The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood

How wonderful in an age when we don't have heroes anymore, we can go back to an earlier age in our lives, when we did. We can then hand a book like this to our children, and perhaps, just perhaps they can come to understand how a different generation from their own, could have revered such a man as Mickey Mantle, who represented everything that we all wanted to be.For all of us, it was a dream that could not be fulfilled, but that didn't mean we couldn't still fantasize about it, and maybe that's why some pay so much for collectibles. We are able to hold, or touch something that belonged to the hero, and the hero's journey.First of all, you must love sports, and sports heroes to thoroughly enjoy this book as I did. Ms. Leavy has captured the real Mickey Mantle, and although she covers the warts and all, this is still very much the story of a hero, a hero of mythic proportions. In ancient Rome there were the Gladiators. In the 20th century, we have our sports heroes, and surely Mickey Mantle captured America's attention like no other.He made us forget about Joe DiMaggio who dominated an earlier generation of Yankees in center field. DiMaggio knew it, and made Mantle pay for it emotionally for his entire career. You might want to read Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life by Richard Ben Cramer, a great biography of Mantle's predecessor in center field.Ah, and can Ms. Leavy write; she is accomplished, having earlier penned a magnificent biography of Brooklyn Dodger hero Sandy Koufax. When I began to read about Mickey, I at first wondered if she could capture the same spirit she captured in "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy". By that I mean could she capture the essence of the man and the time in which Mantle lived. She had done this so well with Koufax, could she do it again.How do you replicate in words, what it was like to have Mantle in the Bronx, and the Dodgers in Brooklyn? If you are a reader living in Texas, or California, can you do it? The author answered that question and more. This lady is at the top of her game as they say. Through 416 pages she covers it all, Mickey's extraordinary potential, and his partial realization of it, having been plagued by injuries during his entire playing career. What haunted him at night is laid out, from his belief that he would die at an early age as his father did, to his first years in baseball where DiMaggio would not even speak with him. Do you want to know what it was like for this young magnificent talent to be snubbed by the leader of the team while trying to build his own identity? It's all here in story after exquisite story. Myths are shattered while new truths are revealed.The author is clear, and admits she's biased. Mickey is her guy, just as he was our guy. She loved him, and we all loved him, and now many years after his death, we love him even more, and still feel our loss, a loss for a youth that none of us can ever have again. The title of the book says it all, "The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood". How appropriate for a title for this man, and at this time.We were moving from the age of innocence under Eisenhower into the turbulent world of the 60's with Viet Nam, JFK, Civil Rights, drugs and the counter culture, but through it all, there was the constancy of Mickey Mantle and the Yankees. You either loved him and them, or you hated them. There was nobody on the fence when it came to the Yankees, and it's probably still a true statement today.Even in those cities that hate the Yankees, no team in baseball filled the stands in enemy territory like the Yankees, and it's all based on the myth and mythology which survives for as long as any of us remember this man and his extraordinary exploits. The most exciting hitter in baseball playing drunk, and with extraordinary pain, and injuries. Nobody knew the real Mickey, maybe no could. We know more about him now through this author and others, than we did when he was setting world of sports on fire.The book is organized into five parts. The unifying theme is the author meeting Mickey in 1983 at the Claridge Hotel, a casino in Atlantic City. In those days, baseball did not pay like it does today. Although Mickey was paid $100,000 per year by the Yankees for years, very few baseball players saved any money, and basically all of them had to find careers after baseball in order to survive. Late in his life they asked Mickey what he would be paid today if he were in the game. He said, "I don't really know, except I would probably be sitting down with the team owner, and saying, how you doing, PARTNER?"In each of the five parts of the book, the author continues the story of her meeting Mickey at the Claridge Hotel, and then she reverts back into discussing his biography along chronological lines from his first days in baseball, through his last.Here's some of the things you will learn in this wonderful book:* In four quick phrases, you learn the essence of the man. He was so gifted, s flawed, so damaged, so beautiful.* Admirers were so enamored of Mantle that they were willing to pay anything for memorabilia. Both Billy Crystal the comedian, and David Wells the pitcher got into a bidding war for a damaged glove that Mickey played with. The spirited bidding made Crystal the winner at $239,000. The author has done her homework, and engages the reader in a real and detailed understanding of the collectors' world and how it influenced Mantle, who could make $50,000 in an afternoon signing his name. His near mint rookie card went for $282,000 in 2006.* Originally a shortstop, legendary manger Casey Stengel said I will personally make this man into a center fielder. DiMaggio went ballistic. It's quite a story and its aftermath went on for years. As was explained in the book, Stengel loved Mantle and disliked DiMaggio.* Other players could not believe Mantle's abilities. It was said that he was more speed than slugger, and more slugger than any speedster, and nobody had had more of both of them together. Stengel said this kid ain't logical, and he's too good. It's very confusing. When you compared him to others, and the others that came before him, Mantle was unique, and he had the charisma to match. Together it was an unbeatable combination, and then add in a media crazed New York.* Branch Rickey the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates who would make history breaking Jackie Robinson into the majors, once said about Mantle, "I hereby agree to pay any price for the purchase of Mickey Mantle."* It was said about Mantle and his teammates that they lived over the speed limit and being with Mantle was like having a get out of jail card free card. Nobody could play ball like Mickey, and nobody could play like Mickey. The stories, the philandering, the booze, the nightlife, it's all here, and it's here in abundance.* Mickey was generous to a fault. If you were his friend, you did not need other friends. He was there for you through thick and thin. Teammate Joe Pepitone got divorced. Mickey told him, I got two rooms at the St. Moritz. You come stay with me. Pepitone stayed two years.* And then there's the naiveté. He's constantly getting conned into putting money into bad deals with bad people. In one deal, his teammates asked him, did you have a lawyer. He responds that he didn't need one, the other guys already had a lawyer in the room.We haven't even touched upon the game of baseball itself and Mantle's contributions to the game, his impact. Leavy covers it all, and there's much to cover. The World Series where Sandy Koufax, a pitcher who during a five year period was deemed to be unhittable, strikes out Mantle, and then in the seventh inning, Mantle makes contact with what he felt was the fastest pitch he had ever seen. The ferocious noise of the bat making contact with the ball was painful to those sitting in the dugouts, and then the ball wound up in the upper bleachers, but it wasn't enough. In the final inning Koufax would strike out Mantle again, and win the World Series. Mickey goes into the dugout and says, "How in the f---, are you supposed to hit that s---.You will not put the book down. You will re-live your youth. You will be filled with joy at the thrill of one hero and the world of baseball. You will also find much sorrow in the sadness of life after baseball, of cutting ribbons at gas stations for a thousand dollars, doing bar mitzvahs on weekends, and attempting to live on past glories. What an American story, and only in America could it have happened. Thank you for reading this review, and I gladly give this book five stars.Richard Stoyeck

Riveting, is what I wrote in my notebook as I read this biography of Mickey Mantle, my boyhood hero. (My first serious writing, in 1964, was a report on Mickey Mantle in which I documented that he was "the greatest ballplayer today ... and a fine gentleman."). It has been said, that each generation develops its own heroes, that they are unique to that generation, and heroes from the past have little interest to persons living in the present. I think the story of Mantle, as told by Leavy, is an exception. No one, not before or after has ever hit a baseball farther or harder than Mantle, who played centerfield (mostly) for the New York Yankees from 1950 through 1968. He was not a particularly large man, just under six feet tall and two hundred pounds. No one before or after has ever run faster, either. (This holds for today's athletes, with or without performance enhancing drugs, special diets and vitamins, personal trainers, sports psychologists, video technology, science fiction-like medical procedures, and every other advantage the modern world has to offer.) Mantle played his entire career with a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL); which holds the knee in place. Joe Soares, the team trainer, said "Mickey has a greater capacity to withstand pain than any man I've seen." (p. 111)A few words here about Leavy's methodology and style - it's important - this is a crime scene investigation. (Mantle's life is the crime.) She conducted interviews with over 500 people who had personal knowledge and interactions with him. She used some 26 books written by and about him as references and cross-references. (The bibliography contains some 260 books.) And finally, interspersed throughout the book is a personal encounter and interview with him in 1983. Her account is interpretative. Interpretations are subject to bias, education, training, and every other mental process known. I agree with hers. Reading the accounts of his baseball prowess made my nerve endings tingle. It took me back to when I watched him play, in person and on television, and why I, and many others, wanted to be just like The Mick. Reading about his life off the field made me cringe and recoil. Reading about his death made my eyes water and my throat constrict. You do not want to die of alcoholism. Leavy's writing defines great writing!Mantle, besides being arguably the greatest baseball player ever, was the archetypal alcoholic all his life, until he quit drinking with the help of The Betty Ford Clinic just prior to his death at age 64. He was also sexually abused as a young boy by his half-sister, repeatedly; and emotionally and psychologically bullied and abused by his father. AND, he was everyone's hero and hope from almost the beginning of his life!Everyone has an opinion as to why he drank so much and self-destructed,. He was an open womanizer and drunk (Even while he smashed baseballs to oblivion as well as after.) He was a terrible father to his four sons, all who went into the "family business" -- drinking, and the selling of the legend that was Mickey Mantle. He was a terrible husband to his wife, who also fell into the business of The Mick. They all became wealthy, as did countless others who bought and sold pieces of him. He was the reason for the memorabilia phenomena that persists today. He was the genesis of the multi-billion dollar sport industry! Here are some of the reasons given as to why he drank so much. Everybody did. (Think "Mad Men," the AMC TV series about Madison Avenue in the 1960's.) He was good at it. He got paid to do it. He had nothing else to do. To go to sleep. To wake up. Because that's what alcoholics do. Because people expected him to. Because he was lonely. So he could talk to people.I think they are all true. There is not much written documentation of what was going on inside of Mickey Mantle's mind until the end. At the clinic, writing is a part of the therapy towards quitting and Mantle wrote, but almost all of his writings are protected by confidentiality laws or were destroyed, but some words leaked out: "Embarrassed, angry with myself, angry, humiliated, foolish, ashamed, stupidity, inadequate, exasperated." (p. 346)This is a book worth reading by everyone. I recently read Eric Clapton's autobiography, who was also alcoholic, and George W. Bush's memoir, where Bush says he doesn't know if he was, or is, an alcoholic. (He says he has a "habitual personality." Whatever that means!?!) I also just read a transcribed five-day interview with David Foster Wallace, a writer and professor, who drank heavily for a few years before he published. All three men, as well as Mantle, reached the pinnacle of their professions. (Cause for wonder.) Clapton, a guitarist and songwriter, was called God. He got sober when he was forty-three by attending Hazelden clinic. After that, his music wasn't what it once was. Bush got sober at age forty, with the help of the famous evangelical reverend, Billy Graham, and went on to become the 43rd president of the United States, and is by some accounts, responsible for the deaths and ruined lives of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. Wallace, after getting sober, published the critically acclaimed Infinite Jest in 1996. He did not finish another novel and hanged himself twelve years later.One person in Mantle's orbit says, "Mickey Mantle was not destroyed by alcohol. He was destroyed by celebrity." (p.326) I don't agree with that wholly. I think a confluence of factors is always what determines what happens in a person's life. Life is always a "perfect storm" unique to the individual. Mantle was not very smart, it seems, but he was gifted with an incredible body, and a skill set of mind and body coordination for crushing a baseball and running fast. His anger and shame and humiliation probably contributed to his baseball prowess as much as biology and genetics. He was a freak--a perfect storm. If he had been smarter, or gotten some help when he was younger, things probably would have taken a different tack. He might have been a much better husband and father--not a drunk, not a womanizer, and not so great a ballplayer. Those are unanswered questions, but ones worth thinking about. In fact, riveting.

Book arrived exactly as described. Shipping fast. I haven't started to read it yet but should be an interesting read on someone whose storied major league career was accompanied by an abusive lifestyle.

Baseball fans, and many others growing up in the 1950's and 1960's, know of Mickey Mantle. Fewer, however, know the story behind the man of unlimited athletic ability, his tragic infatuation with women and his alcohol-induced demise. This excellent biography looks at the pinnacles and depths of living in the public eye, sparing no one who could have helped, and admiring those, especially his wife and family, who did their best to support him. A highly recommended read for baseball fans and for those who admire the human spirit.

I grew up in 1950's New York idolising The Mick. This is an exhaustive and exhausting "warts and all" and mainly genital warts bio of Mantle. I say exhausting because I found the writing style turgid. I also felt the author could have pruned the book and made it a better read. I especially thought she gave too many unnecessary medical details. But, to discover that Mantle and JFK shared the same Dr Feelgood and The Mick lost the '61 home run race to Maris due to clap is worth the price of admission. Her best writing is in her depiction of Mantle in boozy retirement.

GREAT BOOK

In spite of it's evenhanded depiction of the 'good' and 'bad' Mantle, ultimately Leavey's biography is a dispiriting portrait of a great athlete. Still, this a fine book and a must read for Mickey lovers.