Mickey Mantle spoke at our High-School assembly back in 1969 at Sammamish High School in Bellevue, WA.
It was awesome, don't remember how he came to our school though.
A favorite movie of mine is “61”, about the ‘61 Yankees and the Maris/Mantle homerun competition.
Mantle was the man, he could swing that bat.
He still holds the record for running to first base both left and right handed. He was really fast until he hurt his knee on an outfield sprinkler head during a sprint to catch a ball. Had shoulders like Charles Atlas.
The booze ruined him early on in his career out partying with the other party Yanks.
I’ve got a dozen or more matches of home run derby on tape somewhere around here.
Fun to watch, but neither of them seemed glad to be there. Just didn’t look like they were having fun.
No offense to Willie May. Mantle was better. May have been the best ever.
Home runs ensue. A few grounders and fouls.
Great show. Unfortunately, the Ross Porter prelude named several players who were not the ones pictured. Poor production.
Both were great, 5 tool players. The separating factors over time were speed and longevity. Mays carried the Giants with constant excellence year in, year out. Nobody covered the outfield or ran the bases better. He was a great, pure power hitter, as good as any who played. He also lost out on 2 of his best years to military service.
Mantle had the tools and could’ve been the best ever, but he wasted it. He himself admitted that in his dying days. Great, but not as great as Willie.
This was big money for the winner and loser.
Hank Aaron's baseball salary was 45k that year.
He earned 13k+ on home run derby alone.
That show was kinda creepy.
Absolutely silent except for the crack of the bat and scott the announcer and an occasional ball\strike call by the ump
Batting in the shadows.
3 Umpires
3 outfielders
Pitcher\Catcher and 2 batters.
courtesy of WIKI
show lasted 7 months. it gets canceled after scott dies of a heart attack.P
Two of the very best.
If you were doing it today, who would you feature in Episode 1?
Mark Scott: “Well Mickey, how do you think you are going to do today against Willie? Mickey: “Well, Billy and Whitey kept me out all last night hoisting a few so I’m not to sure. Hey, my eyes are killin’ me, anybody have any Visine?”
OK, who is smart enough to figure it out. Ross Porter is naming names as they show clips of certain hitters.
The first is not Duke Snider, the 2nd is not Eddie Matthews, the 3rd is not Rocky Colavito. The 4th is indeed Mickey Mantle. Is Killebrew 5th? Is Jim Lemon 6th? Willie Mays is 7th. Is Jackie Jensen 8th?
Is the first one shown Gil Hodges? He wore #14.
This site -— http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/numbers.cgi?number=36&year=1960 -— has numbers worn by players for every year. Let’s figure out who is being shown.
Mickey was physically gifted.
A natural mesomorph with predominantly fast twitch fiber muscle.
Power and speed.
No anabolic steroid phoney cheat was The Mick.
In fact he didn’t much work out, to the point of not doing his rehab after his 1951 World Series knee injury.
Drank and caroused too much. Had a hangover one game and deliberately got himself thrown out of a game in his first at bat because he had such a bad hangover.
Mantle was booed unmercifully early in his career, even at Yankee Stadium because the fans expected him to be even better than he was. He was never an obnoxious jerk and as years passed be became loved and respected by teammates and opponents alike. You might find this vignette interesting. It comes from David Falkner’s 1995 book The Last Hero, The Life of Mickey Mantle, pages 180-181.
“Dave Nelson was a rookie second baseman for Cleveland in 1968, Mantle’s last year. He was not much of a hitter, but he was quick, could steal a base, get his bat on the ball, and make the plays in the field. His first trip to Yankee Stadium, he said, was memorable in ways he never anticipated. ... ‘I was just a young kid then, just turned twenty-three, I think, and there I was in the big leagues, in Yankee Stadium, and I’m just in awe of the place. I don’t remember who was on the mound - maybe it was Al Downing,’ he said, ‘but Mickey was on first and I knew his knees were gone. I had no clue at this time that other clubs had decided some things among themselves out of reverence for him. So, in this one at bat, I pushed the ball, push-bunted right between the pitcher and first base and they had to go for it. I had great speed so it was a base hit. I turn around halfway down the right field line, and there’s our first base coach walking towards me, and he stops me and tells me ‘Hey, Dave, we don’t bunt on Mick out of respect for him.’ I go to myself, ‘Oh-kayyy.’ So then I walked back to first base and I’m standing next to Mickey Mantle. I’m looking at this guy’s arms and they look like tree trunks, and I’m saying, ‘Man, he’s gonna pinch my head off,’ and then he pats me on the butt and he says, ‘Nice bunt, rook.’ And I look at him and say, ‘Thanks, Mr. Mantle.’”
ping