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 MICKEY MANTLE ...in his prime |
Some memories of a truly
red-blooded sports hero
of TheColumnists.com
I miss the Mick.
Mickey Mantle was a presence in New York from the September days
he first arrived in 1950 as an 18-year-old out of the mining
town of Commerce, Oklahoma, to his final days when he showed
up in 1995 at a banquet with Willie Mays and Duke Snider to accept
the “Willie, Mickey and the Duke” award from the baseball
writers a few months before his death.
He had that splendid 18-year Yankee Hall of Fame career, the
536 homers, most majestically thundering into the Stadium upper
reaches, the 12 pennants, the seven World Series rings, the 1956
Triple Crown and the adoration of millions.
He was blond and blue-eyed with that quirky smile and a body
Michaelangelo might have sculpted if he didn’t settle on
David.
He was around town a lot after he stopped playing from his Dallas
home, attending this banquet or that one, appearing at a card
show, making an appearance at the opening of a shopping center
or sitting down for an interview with the few broadcasters or
sportswriters he trusted.
There were always the dirty jokes he loved to hear or tell, that
cackle exploding in a room, the squeezing of an arm until the
blood stopped circulating. Gone mostly, after his playing days
ended, were the bitter stares and the vicious asides when his
pride was wounded.
Now in the decade of the teens, sports heroes seem charred. Where
have you gone, Tiger Woods? Mickey did a lot of those bad things.
Somehow it never stuck.
In the last few years of his life he hung around the Central
Park restaurant he had a part of with creator Bill Liederman.
Bill and I did a radio show from there and Mickey would be romanced
by all our guests.
Ira Berkow, a Pulitzer prize-winning sportswriter, captured it
best of all in one of his columns in The New York Times
on July 23, 1989, now reprinted in his collection called, “Summers
in the Bronx,” (Triumph Books, $15.95), a glorious edition
capturing the 27 Yankee World Series titles.
“Mickey Mantle offered his head to Herschkopf the Psychiatrist
for inspection,” Berkow wrote. “It happened
like this:”
Berkow goes on to describe how Mantle hosted a party in his restaurant
for some of the oldtimers who had participated in the Saturday
reunion at the Stadium.
“It was around noon,” Berkow wrote, “and
Mantle had been sitting at a table in the back section with Billy
Martin. Martin was wearing sunglasses because, presumably, noon
on Sunday is still very early.”
Dr. Herschkopf, like most men of his New York generation, had
idolized Mantle and kept his picture on his wall. Now, through
his connection with Berkow, he could get up close and personal
with the icon.
“Mickey, I’d like you to meet a friend, Dr. Herschkopf.
He’s a psychiatrist,” Berkow announced as he brought
the shrink and the hero together.
“Mantle, instead of extending his hand to Herschkopf
the Psychiatrist, extended his head. Go to work, Doc, the gesture
said,” Berkow wrote.
The bearded doctor and the blond icon both laughed. The moment
was soon lost as the photographers gathered around Mantle and
the fans asked him to sign everything from a bat or a shirt to
a dinner roll from the breadbasket.
We have idolized and glamorized sports figures for a couple of
centuries or more. Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Bill Tilden, Joe Louis,
Joe DiMaggio, Michael Jordan and, Tiger, before embarrassment,
crossed that line from the playing fields to the pop culture
dynamic.
Mickey was in that class, maybe the first among equals, as the
legends grew through the more than four decades he hung around
New York.
Sometimes, of course, he could shatter dreams. I once wrote a
kidding column about Mantle after one of his numerous injuries,
suggesting he might never play again or laughingly suggesting
in print that his life was all a fiction.
As I approached him at the batting cage the next day he turned
quickly and muttered out of the side of his mouth, “You
piss me off just standing there.”
I reddened, tightened a bit and walked away.
Mantle had that quick swing, baseballs disappearing into the
dark before the sound had truly registered. He also had that
quick tongue. He was quick with a quip.
The more I thought about what he had said the more I laughed.
I was hurt, sure, but you had to give him credit. He summed up
the situation pretty rapidly.
Try it out sometime. When a person crosses you, remind them how
they just piss you off standing there. It will bring a smile
to your face and satisfaction to your psyche.
Thanks to Berkow’s book, we can see Mickey again in one
of his finest moments. I don’t miss the Mick quite as much
anymore.
©2010 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Jan. 4, 2010.
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