Mickey Mantle: The greatest switch hitter in baseball

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The Bio

The Majestic Player

Mickey Mantle was one of the most famous and talented baseball players of all time. His drive and love for the game pushed him past injuries and into the record books. From 1951 to 1968, Mantle played center field, right field, and first base for the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball (MLB). Mantle was one of the best players and sluggers, and many people think he was the best switch-hitter ever. Mantle was put into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974, and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team was chosen for him in 1999. In 1956, Mickey Mantle led the major leagues in batting average (.353), home runs (52), and runs batted in ((130 RBI) to win the Triple Crown.

Mickey Mantle was an All-Star for 16 seasons and played in 16 of the 20 All-Star Games that were held during his career. He was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the American League (AL) three times and won a Gold Glove once. Mantle played in 12 World Series, and he won seven of them. He still holds the records for the most home runs (18), RBIs (40), extra-base hits (26), runs (42), walks (43), and total bases in a World Series (123).

Mickey Mantle was one of the best offensive threats of any center fielder in baseball history. The switch-hitter continues to have “the second-highest career OPS+ among center fielders.” The first position belongs to Mike Trout. When Mantle retired, he boasted the best stolen-base percentage in MLB then. Also, compared to the other four center fielders on the All-Century team, Mickey Mantle’s career rate of grounding into double plays was the lowest, and he had the highest on-base percentage and slugging percentage in the World Series.

Mickey Mantle could hit for both average and power. His home runs gave rise to the term “tape-measure homes” when a play-by-play announcer reacted to one of Mantle’s home runs in 1953. He hit 536 home runs in his career and hit at least .300 ten times. Mickey Mantle is tied with Jim Thome for the most walk-off home runs in his career, with 13. Twelve of them came in the regular season, and one came in the playoffs. He is the only player in baseball history to hit 150 home runs from both sides of the plate.

Born to play

Even before he was born, Mickey Mantle was getting ready for his life as a major league baseball player. Father Elvin Mantle was a semi-pro player. He said that if he had a son, he would name him Mickey after the best catcher in baseball at the time, Mickey Cochrane. So, when Mutt’s wife, Lovell, gave birth to a boy in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, on October 20, 1931, they gave him the name Mickey Charles Mantle. He went on to become a famous baseball player. Mickey Mantle also liked to play football, but he got hurt early in his freshman year of high school, which almost cost him his life and put an end to his football career. During a football game, a teammate kicked him in the lower leg. In just a few hours, his ankle swelled up to three times its normal size, and he got a fever of 104 degrees. His parents took the 14-year-old to the local hospital, where doctors told them he had “osteomyelitis, a potentially fatal bone disease that had gotten worse because of the injury.” Doctors told the Mantles that the child’s life could only be saved by cutting off the leg.

The parents of Mickey Mantle went to the Crippled Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City to get a second opinion. Doctors there agreed that he had osteomyelitis, but their treatment plan was much less extreme: eight shots a day of a new miracle drug called penicillin. Mickey’s ankle stopped hurting after a week, and he was soon back playing sports. His time playing football was over, but he was just getting started with baseball.

The chance

By the time Mickey Mantle was 15 and was a player for the Baxter Springs Whiz Kids. Tom Greenwade, a scout for the New York Yankees, came to Baxter Springs at the end of the 1948 season to check out Billy Johnson, the third baseman on Mantle’s team. But he quickly turned his attention to the 16-year-old shortstop who hit two long home runs, one with his right hand and the other with his left. Both went into a creek that was a long way from the outfield fence. Greenwood went up to Mantle after the game and asked, “How’d you like to play for the Yankees?” Both Mickey Mantle and his father were shocked at first, but they soon got excited about Mickey joining the Yankees. Greenwade told Mickey that since he was only 16 years old, the Yankees couldn’t sign him until he graduated from high school.

Mickey Mantle got his first taste of the big leagues on September 17, 1950, when the Yankees called him up. When Joe DiMaggio said on March 1 that 1951 would be his last season, he turned up the heat. The next day, manager Casey Stengel told the press that Mantle would succeed DiMaggio. Even though he was suddenly put under a lot of pressure, Mantle did well in spring training. During batting practice, he hit huge home runs, and during running drills, he left his teammates in the dust.

Stengel was amazed, and he saw the future of the Yankees in the 19-year-old who had never even stepped to the plate in a major-league game.

“He’s faster than any power hitter I’ve ever seen and stronger than any speedster I’ve ever seen. No one has ever had more of both speed and power at the same time. This kid isn’t making sense. He does too well. It’s very hard to understand,” the manager said.

Mickey Mantle’s first game in the major leagues was on April 17, 1951, against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. Even though he had a good start to the season, hitting well in April and early May, he had a terrible June and early July, so Stengel sent him back to the minor leagues to get more experience. It got Mantle fired up, and for the next two months, he played really well for the Yankees’ Triple-A team in Kansas City. By the end of August, Mantle had played 40 games for Kansas City and hit .361 with 11 home runs and 60 RBIs. The Yankees then called him back. Upon his return, Mickey Mantle was assigned uniform number 7, which he would wear for the next 18 years. Mantle hit.284 with six home runs and 20 RBIs in the last 27 games of the season.

The Yankees won the American League pennant on September 28. In the World Series, they played the New York Giants, who play in the city across the street. In the fifth inning of Game Two, Willie Mays, a rookie for the Giants, hit a fly ball halfway between Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio in right-center field. During the chase, Mickey tore the ligaments in his knee so badly that he had to have surgery.

Became the greatest switch hitter in baseball

In 1952, Mickey Mantle went back to the Yankees and took over for Joe DiMaggio in center field. He hit a ball. 311 and hit 23 home runs, drove in 87 runs, and scored 94 runs. He made the All-Star team for the first of 18 straight years.

The switch-hitter averaged 28 home runs, 98 RBI, and 118 runs per season from 1953 to 1955. In 1954, Mickey Mantle had 129 runs, which was the most in the American League. In 1955, he had 37 home runs, a.431 on-base percentage, and a.611 slugging percentage, which was the most in the AL. In 1956, he hit .353 and had 52 home runs and 130 RBI. Mickey Mantle also won the AL Triple Crown and the first of two AL Most Valuable Player Awards in a row. In his first eight years with the Yankees, they won seven American League pennants and five World Series.

According to the Society for American Baseball Research, “in the days before instant replay, electronic measuring tools, and landmark distances carved into outfield concourses, no player’s home runs caused more stories, controversy, myths, and legends than Mickey Mantle’s.” This began in 1948 when Tom Greenwade found him. It reached the pinnacle at Griffith Stadium where he hit his biggest home run. Mantle lifted the Senators’ Chuck Stobbs throw to a massive height on April 17, 1953.

Mickey Mantle won the Triple Crown in 1956. He led the major leagues in batting average (.353), home runs (52), and RBIs (130). He also led the league in runs scored (132) and was named the AL’s Most Valuable Player. The Yankees beat the Dodgers in seven games in the World Series. Don Larsen’s perfect game was the best part. Mantle made six runs, including three homers and four drives.

Even though he was always hurting, Mantle kept doing well over the next four seasons. In 1957, he won his second MVP award, another home run title, and two more pennants. The Yankees got Roger Maris from the Kansas City Athletics to improve their offense following their relegation to the third position. But the 296-foot right-field wall at Yankee Stadium made Maris, a left-handed pull hitter, a perfect fit for the Yankees. They were right in the end.

Mickey Mantle vs. Roger Maris

In 1960, the Yankees came back and won the pennant with Maris and Mantle in their lineup. Mickey Mantle led the league in home runs with 40 and runs scored with 119, but Maris won the most valuable player award in the closest vote ever. Mantle had a great World Series, hitting .400 with three home runs and 11 RBIs. However, the Yankees lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates when Pittsburgh second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a dramatic walk-off home run in Game Seven.

During the famous home-run chase of 1961, Mickey Mantle was the media’s favorite to win. Most New York sportswriters thought he was the “Real Yankee,” a player who deserved to break the record. Maris was seen as an outsider who was trying to steal the crown from Babe Ruth‘s rightful heir apparent because he was often shown in the media to be grumpy and angry.

All season, Maris and Mantle were tied for most home runs. With 18 games left in the season on September 10, Maris had 56 home runs and Mantle had 53. But the expected race down the last stretch did not happen. Mickey Mantle’s muscles had been stiff and sore for weeks, and then he got a bad cold that made him tired and kept him from playing in four games from September 19 to September 22. On September 23, he went back to play in Boston, and in his first at-bat, against Don Schwall, he hit his 54th home run. But the next day, Mickey Mantle didn’t hit at all and was taken out of the game in the sixth inning because he was sick. Due to side effects from his medicine, he missed ten of the Yankees’ last 12 games. He hit 54 home runs by the end of the season.

Mickey Mantle missed 39 games in 1962, but he still won his third MVP award and led New York to its third straight pennant and second straight world title. He hit .321 and had 30 home runs, 89 RBIs, and 96 runs scored that year. He also had the highest on-base percentage (.486) and slugging percentage (.605) in the league. In seven games, the Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants to win the World Series. During that winter, the Yankees dug deep and gave Mantle a $100,000 contract. Mickey Mantle was only the fifth player in history to get a deal worth that much.

On May 22, 1963, the Yankees and Athletics were playing Kansas City at Yankee Stadium. The score was 7-7 going into the bottom of the 11th inning. Mickey Mantle hit left-handed, and a fastball from Bill Fischer hit the right-field roof just two feet from the top. He said it was the most difficult ball he had ever hit. Fans, experts, eyewitnesses, scientists, and charlatans have been arguing for years about how far the ball would have gone if it hadn’t hit the building. Estimates range from 475 feet to 734 feet, with the most likely being in the middle 500s.

Mickey Mantle did well in 1964 because he stayed healthy and hit well. He hit .303 with 35 home runs, 111 RBIs, and a .423 on-base percentage, which was the best in the league. His team had its fifth straight pennant though the St. Louis Cardinals beat them in the World Series. As of the 2011 World Series, he still held the record with 18 home runs in the World Series.

The dusk

On September 25, 1968, Mickey Mantle appeared for the final time as a player at Yankee Stadium. He ended his career with the last game three days later. On March 1, 1969, exactly 18 years after Joe DiMaggio said that 1951 would be his last year playing baseball, Mantle also said that he would no longer play. Mickey Mantle Day was held at the Stadium on June 8. Mantle’s number 7, which he wore for many years, was retired at the ceremony, which was attended by more than 70,000 fans. He joined other great players whose numbers had already been retired (Ruth, Gehrig, and DiMaggio).

Mickey Mantle quit baseball with a batting average of .298, 536 home runs, 1,676 runs scored, 1,509 RBI, 1,733 walks, and 1,509 runs batted in. An All-Star twenty times, the hitter got the Gold Glove award in 1962 and had seven World Series rings. In the Fall Classic, he played 12 times and hit a record 18 home runs.

In 1973, at the Old-Timers Game at Yankee Stadium, Mantle faced his old friend Whitey Ford. Mantle batted right-handed, and Ford batted left-handed. After fouling off a few pitches, he hit a huge home run over the 402-foot sign by the bullpen. Some people think that this is now his last home run at Yankee Stadium.

In 1974, Mantle was chosen for the Hall of Fame. Mantle was told he had hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, and liver cancer on January 7, 1994. On August 13, 1995, he died.

Mickey Mantle’s Greatest Moments

• 16-time AL All-Star (1952-1965, 1967 & 1968)
• 3-time AL MVP (1956, 1957 & 1962)
• AL Triple Crown (1956)
• AL Gold Glove Winner (1962)
• AL Batting Average Leader (1956)
• 3-time AL On-Base Percentage Leader (1955, 1962 & 1964)
• 4-time AL Slugging Percentage Leader (1955, 1956, 1961 & 1962)
• 6-time AL OPS Leader (1952, 1955, 1956, 1960, 1962 & 1964)
• 5-time AL Runs Scored Leader (1954, 1956-1958 & 1960)
• 3-time AL Total Bases Leader (1956, 1958 & 1960)
• AL Triples Leader (1955)
• 4-time AL Home Runs Leader (1955, 1956, 1958 & 1960)
• AL RBI Leader (1956)
• 5-time AL Bases on Balls Leader (1955, 1957, 1958, 1961 & 1962)
• 20-Home Run Seasons: 14 (1952-1962, 1964, 1966 & 1967)
• 30-Home Run Seasons: 9 (1955-1962 & 1964)
• 40-Home Run Seasons: 4 (1956, 1958, 1960 & 1961)
• 50-Home Run Seasons: 2 (1956 & 1961)
• 100 RBI Seasons: 4 (1954, 1956, 1961 & 1964)
• 100 Runs Scored Seasons: 9 (1953-1961)
• Won seven World Series with the New York Yankees (1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961 & 1962)
• Baseball Hall of Fame: Class of 1974

FAQs about Mickey Mantle

The Stats

Mickey Mantle’s Standard Batting Record

Mickey Mantle’s Postseason Batting Record

Mickey Mantle’s Career Graph

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