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#7, Mickey Mantle

As a sports-loving society, we often think of our heroes as something different from ourselves, as beings of great talent and great riches, without the everyday problems that we mere mortals endure.  It would be more appropriate, however, if we viewed them through the same prism that the ancient Greeks viewed their mythological heroes.  Greek heroes, set apart as protagonists to the gods, were everything the powerful and immortal gods were not.  Greek heroes were mortal and quite vulnerable, and they were normally quite flawed.  And it was by overcoming obstacles and tragedy to achieve greatness that these figures became members of the pantheon of heroes.  If you are a student of Greek myth, you are well aware that nothing ever came easy for the heroes.  Whether it was Achilles, Hercules, or Odysseus, these legends always suffered great personal hardship and had to overcome their own personal demons to triumph over the trials put upon them by the gods.

 

Mickey Mantle would have made a remarkable Greek hero.  Homer (how fitting) himself could hardly have spun a tale of a tortured hero any more poignant than the life story of the man that served as the hero of a generation of young men in America.  For countless men in their fifties, like my father, Mickey Mantle was exactly who they wanted to be when they grew up.  He was a good-looking, dashing figure excelling at the Great American Pastime.  He was the best player on the best team in baseball.  He ran like the wind and could hit the baseball a country mile.  Who would not have wanted to trade places with The Mick?

 

As we know when we become adults, things are never that simple.  As beautifully and honestly portrayed by the HBO Sports documentary Mantle (an absolute must-see for all baseball fans), Mickey Mantle’s life was one dominated by emotional and physical pain.  Despite his brilliance as a baseball player, Mantle was not immune to any of the tribulations that all of us have faced as human beings:  family illness, death of a parent, family dysfunction, and strong personal demons.  Mantle faced them all.  Hodgkin’s disease was widespread in the men in his family.  It took his grandfather from him when he was 13, and it killed two uncles before they reached the age of 35.  It would rob Mickey of his father, Elven (Mutt) Mantle, when he was only 20.  The fear of an early death at the hands of cancer would eat away at Mantle for most of the rest of his life.

 

That fear was just one of the personal demons that Mickey Mantle dealt with, but it pushed him toward another demon that would spend years controlling his life.  Driven by the feeling that his life would be short, and aided by the lifestyle of a popular professional athlete, Mantle became an alcoholic.  Coupled with the many injuries he suffered during his playing career, the hard living and drinking would serve to diminish perhaps the finest talent in the game of baseball.

 

And what a talent he was.  When he was healthy, nobody alive could get from home to first quicker than Mantle.  He was a very good defensive center fielder at the height of his powers, but that part of his game was overshadowed by his remarkable offensive talent.  Mantle had prodigious power, to which his 536 lifetime homers can attest, but it was more than the numbers.  Fans still speak with reverence about the monster blast he hit at Yankee Stadium which appeared to still be rising when it struck the façade in right field atop the Stadium. Mickey was also much more than a one-dimensional slugger.  Until a decline late in his career, Mantle was always a .300 hitter.  He was a man who handled the bat well enough to slip a drag bunt base hit by the defense right after hitting a 500-foot homer.  His 1956 Triple Crown was proof positive that Mickey Mantle could achieve anything in the game.

 

But as they say, all good things must end.  And due to age and injuries, so too, did the career of Mickey Mantle.  He was perhaps the most beloved figure to wear the Yankee uniform since Babe Ruth.  The great Joe DiMaggio was certainly wildly popular with the Yankee faithful, but Joe D. was more of a revered figure, partly due to his dignified aloofness.  But Mickey was a man of the people, with his aw-shucks grin and charming personality.  Due to the fact that Mickey was at the height of his powers as television brought baseball to households all over the country, no player in history may have been more widely embraced that Mickey Mantle was in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.

 

Retirement did not wear well on the Hall of Famer.  As you are well aware, players of Mantle’s era did not make great sums of money, and he left the game little better off financially than when he entered it after signing a contract with the Yankees for $1,100.  Mantle dabbled in several businesses, none of them particularly successful, and struggled to get used to home life with a wife and four sons after years in New York and on the road.  Mickey’s late night carousing and a history of unfaithfulness to his wife have been well-documented, and his two of his sons talked openly about the lack of a relationship with their father growing up.  Strangely, they noted, the relationship with their father began to repair itself somewhat when they became drinking buddies, much to the detriment of all involved.  Mickey’s alcoholism and dalliances with other women would eventually result in the end of his marriage to his wife, Merlyn.

 

Financially, things would get better for the Mick.  All he had to do as it turned out, was be The Mick.  A booming memorabilia market, driven by the now-grown men who had worshipped Mantle as children, made anything Mickey signed turn to gold.  Financial well-being would not result in peace or happiness for Mantle, however, as his dependence on alcohol worsened.

 

It would take a son and a friend to finally get Mickey Mantle clean and sober.  With the encouragement of his son Danny (who had gotten treatment at the Betty Ford Clinic) and his good friend, Pat Summerall (also a patient at the Ford Clinic), Mantle put himself into treatment.  Upon emerging from the treatment program, Mantle was finally able to find the peace and contentment that had eluded him for so long, including the time when he was at the height of his powers as a ballplayer.  Mantle told the story of his alcoholism openly and emotionally, in an article in Sports Illustrated and in a nationally televised interview with Bob Costas.  At the point of tears, he talked about writing a letter to his late father, apologizing to him for the ways in which he had let him down, first and foremost being his role as an absentee father.  Having gotten himself clean and sober, Mickey was finally able to forge the connection with his sons he had missed out on for so many years.

 

Tragedy would strike again, however, as his son Billy (a young man who had struggled with drug abuse and had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s himself) died of a heart attack at the age of 36.  Then Mickey’s health would take a turn for the worse, as the years of alcohol abuse would catch up to him in the form of a failing liver.  Mantle would undergo a successful liver transplant, and would find himself moved to deliver one of the most compelling messages of his life.  “Don’t be like me…I blew it,” The Mick would tell young people, pointing out that his abuse of alcohol had caused him to waste the great God-given ability he had and destroyed a great portion of his life.  He urged young people not to abuse alcohol and to take care of their bodies.  He also started Mickey’s Team through the Mickey Mantle foundation, designed to raise awareness on the need for organ donation.

 

And finally, the cancer Mickey Mantle had feared so many years ago would rear its ugly head.  Doctors found cancer in Mantle’s lungs during his liver transplant, and it would be only a short time before the disease would claim his life.  But it would not do so before he had a chance to reconcile with his family (including Merlyn) and have one more moment with beloved teammates Moose Skowron and Whitey Ford.

 

When they held Mickey Mantle day at Yankee Stadium to honor his retirement, a group of children were seen holding a sign.  The sign read, “There will never be another Mickey.”  And so there hasn’t been.  And there probably never will be.  Baseball, in some people’s minds is no longer the national pastime.  Even I have to admit, at the very least, that baseball no longer controls center stage alone.  And we no longer live in a society where the national media would ever be forgiving of an athlete’s transgressions.  And I am not sure we are better for it.

 

When Mickey Mantle was touring the country doing memorabilia shows, grown men would approach him and begin to cry.  Mantle never really understood it, although he may have grown to when he received an outpouring of support from those fans while he was in the Betty Ford Clinic.  But I understand it completely.  For those men, Mickey Mantle was the personification of every hope and dream they ever had.  He was every happy childhood memory, of every catch with Dad, or every sandlot ballgame with their buddies.  I never saw Mickey Mantle play, but I love him still.  Because my father loved him and because he played the game of baseball the way it was supposed to be played.  Mantle attacked the game with a passion, as if it was the last time he might ever have on the uniform.  Through broken bones, torn cartilage, and shredded tendons, Mantle persevered.  Because that was the way his father taught him to play, taught him to respect the greatest game.

 

Let me tell you something about heroes.  They cry, they bleed, and they suffer.  They are not perfect.  They are not immortal.  But their memories are.  Their legends are.  And that is as it should be.  The sentiment may never have been expressed better than it was by Bob Costas while delivering a eulogy (one of the most moving things I have ever heard) at Mickey Mantle’s funeral.  “God knows no one’s perfect, God knows there’s something special about heroes.”

 

Is there ever.  And God bless them all.

 

 

(The HBO Sports documentary Mantle was used as a reference for this column.)

 

 

Contact The Chief Justice at chiefjustice@thehighcourtofsports.com.

Mickey Mantle played on seven World Series champs and set the all-time mark with 18 World Series home runs.  (espn.com)