Mickey Mantle

Mickey Mantle was born October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, named partly for the catcher Mickey Cochrane by his father, Elvin "Mutt" Mantle, a lead and zinc miner and semiprofessional ballplayer who decided his son would switch-hit before the boy could walk. The family settled in the mining town of Commerce, where Mickey starred in football, basketball, and baseball, and turned down a football scholarship to Oklahoma on his father's orders. A football injury in his sophomore year led to osteomyelitis in his left shin, severe enough that doctors discussed amputation before a still-new drug, penicillin, saved the leg. In 1949 Yankees scout Tom Greenwade signed the 18-year-old off a semiprofessional team in Baxter Springs, Kansas, for 140 dollars a month and a 1,500-dollar bonus.

Mantle debuted with the Yankees in 1951, and that October, in the World Series, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee when his spikes caught an exposed drain cover while chasing a fly ball hit by rookie teammate Willie Mays — he played the rest of an 18-season career on that knee. He won the Triple Crown in 1956, batting .353 with 52 home runs and 130 runs batted in, took the American League Most Valuable Player award three times, made 20 All-Star teams, and won seven World Series with New York. In 1961 he chased Babe Ruth's home run record alongside teammate Roger Maris, finishing with 54, a switch-hitter record at the time, while Maris broke Ruth's mark with 61. He retired in 1968 with 536 home runs, third all-time, and entered the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1974.

Mantle drank through nearly his entire career, certain, wrongly, that he would die young like the men on his mother's side, who doctors said died of Hodgkin's disease but who more likely succumbed to decades of lead and zinc dust exposure in the mining country where he grew up. Three of his four sons became alcoholics, and his 1951 marriage to Merlyn Johnson, entered at his father's urging rather than for love, effectively ended in an unresolved 1980 separation. He entered the Betty Ford Clinic in January 1994 after doctors warned his next drink could be his last — his son Billy died of substance abuse two months later. In 1995, with his liver failing, he received a transplant so quickly that critics questioned whether fame had jumped him the waiting list, and doctors then found an inoperable liver cancer the transplant drugs likely accelerated.

Mantle died August 13, 1995, five months after his transplant, and the foundation he created in his final months pushed organ-donation awareness harder than any single case had before it. Monument Park replaced his plaque in 1996 with one calling him simply a great teammate and a magnificent Yankee, dropping the earlier heroic language for something plainer. His rookie baseball cards remain among the most valuable in the hobby, a market built on the same year, 1951, that also produced the injury that shaped the rest of his career. He is remembered now for both halves of the record: the switch-hitting power that filled Yankee Stadium, and the drinking he spent his last months publicly warning children not to copy.

Mickey Mantle's life against the full span of the corpus.

• 1956 Triple Crown season other
  .353 average, 52 home runs, 130 RBIs 1956
• 536 career home runs other
  Third all-time at his retirement 1968
• Seven World Series championships other
  Won with the Yankees between 1951 and 1962 1962
• The Mick book
  Autobiography written with Herb Gluck 1985
• Mickey Mantle Foundation other
  Founded in his final months to promote organ donation awareness 1995

• October 20, 1931 aged 0 Born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma
• 1949 aged ~18 Signed by Yankees scout Tom Greenwade
• 1951 aged ~20 Makes his Yankees debut and tears his ACL in the World Series Chasing a fly ball hit by rookie teammate Willie Mays.
• December 23, 1951 aged 20 Marries Merlyn Johnson
• 1956 aged ~25 Wins the Triple Crown
• 1961 aged ~30 Chases Babe Ruth's home run record alongside Roger Maris Finishes with 54 — Maris breaks the record with 61.
• 1974 aged ~43 Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame First ballot, alongside teammate Whitey Ford.
• January 7, 1994 aged 62 Enters the Betty Ford Clinic
• August 13, 1995 aged 63 Dies of liver cancer, five months after a liver transplant

• Betty Ford 1918–2011
  First Lady who spoke publicly about her breast cancer and her addiction and founded a treatment center. treated at the clinic of
• Babe Ruth 1895–1948
  Baseball legend whose home-run hitting transformed the sport and made him a national celebrity. chased the record of
• Willie Mays 1931–2024
  Baseball icon known as the Say Hey Kid, widely considered one of the greatest all-around players ever. collided with
• Joe DiMaggio 1914–1999
  Yankees center fielder whose hitting streak and celebrity made him an enduring symbol of mid-century America. succeeded in center field