The last boy : Mickey Mantle and the end of America's childhood
Jane Leavy weaves together episodes from her 1983 interviews with The Mick in Atlantic City after he was banned from baseball with reminiscences from friends and family of the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League's Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth's home run crown in the summer of 1961 -- the same boy who would never grow up. Leavy reveals the man behind the coast-to-coast smile, who grappled with a wrenching childhood, crippling injuries, and a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. How long was the Tape Measure Home Run? Did Mantle swing the same way right-handed and left-handed? What really happened to his knee in the 1951 World Series? What happened to the red-haired, freckle-faced boy known back home as Mickey Charles?
Print Book, English, 2010
Harper, New York, 2010