, 1956.

  45. Creamer, “Casey Puts It on Ice.”

  46. Douglass Wallop, “How the Yankees Get That Way,” NYTM, September 30, 1956, 26.

  47. NYWTS, July 19, 1956.

  48. NYWTS, July 19, 1956.

  49. BG, August 5, 1956; Ben Epstein, “What Manner of a Man Is Mantle?” Look, July 24, 1956, 27–28.

  50. Creamer, Stengel, 265.

  51. Creamer, Stengel, 263; “The Language of Casey Stengel,” ESPN.com, November 19, 2003, http://espn.go.com/classic/s/Stengelese.html.

  52. Tom Meany, “Stengel—the Ol’ Perfesser,” BD, June 1952, 76; Arthur Daley, “Philosophy of C. Stengel,” NYTM, July 26, 1953, SM14; Creamer, Stengel, 262.

  53. Creamer, Stengel, 12; Meany, “Stengel—the Ol’ Perfesser,” 77.

  54. Meany, “As Casey Stengel Sees Mickey Mantle,” 75.

  55. Meany, “As Casey Stengel Sees Mickey Mantle,” 77.

  56. Meany, “As Casey Stengel Sees Mickey Mantle,” 77.

  57. TSN, August 1, 1956.

  58. TSN, August 1, 1956; BG, August 5, 1956.

  59. NYT, July 31, 1956; NYP, July 31, 1956.

  60. TSN, July 18, 1956.

  61. NYT, August 6, 1956; TSN, July 18, 1956.

  CHAPTER 8

  1. “N.C.” to Jackie Robinson, October 6, 1947; Robinson to “N.C.,” October 15, 1947, Jules Tygiel Papers, Box 2, Folder 3, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York.

  2. Mrs. Mickey Mantle as told to Christy Munro, “Mickey Mantle’s Private World,” Look, August 6, 1957, 38.

  3. For the background of Mantle’s affair with Brooke, see Holly Brooke, “I Own 25% of Mickey Mantle,” Confidential, March 1957, 32–33, 52, 54, 56; Castro, DiMag and Mick, 19–26; Castro, Mickey Mantle, 82–83.

  4. Brooke, “I Own 25% of Mickey Mantle,” 52.

  5. Brooke, “I Own 25% of Mickey Mantle,” 54 (emphasis in the original).

  6. Brooke, “I Own 25% of Mickey Mantle,” 65.

  7. Bradlee, The Kid, 417; Montville, Ted Williams, 200.

  8. For the spitting incident, see NYT, August 8, 1956; TSN, August 15, 1956; NYP, August 8, 1956; Bradlee, The Kid, 417–421; Montville, Ted Williams, 196–201.

  9. Bradlee, The Kid, 418.

  10. NYHT, August 10, 1956; Montville, Ted Williams, 197.

  11. Bradlee, The Kid, 419; BG, August 8, 1956; NYP, August 8, 1956.

  12. Joan Flynn Dreyspool, “Ted Williams Defies His Critics,” SI, August 20, 1956, 23; BG, August 11, 1956.

  13. BG, August 9, 1956.

  14. Bradlee, The Kid, 421; NYJA, August 18, 1956.

  15. NYJA, August 10, 1956.

  16. NYHT, August 12, 1956; BG, August 13, 1956; TSN, August 29, 1956.

  17. Barnouw, Tube of Plenty, 198.

  18. Gay Talese, “Platter Up,” NYTM, October 7, 1956, 259.

  19. Mickey Mantle as told to John Ross, “My Hits—and My Errors,” American Weekly, September 9, 1956, 12.

  20. Ross, “My Hits,” 13.

  21. BG, October 4, 1956.

  22. NYP, October 5, 1956; NYHT, September 9, 1956.

  23. TSN, October 10, 1956.

&nb
sp; 24. Cleveland Amory, “I Wanna Be an Immortal,” SEP, January 10, 1941, 74; NYP, August 15, 1956.

  25. Dreyspool, “Ted Williams Defies His Critics,” 25.

  26. NYP, August 15, 1956.

  27. NYP, August 15, 1956.

  28. NYP, August 15, 1956; BG, August 15, 1956.

  29. NYHT, September 12, 1956.

  30. Interview with Carl Erskine.

  31. NYJA, August 15, 1956; NYWTS, August 17, 1956.

  32. NYT, August 16, 1956.

  33. NYP, August, 15, 1956.

  34. NYJA, August 17, 1956.

  35. NYJA, August 17, 1956; DN, August 18, 1956; TSN, August 22, 1956.

  36. Mantle and Pepe, Mickey Mantle, 159.

  37. Ed Linn, “If You Were Mickey Mantle,” Sport, August 1957, 55.

  38. Shecter, The Jocks, 136.

  39. Shecter, The Jocks, 137.

  40. Pennington, Billy Martin, 79.

  41. Gerald Astor, “Mickey Mantle: Oklahoma to Olympus,” Look, February 23, 1965, 73.

  42. Astor, “Mickey Mantle.”

  43. Al Stump, “He’s Never Out of Trouble,” SEP, August 18, 1956, 19.

  44. Stump, “He’s Never Out of Trouble,” 44.

  45. Corzine, Team Chemistry, 61–62.

  46. Corzine, Team Chemistry, 61–62.

  47. Corzine, Team Chemistry, 64.

  48. Goldman with Bush and Klatz, Death in the Locker Room, 77.

  49. Stump, “He’s Never Out of Trouble,” SEP, 44; Leavy, The Last Boy, 210–212, 225–226.

  50. Leavy, The Last Boy, 173.

  51. NYDN, August 22, 1956; Roger Kahn, “Why They Broke Up Billy Martin’s Gang,” Sport, October 1957, 20.

  CHAPTER 9

  1. “A Real Rap Session,” SI, April 14, 1986, http://www.si.com/vault/1986/04/14 /633776/a-real-rap-session.

  2. NYJA, August 23, 1956; NYWTS, August 24, 1956.

  3. NYP, August, 24, 1956.

  4. NYP, August, 24, 1956.

  5. “Blackout at Home,” Newsweek, August 27, 1956, 63; NYT, August 30, 1956; NYP, August 31, 1956.

  6. NYP, August 30, 1956.

  7. BG, September 9, 1956.

  8. TSN, September 12, 1956; BG, September 1, 1956; NYT, September 1, 1956.

  9. NYT, September 1, 1956.

  10. NYT, September 1, 1956.

  11. NYP, August 19, 1956.

  12. NYP, August 19, 1956.