A Season in the Sun

by Randy Roberts

  Mantle appeared with singer Teresa Brewer to perform their recently released “I Love Mickey,” a bouncy tune extolling “the fella with the celebrated swing.” Songs about famous athletes had a long tradition. During the Yankee Clipper’s annus mirabilis of 1941, Les Brown and His Orchestra had a hit with “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio,” and in 1949 the tune “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?” showed up in record stores. Most strikingly, in the 1930s heavyweight champion Joe Louis inspired almost as many songs as Jesus, including Memphis Minnie’s “He’s in the Ring (Doin’ the Same Old Thing),” Carl Martin’s “Joe Louis Blues,” and Cab Calloway and His Orchestra’s “Let’s Go Joe.” But “I Love Mickey” was something else, because Mantle actually performed it. Whenever Brewer sings “I love Mickey,” he chimes in, “Mickey who?” and she responds, “You know who!”18

  There is nothing innocent about “I Love Mickey.” The singer might exhibit a schoolgirl’s crush on the ballplayer, but her desires are decidedly mature. That her “love letter” was more public than the usual ones received by Mantle, Robinson, and other players did not alter its intent. She wants to “pitch a little woo” with him, “steal” him home, and “pop right in his arms.” There is no acknowledgment that he is a married man with young children. Brewer, the “Baseball Annie,” knows precisely what she wants, and it is not to watch Mickey hit a baseball.

  Mantle’s “Mickey who?” response casts him in the role of incredulous dupe, clueless about her intentions. He simply can’t decipher her double entendres or fathom her impure intentions. This image of Mickey as an inexperienced rube dominated the media’s treatment of him. Except for his preternatural talent and rippling muscles, he was the suburban man-next-door—faithful husband and loving father. In an American Weekly feature, he explained that what fans initially interpreted as arrogance was actually reticence. “I was never very handy with words, and I’d always been a little shy among strangers,” he said. “I could say things that needed saying, but if ‘yes,’ ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ filled the bill, I never bothered saying much else.” The leap from Commerce to New York was simply too great, and it took him some time to adjust to the frantic pace and Gotham’s shrewd characters.19

  But as with hitting a big-league fastball, he had become accustomed to the speed of the city and found his place. In the popular narrative, at least, the Broadway nightlife was not for him. He had given all that up for a suburban home in River Edge, New Jersey. “When I’m not playing ball I like to spend all my time with Merlyn and the children, Mickey, Jr., who’s three, and the baby, David.” And once the season concluded, he hightailed it back to Commerce. “The bright lights don’t attract me anymore.”20

  That, anyway, was the Mickey Mantle being packaged and sold on the newsstands. It was a well-worn story but appealing nonetheless. And it was perfect for television. While Mickey was pursuing the ghost of Babe Ruth, NBC’s Kraft Theater developed a drama based on his life to be aired on the evening of the World Series opener. The Life of Mickey Mantle was billed as a warts-and-all biopic detailing his close relationship with his father as well as his early struggles in New York, initial failures as a Yankee, and troubles with Merlyn. But the warts turned out to be mere smudges, and any flaws in his character were conveniently explained as unfortunate misunderstandings. For instance, after ten days on the road, he returns home, and his wife asks, “How was the trip?” Mickey grumbles something and retreats into silence. When Merlyn tries again, he snaps, “What do you want me to talk about?” With tears in her eyes, she pleads, “Mickey, talk to me. If you only knew how lonely I am when you are away.” Untouched by the exchange, he ends the conversation: “Why don’t you leave me alone? I got nothing to say.”21

  An example of a cold, distant husband? Not exactly. It is later revealed that Mickey has been exhausted by chasing Ruth’s home run record and frustrated by the nagging questions of sportswriters. Would he surpass the Babe? Would he win the Triple Crown? How did it feel to hit the ball so hard? The same questions day after day have ground him down. But by the end, the biopic has resolved all his professional and personal problems. It closes with Mickey, his arm around his wife, talking comfortably to a group of reporters.

  The show even airbrushes Mantle’s escapades with his Yankee teammates. Troublemaker Billy Martin is never mentioned. A more innocent scene replaces Mantle and Martin’s late-night drinking and carousing, a constant source of friction between Mickey and Merlyn. One night after a road trip Mickey returns home particularly late, drawing complaints from his wife. The real culprit, it turns out, is not Mickey or even Billy but Jerry Coleman, another teammate. In the case of the wayward ballplayers, Coleman had convinced Mickey to stop off for an ice-cream soda before heading home to Merlyn.22

  The Life of Mickey Mantle, as well as the feature articles, effectively transformed the temperamental Mantle into a misunderstood puppy. Mickey wasn’t uncommunicative; he was shy. He wasn’t an insensitive husband; he was a great teammate. Although Dan Daniel labeled the biopic “corny” and “overdramatic”—he said it was “hardly [selling] Mantle to the public as Mantle is”—it never intended to portray the real ballplayer. At a time when youth culture seemed vaguely threatening—when Marlon Brando and James Dean appeared on-screen as inarticulate, misunderstood, and even dangerous juveniles; when Elvis Presley shook up the music industry, undulating like a belly dancer and peddling “race music”; when psychiatrist Frederic Wertham ominously asserted that the comic book industry was subverting the morals of American youths; and when Beat writers offered alternatives to the dominant corporate, unimaginative, capitalist ethos—the Mantle corn served as an antidote. Mickey’s fresh face and his Homeric feats at the plate reassured Americans that there was nothing wrong with the country’s kids. Not when they had heroes and role models like Mickey Mantle.23

  ALL MICKEY HAD TO do to remain the hero for Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Little Leaguers, as well as their dads, who served as troop leaders and coaches, was not stumble. His private lapses presented no immediate problem. He had become the darling of the media. Sportswriters and columnists ignored his nocturnal drinking sprees with Billy Martin and Whitey Ford, and, at least so far, the gossip rags seemed more interested in the bad habits of movie stars than those of athletes. But reporters were a fickle lot. In the past, if Mickey had gone cold at the plate or failed to deliver in a clutch moment, they had attacked, nibbling away at his image like piranhas. Hero or goat, Mickey Mantle would be their story. All the favorable press—and the money from endorsements, television deals, and appearances—depended on how well he swung a bat. As long as he chased Babe’s record and maintained command of the Triple Crown race, then his star would only continue to rise.

  But Mickey faced competition. Ted Williams, spitting, cursing, and complaining his way through the season, was not ready to concede anything to a younger star. Publicly he praised Mickey, calling him the greatest power hitter since Ruth and the best bet to break the Babe’s home run mark. He confided to sportswriters that he was getting old. Gone were the days when he was “the Kid,” the skinniest, feistiest hitter in baseball. But if the Kid had put on a few pounds, if he was more prone to aches and injuries, he nevertheless refused to accept that anyone could hit better than he could. The magic was still in his eyes and hands, and he still yearned for greatness. He still meant what he said in 1941: “I wanna be an immortal.”24

  Williams, always motivated, was a genuine threat. A few more hits by Ted and a few less by Mickey, and the race for the batting title would be on in earnest. Even at Yankee Stadium, the fans sensed it. They wanted it. During an August game in New York against Baltimore, the public-address announcer reminded the spectators that the next series was against the Boston Red Sox—“and Ted Williams.” The stands erupted—not for the battle between the first-place Yankees and the fourth-place Red Sox but for the one between Mickey and Ted. On August 12, Mantle’s league-leading average stood at .371; Williams, at .354, was well behind but still in the h
unt.25

  Mickey was eleven games ahead of Ruth’s pace and unconcerned about Williams for the batting title when the Red Sox arrived in the Bronx. The first contest attracted the largest crowd, for a night game, of the Yankees’ 1956 campaign. More than 52,000 spectators, including President Dwight Eisenhower, packed into Yankee Stadium, loud, expectant, craving to see Mickey continue his campaign for baseball’s most sacred record. Mantle liked the drama of the noise and the moment, the sight of Ike in the stands, and a full house cheering his name.26

  Hank Bauer and Billy Martin also enjoyed the big stage. Bauer led off the game with a 440-foot triple, and Martin drove him in with his eighth home run of the season. As Billy strutted into the dugout, Mickey said, “Now I’ll have to hit one to keep pace, huh?” And he did. In the third inning he crushed a ball over the fence. “He really hit that one hard,” Martin marveled after the game. But Yankee beat writer Leonard Koppett was fascinated more by the crowd’s reaction than by Mantle’s power. Mickey had captured their imagination. When he connected with the pitch, the sound and activity in the stands were different, alive with “a sort of hysterical satisfaction.” And when Mantle walked in his last at bat in the eighth inning, Yankee Stadium seemed to visibly deflate.27

  “Did you see how as soon as Mantle got his last turn at bat 10,000 people got up and left?” a visitor said in the clubhouse. “That’s how it used to be with the Babe, remember?”28

  The Mick and the Babe—the two seemed to be the subject of every reporter’s questions. Mickey was now thirteen games ahead of Ruth’s pace, and with each step toward the record, the focus on him increased. He had become a sort of scientific experiment, apparent evidence of the notion that every generation produces bigger, stronger, and faster athletes. As Mantle stayed ahead of Babe’s pace, Red Smith claimed, “medical journals were snooping into his reflexes, publishing diagrams of brain and nerve and muscles to show what happened when he took aim on a curve.”29

  And while the scientists speculated, American League pitchers bemoaned their fates. What was the best way to pitch to Mantle? The question crept up in dozens of newspaper columns. Most followed the trail blazed by Carl Erskine, who had had success against Mantle when the Yankees faced the Dodgers in the 1953 World Series. Erskine threw an overhand curve that broke straight down, befuddling Mickey. Although few hurlers possessed such an effective pitch, most likewise favored an approach based on breaking and off-speed pitches. The problem was that too often the tactic didn’t work. Mickey could hit almost everything.30

  Boston’s Willard Nixon boasted a lifetime 10–5 record against the Yankees, but even he feared Mantle. He took a cautious approach. “You can’t afford to give him a good pitch unless you’re sure he’s going to be completely fooled,” he said. “Even then it’s dangerous.” He recalled one confrontation. “I was throwing breaking stuff, as usual, and I certainly wasn’t planning to let him sock a long blow. In fact, I was hoping for a grounder. But Mickey connected with a knuckler that was almost at his shoe tops and there was nothing to do but watch it disappear.” It was as if the strike zone meant nothing to Mantle. “I’ve seen enough to know that home run hitters can’t be choosy,” he told columnist Joe Williams.31

  It always came back to the same question: Could he hit sixty-one? It was a heady time. “Can the Kid Make It?” asked a headline in the New York Times. Hank Greenberg, Jimmie Foxx, Hack Wilson, Ralph Kiner—they had all made it into the mid-fifties and fallen short. But, John Drebinger wrote, Mickey had a rare quality. He fired the imaginations of hard-core fans and people who couldn’t tell the difference between a baseball and a softball. “The fever again is gripping one and all. Even case-hardened observers, who vowed long ago they never would concede the thing could happen until it actually had, are finding it difficult to remain cool, calm and collected.”32

  Could he do it? Matching the Babe through September would be a challenge, Mickey’s friend and teammate Hank Bauer thought. Ruth’s 1927 September had been epic, and at the same time, Mantle would have to face “a lot of lefthanders” in Yankee Stadium, making it more difficult to hit balls out of the park. “I figure if he has 50 by the end of the month he’ll make it,” he predicted. Could he do it? From Bauer to the reporters in the press box, to the fans in the stands, to the people on the streets, everyone believed he had a slugger’s chance.33

  THEN MANTLE WENT COLD. On August 17 the Yankees began a four-game series in Baltimore. Memorial Stadium was a “hitters’ graveyard” where long fly balls died in the enormous outfield. Mickey had not hit a homer there all year. In the August series, Orioles pitchers buried him. In four games he went 2–17, failed to hit a home run, and watched his batting average slip. Still, Mickey maintained a comfortable lead in the batting competition with Williams.34

  Mantle was still making news, but now it was driven by his failures. Even before the disastrous Baltimore series, sportswriters noted that although Mickey was eleven games ahead of Ruth’s pace, he was statistically behind it. Mantle was averaging one homer every 2.71 games; in 1927 Babe had average one every 2.57 contests. In short, he had to pick up his production. Now, however, he was clearly falling behind, and he had to contend with the added pressure of headlines announcing his failures. “Mantle Fades in Homer Race: Blanked in 3 Straight Games,” trumpeted the Detroit News. “Yanks Tired for Stretch, Mantle Looks Tiredest,” echoed the New York World-Telegram and Sun. “Pressure to Mount on Mantle,” pitched The Sporting News. Mickey, reporters agreed, faced more pressure than Ruth had. Hank Greenberg astutely observed than he and Jimmie Foxx had been lucky when they challenged the record. They hadn’t played in the New York fishbowl. As long as Mantle was in pursuit of Ruth and the Triple Crown, nothing he did on the field would go unobserved. Everything would be meticulously reported, analyzed, and quantified.35

  “Frustrating game, baseball,” Mickey would later write. “When you’re on a hot streak, hitting seems like the easiest thing in the world. The ball comes up there looking like a great big balloon and you think you’re never going to make an out. But when you cool off and go into a slump, the ball comes up there looking like a golf ball and you get the feeling you’re never going to get another hit.” And the ball was still miniscule when Mantle faced Cleveland’s formidable pitchers. He went 1–4 against Herb Score and 0–3 versus Early Wynn. After the game, another Indians pitcher, Bob Lemon, told reporters that he didn’t know what was wrong with the slugger. “Previously he always has been able to blast curves just as well as fast ones. So no pitcher can really be confident.” But as long as the slump lasted, pitchers from Boston to Chicago silently celebrated.36

  BACK IN NEW YORK Mickey escaped the glare of publicity by retreating to an unchanging, unthreatening place. During the hours before a game, the locker room was off-limits to anyone but the Yankees family. Warm and inviting, bright and spacious, the chamber was the envy of professional baseball. Broad pathways of tan carpet protected the brown square tiles on the floor. “When I first came in here, I couldn’t believe that we were actually supposed to walk across the carpeting in our spikes. It was like walking through your parlor,” Mickey recalled. And the lockers themselves were large and afforded an unusual degree of privacy.37

  The Yankees let their guard down in the locker room. Some, especially the younger ones, sat silently, worrying about their performance and fearing the consequences of a few bad games. Others, particularly Billy Martin and Whitey Ford, talked loudly, joking, laughing, insulting anyone within an earshot. Since there was often a buffet, most had a sandwich before a game and a few beers afterward. New York Post columnist Leonard Shecter recalled Yogi Berra at these feasts. Berra, he thought, was a self-made star on the diamond but a media-made celebrity off the field. Unlike other reporters Shecter wasn’t seduced by the litany of Yogisms. He found the catcher to be consistently profane and occasionally crude. And Berra was at his worst at the buffet table. “The other players always complained that Yogi Berra would stand naked at the clubhouse buffe
t and scratch his genitals over the cold cuts.”38

  Mickey, like most of his other teammates, wore thigh-length cotton drawers around the locker room. When on a hot streak, he was as affable, if not as loud, as Martin and Ford, but during a slump or when injured, he became withdrawn, moody, and apt to “turn his back even on well-wishers.” Shecter believed he was instinctively self-protective. He “always doubted himself and, most of all, his knowledge of the game.” Unlike Ted Williams, a student of baseball who had made a science of hitting, Mickey regarded his prowess with the bat as some sort of strange voodoo, a natural force that could leave him as mysteriously as it came. Intuitive rather than thoughtful, instinctive rather than analytical, Mickey reacted to a slump like a farmer did to a tornado: he hunkered down and waited for it to pass. Shecter thought that it was “possible that Mantle was incapable of even the minimum amount of concentration the finer points of baseball require.”39

  Mantle might have regarded the clubhouse as a safe haven, but it was fraught with potential dangers. His locker was next to Billy Martin’s, a point of worry in the front office. Some of their hijinks were sophomoric. A few seasons before, they had set off on a quest to take a picture of every teammate on the john—with the exception of Joe DiMaggio, who was regally off-limits. Armed with a Polaroid instamatic camera, they became toilet dwellers, hunters looking to bag their next prey. As soon as they snapped a photo, they taped it to the wall in the training room. Remembering the bathroom adventures and other escapades, teammate Gil McDougald said, “Mickey and Billy would do all these things and start giggling until they had tears in their eyes.… Some of the other guys wanted to wring their necks, but they were like two kids. People would just smirk and say, ‘There they go again.’”40