COMMENTARY : Mantle’s Heroism as a Player Nearly as Great as His Ability

On the wall in the old press room in the old Yankee Stadium there used to be a newspaper cartoon that represented a whole lot of Mickey Mantle, and us, and a whole lot more of what he meant to more than one generation. It was a magnetism that obviously still has its pull.

That was clear when I overheard a gray-haired lady at lunch tell her gray-haired and balding husband she’d read the headlines and Mickey Mantle was very sick. And wasn’t that sad.

When I was a young reporter covering the Yankees for this paper Dan Daniel of the World Telegram was the oracle of baseball. Once a week Dan, who was 70, would answer questions in his “Ask Daniel” column and it was a regular feature that he’d reply to a letter that no fair ball had ever been hit out of Yankee Stadium. And then one time the Oracle added: “And never will be.”

Then Mantle hit one off the facade upstairs, maybe 18 inches below the roof and Willard Mullin, the great cartoonist at the Telegram, drew this elderly gent on a ladder nailing up a barrier so that his “never will be” would stand up to the awesome power of Mantle.

What a figure he was in New York -- in all of baseball! Nobody who ever played had his stupendous combination of power and speed. Nobody. He was the most compelling figure in sports since World War II, except maybe for Jackie Robinson for a short time.

Mantle had that wonderful alliterative name that happened to coincide with that other icon of the era, Marilyn Monroe. They both were star-crossed, weren’t they? Tragic. It’s terribly difficult not to treat this like an obituary but, of course, in a way it has to be.

Mantle was heroic, the way he played so hard and so well with so much pain. He’d kid sometimes when I watched him wrap the yards of elastic around his legs that it was like watching Dietrich put on stockings. After the game he’d struggle to climb the high step into the bus, pushing with his hand on his knee to lift himself. Of course, he had a ruined knee from his rookie season but he never did understand the work of rehab, and his body never had nearly the fitness of a super athlete. We understood that the hours of drinking and running around took a toll, but he was Mickey Mantle and none of us ever saw him try less than his best on the field.

None of us understood quite the extent of the damage he was doing to himself when, at age 63, the transplant doctor said Mantle’s family was “relieved that he would, at least, have a chance.”

Like the other young writers, I approached Mantle with trepidation. Whitey Ford was always charming, witty, insightful and accessible. Mickey could show a nice self-deprecating wit and ribald humor, but if I asked one question too deep or too many, he’d spin on his stool to face into the locker and give me the back of his reddening neck. To us he was often surly, grumpy, brusque, an ordeal, a punishment much of the time. He was a good guy only on his rare terms. He wouldn’t sign the baseballs with the other guys; he rarely held still for his adoring multitudes.

In May of 1963 Mantle hit another of those titanic shots of his off Bill Fischer of Kansas City. It was out there and up there and against the facade. Mantle pronounced it “fa-kade,” because they probably didn’t talk much about facades in his part of Oklahoma. He sat there on his stool and answered questions at length and said, “I’m never gonna hit one out. That’s as good as I can hit a ball.” It was a lament. He revealed himself in a way I’d never seen.

Once after a stay on the disabled list, Ralph Houk sent Mantle to pinch hit against Cleveland in the heat of a race. It was a dramatic moment, and one Mantle hadn’t expected. He’d spent the night before doing what he usually did, only more so. Mantle lurched to the plate and, through the fog, hit a tremendous home run. He got a standing ovation from the crowd and from his dugout. On the bench he squinted at the stands and said, “Those people don’t know how tough that really was.” We thought it was funny to hear. Actually, it was.

Other players liked him very much. “He was a good guy,” Al Kaline reflected Thursday, “We’d hear rumors of how he lived, but you hear a lot of rumors. We knew about his legs and pain and marveled at how he played so hard.”

Kaline, a Hall of Fame player, and the Tigers chased Mantle and the Yankees so many seasons. “He was one of the first guys I’d go out to watch in batting practice,” Kaline said. “Our pitchers didn’t want to watch him.”

In 1968 the Tigers were winning and the Yankees were down, and it was expected to be Mantle’s last year. On Sept. 19, Mantle had been tied with Jimmie Foxx with 534 career home runs for nearly a month. Denny McLain was pitching on his way to 31 wins for Detroit and had a big lead.

McLain gestured to Mantle: “Where do you want it.” Mantle thought he was kidding and took the pitch down the middle. Then Mantle realized McLain wasn’t kidding. Mantle waved his bat at a spot, McLain grooved it there and Mickey hit it out. He hit one more in his career.

When they got back to the dugout, Mayo Smith, the manager and an admirer of Mantle’s, warned McLain that he better not tell anybody what he did. “It pleased me absolutely,” Kaline said. “Not if the game was on the line, but this was the greatest player I ever played against. Denny wanted Detroit to remember that. I thought it was great.”

By the time Mantle sold his name and some of his time to the restaurant on Central Park, he had become a much easier person. He told of how much he missed the rush of the ballpark and how he missed greatness. Really, all he’d done since he was a child was play ball. All he’d done as an adult was be Mickey Mantle. And he told stories and let himself flow. I asked for his autograph and he said, “Ten years ago you wouldn’t have done that.” And he was right.

And he said to the group, “Steve says I’m a better guy than I used to be.” And he was. He said he regretted a lot of what he’d shown.

Doctors say Mantle’s liver was destroyed by his alcohol use, and by hepatitis he probably picked up in one of his surgeries. Who can be sure? In 1961, late in the year he and Roger Maris assaulted the records of Ruth and Gehrig, Mantle had hit his 53rd homer and developed a bad head cold. An outside doctor of some kind gave him a shot of some kind and he developed a terrible abscess on his hip. He watched Maris’ 61st from a hospital bed, but he was determined to play the World Series.

He played the first two games, the wound opened, and the blood soaked through his uniform before he came out. Earlier in that game Bobby Richardson was spiked at second base and played with his shoe full of blood. And Richardson said, “How could I come out when he played with what he’s got.”

And how good a life could he have had?