American Dream

Mickey Mantle

Mickey Mantle was one of the greatest baseball player in the history of the United States. He was born in October 20, 1931 in Spavinaw, Oklahoma. His Dad was Elven Mantle. “He taught Mickey Mantle how to switch hit and play outfield”. His mom was Lovell Mantle. He grew up in Spavinaw, Oklahoma. At the age of four, him and his family moved to another town in Oklahoma. He was a very good athlete; he played basketball, football before he started playing baseball. In fact his football playing almost ends his career as a player. “Mantle's leg soon became infected with osteomyelitis a crippling disease that would have been incurable just a few years earlier. A midnight ride to Tulsa enabled Mantle to be treated with newly available penicillin, saving his leg from amputation.” Indeed this disease was the reason why he couldn’t join to the military. Having this disease was a problem for him and for his athlete career.

When he was seventeen years old, he played for a minor league baseball in the Kansas-Missouri League. At the age of twenty he signed a contract to play for the Yankees in 1952. It was for 50,000 dollars. “Mickey Mantle won five MVP awards during his career”. Three years later he won the Tripe crown Award; a year after, he played in the World Series for the first time. “In 1961 he signed a contract with the Yankees for 80,000 dollars. At the time he was the highest paid player in the League.” At the beginning his teammates didn’t like him because they thought that he was over paid and making it so they didn’t get as much money because he had such an expensive contract.

“Mantle also hit some of the longest home runs in Major League history. On September 10, 1960,he hit a ball that cleared the right-field roof at Tiger Stadium in Detroit and, based on where it was found, was estimated years after the fact to have traveled 643 feet.”

“In 1956, Mantle won the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year. This was his "favorite summer," a year that saw him win the Triple Crown, leading the majors with a .353 batting average, 52 HR, and 130 RBI on the way to his first of three MVP awards.”

One time fans boo Mickey when he came to bat because he took over Joe DiMaggio’s spot at center field. They didn’t think he was as good as DiMaggio

Mantle had a knee injury; he couldn’t run as fast or be as quick as before.

“Mantle announced his retirement on March 1,1969 and in1974, as soon as he was eligible, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; his uniform number 7 was retired by the Yankees. (He had briefly worn uniform number 6, as a continuation of Babe Ruth’s 3, Lou Gehrig's 4, and joe DiMaggio’s 5, in1951, but his poor performance led to his temporary demotion to a minor league in mid-season”

He started having problems with his family. Him and his wife, Merlyn Johnson had four kids; he said “he married her not because he loved her, but because his father told him to.” Unfortunately him and his kids all became alcoholics which lead him to be dependable on pain killers.

He died on August 13, 1995 at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. He died at the age of sixty three years old. “Mantle had asked his good friend Roy Clark, a country