Remembering the Mick

I, with many of you, watched on TV as Cal Raleigh hit his 55^th home run with a couple weeks left in the regular season. The commentators were quick to point out that the magi-CAL season of our all-start catcher was continuing. They also celebrated the fact that he had surpassed Mickey Mantle’s decades-old record of most homers in a single season by a switch hitter.

Recognition that The Mick’s record had been broken was a bit bittersweet. Mickey Mantle had been my sports hero as a kid. I was nine-years-old in 1961 when Mantle and Maris were slugging homers right and left in an attempt to break Babe Ruth’s record of 60. (Well, on second thought, it was The Mick who was hitting them right and left. Roger Maris only batted from the left side.)

I watched every time the Game of the Week on television featured the Yankees. Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. I grew to love Bobby Richardson, Yogi Berra, Clete Boyer, Whitey Ford and Roger Maris. But my favorite was The Mick. 

I asked my mom to sew a baseball uniform for me resembling what Mickey Mantle wore. She couldn’t accommodate the pinstripes, but she got the Yankee logo on the front of the jersey and his number 7 on the back. She even put a Yankee insignia on my birthday cake.

I was jazzed about The Mick’s chances of beating out Maris and breaking The Babe’s record (that had stood since 1927). But when Mantle suffered an injury with a couple weeks left in the season allowing Maris to surpass him, I was heartbroken. All the same, Number 7 remained my hero.

I began to collect Mickey Mantle memorabilia. His TOPS bubblegum baseball card. A copy of Baseball Digest from 1961. A Yankees game program from 1966. A miniature Louisville Slugger bat with The Mick’s engraved autograph.

As I grew older, I discovered that Mickey Mantle had played through chronic pain much of his career. I also learned that he battled the bottle as a player. It was a struggle that would plague him for decades. Knowledge that he played hard on the field and partied even harder off-the-field tarnished the pedestal on which I had placed him. Nonetheless, I grieved with the baseball world when The Mick lost his battle to cancer thirty years ago.

As I read accounts of my hero’s final weeks, I was encouraged by what I learned. A year before his death, Mantle sought help for his alcohol addiction and entered the Betty Ford Center. Number 7, who had won seven World Series rings with the Bronx Bombers, added yet another victory to his resume. 

I also learned what had driven my hero to drink. The Mick’s father died of Hodgkin’s Disease when he was forty. The same disease took out two of Mantle’s uncles prematurely. This gifted athlete, who left Oklahoma as a nineteen-year-old, believed the same fate would befall him and so he chose to “enjoy” life while he could. 

A few weeks before he lost his life, his former teammate Bobby Richardson visited Mickey at his bedside intending to pray with him. Before Richardson could say anything, The Mick, in his weak Oklahoma drawl, announced to his longtime friend that he had entrusted his life to the Lord. As you might imagine, that reunion did conclude with prayer of thanksgiving and hope.

Cal Raleigh’s recent record-breaking performance not only triggered childhood memories, it prompted me to pull out my box of Mantle memorabilia. In one of the newspapers I saved following my hero’s death I read his quote, “Play like me! Don’t be like me!”

With humility, he acknowledged the demons that had dominated his adult life. As I contemplated The Mick’s words, I realized that those to whom we look up will inevitably let us down. Human mentors have feet of clay. And those who look up to us will also find flaws. But we should also allow for redemption. In Mickey Mantle’s final inning, there was a walk-off win! And I for one am grateful.