The Mick
I'm not sure that there was a bigger superstar in sports at the end of the 1950's and thru most of the 1960's.
Mickey Mantle was the face of the Yankees, the face of baseball and a legend - while he played. He ran like a deer, slugged like a steroid freak - before anyone was taking steroids - and he won World Series after World Series.
He also drank too much, ran around with women and treated them like dirt, barely was a father to his children, and was mean to the people on the streets.
He was entitled, childish and downright nasty to even his friends and his family.
But there was so much more to the story.
I am just finishing up reading The Last Boy about his days and his death.
I've laughed hard at some of the antics with Billy Martin and Whitey Ford and the rest.
Mickey: How's that spot on your liver?
Billy: Now, I got a little liver on my spot.
I've marveled at his baseball skills.
He hit a ball clear out of Washington's Stadium. That ball went 585 feet.
He would have gotten one out of Yankee Stadium too as it was rising when it hit the 3rd deck facade.
They figure that he hit that one about 625.
Six-hundred-and-twenty-five feet!!
I can't hit a tee shot that far.
And Mick didn't seem to enjoy even a minute of it.
He made a lot of money. He was absolute garbage to his mother and to his wife. He couldn't shake his father's death. He was molested when he was a boy. He had matinee idol looks, his body was chiseled and he didn't even work at it.
At the same time he was broken down, celebrated, cheered, booed and cheered again.
He died at the age of 63.
He told the people who once idolized him:
"Don't be like me. God gave me everything and I threw it all away."
I tell you, my string of biographies has continued. I've read books on Michael J. Fox, Mantle, Townsend, Keith Richards, Steve Martin and the biography on Bruce.
You know what's weird?
Not one of them was ever really happy.
It had to be fun to hit a ball that far, though, don't you think?
Mickey Mantle was the face of the Yankees, the face of baseball and a legend - while he played. He ran like a deer, slugged like a steroid freak - before anyone was taking steroids - and he won World Series after World Series.
He also drank too much, ran around with women and treated them like dirt, barely was a father to his children, and was mean to the people on the streets.
He was entitled, childish and downright nasty to even his friends and his family.
But there was so much more to the story.
I am just finishing up reading The Last Boy about his days and his death.
I've laughed hard at some of the antics with Billy Martin and Whitey Ford and the rest.
Mickey: How's that spot on your liver?
Billy: Now, I got a little liver on my spot.
I've marveled at his baseball skills.
He hit a ball clear out of Washington's Stadium. That ball went 585 feet.
He would have gotten one out of Yankee Stadium too as it was rising when it hit the 3rd deck facade.
They figure that he hit that one about 625.
Six-hundred-and-twenty-five feet!!
I can't hit a tee shot that far.
And Mick didn't seem to enjoy even a minute of it.
He made a lot of money. He was absolute garbage to his mother and to his wife. He couldn't shake his father's death. He was molested when he was a boy. He had matinee idol looks, his body was chiseled and he didn't even work at it.
At the same time he was broken down, celebrated, cheered, booed and cheered again.
He died at the age of 63.
He told the people who once idolized him:
"Don't be like me. God gave me everything and I threw it all away."
I tell you, my string of biographies has continued. I've read books on Michael J. Fox, Mantle, Townsend, Keith Richards, Steve Martin and the biography on Bruce.
You know what's weird?
Not one of them was ever really happy.
It had to be fun to hit a ball that far, though, don't you think?
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