I didn’t raise a man. I raised a baby.’
“He was crying, and I was crying. I said, ‘Well, let me try again.’
“He said, ‘Bullshit. Come on. I came on all the way up here. You’re going back with me. You ain’t got a gut in your body.’
“He made me feel I was about that tall. Finally he says, ‘I’m gone. If you can’t play, get a bus and come home.’”
The message was delivered with vehemence that the younger Mantle couldn’t possibly understand. True, he had noticed that his father’s khakis were hanging loose on his frame. True, he had always worried about the old man’s smoking. But most nineteen-year-olds don’t spend their days contemplating parental mortality. Mantle was too young, too immature, too caught up in the thrall of his new life to see the signs of fatal illness and desperation in his father’s gaunt, angry face.
There was no opportunity for Merlyn to be alone with him, much less comfort him. “I wouldn’t have,” she told me. “Nobody did.”
Truth to tell, she wouldn’t have been disappointed if he had come on home.
After they all went out to dinner, the group headed back to Commerce at Mutt’s cautious 35 miles per hour, leaving Mantle to decide whether to pack for a three-week road trip or buy a ticket for Commerce. “I thought about it a long time that night,” Mantle told me.
He opted for the future Mutt wanted for him. And he began to hit—four hits in one game in Milwaukee, a home run in Louisville, two more the next day in Indianapolis (one left-handed, one right-handed), then another one the following day. Two days after that, in Toledo, he hit for the super cycle, banging a single, double, triple, and two home runs. Within the month, he had 11 home runs, 52 runs scored, and 60 RBI.
By late August he was on his way back to the Bronx, but not without another Army-mandated detour—a third reconsideration of his draft status prompted by angry letters to the White House and front-office concern about negative PR. When he finally arrived in the Yankee clubhouse, he found lucky number 7 hanging in his cubicle. Pete Sheehy had given away number 6 in his absence.
The Yankees clinched the pennant in Philadelphia on September 28, the same day the Giants tied the Dodgers for first place in the National League. Mutt, his brother Emmett, and his pals Turk Miller and Trucky Compton drove east for the World Series. The kid showed them the town. In The Mick , Mantle described his father’s parochial confusion upon seeing the statue of Atlas in front of Rockefeller Center: “Shoot, the Statue of Liberty’s smaller than I thought.”
The Oklahoma boys didn’t know how much money it cost to go to the movies; they didn’t know where to get off the subway for the ballpark (and ended up walking three miles). They sure didn’t know how to hold their big-city liquor; riding the train, pressed between New York City straphangers, Compton threw up in the hat of an unlucky passenger.
But Mutt knew trouble when he saw it.
Her name was Holly Brooke. Mantle introduced her to his father as his “very good friend.” He recounted the conversation in The Mick :
Maybe she winked at me. I don’t know. But Dad knew something was up—and he didn’t like it a bit. Later, he took me aside.
“Mickey, you do the right thing and marry your own kind.”
“It’s not what you think, Dad.”
“Maybe not, but Merlyn is a sweet gal and you know she loves you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“The point is, she’s good. Just what you need to keep your head straight.”
“I know.”
“Well, then, after the Series you better get on home and marry her.”
I half turned from him, nodding silently. There was nothing more to discuss.
“She was older,” Merlyn told me. “She had a kid almost as old as Mick. She more or less got in with this attorney. Mutt saw the situation. He knew it was trouble. Mick could be very easily swayed.”
While Brooke trysted with him in major and minor
“He was crying, and I was crying. I said, ‘Well, let me try again.’
“He said, ‘Bullshit. Come on. I came on all the way up here. You’re going back with me. You ain’t got a gut in your body.’
“He made me feel I was about that tall. Finally he says, ‘I’m gone. If you can’t play, get a bus and come home.’”
The message was delivered with vehemence that the younger Mantle couldn’t possibly understand. True, he had noticed that his father’s khakis were hanging loose on his frame. True, he had always worried about the old man’s smoking. But most nineteen-year-olds don’t spend their days contemplating parental mortality. Mantle was too young, too immature, too caught up in the thrall of his new life to see the signs of fatal illness and desperation in his father’s gaunt, angry face.
There was no opportunity for Merlyn to be alone with him, much less comfort him. “I wouldn’t have,” she told me. “Nobody did.”
Truth to tell, she wouldn’t have been disappointed if he had come on home.
After they all went out to dinner, the group headed back to Commerce at Mutt’s cautious 35 miles per hour, leaving Mantle to decide whether to pack for a three-week road trip or buy a ticket for Commerce. “I thought about it a long time that night,” Mantle told me.
He opted for the future Mutt wanted for him. And he began to hit—four hits in one game in Milwaukee, a home run in Louisville, two more the next day in Indianapolis (one left-handed, one right-handed), then another one the following day. Two days after that, in Toledo, he hit for the super cycle, banging a single, double, triple, and two home runs. Within the month, he had 11 home runs, 52 runs scored, and 60 RBI.
By late August he was on his way back to the Bronx, but not without another Army-mandated detour—a third reconsideration of his draft status prompted by angry letters to the White House and front-office concern about negative PR. When he finally arrived in the Yankee clubhouse, he found lucky number 7 hanging in his cubicle. Pete Sheehy had given away number 6 in his absence.
The Yankees clinched the pennant in Philadelphia on September 28, the same day the Giants tied the Dodgers for first place in the National League. Mutt, his brother Emmett, and his pals Turk Miller and Trucky Compton drove east for the World Series. The kid showed them the town. In The Mick , Mantle described his father’s parochial confusion upon seeing the statue of Atlas in front of Rockefeller Center: “Shoot, the Statue of Liberty’s smaller than I thought.”
The Oklahoma boys didn’t know how much money it cost to go to the movies; they didn’t know where to get off the subway for the ballpark (and ended up walking three miles). They sure didn’t know how to hold their big-city liquor; riding the train, pressed between New York City straphangers, Compton threw up in the hat of an unlucky passenger.
But Mutt knew trouble when he saw it.
Her name was Holly Brooke. Mantle introduced her to his father as his “very good friend.” He recounted the conversation in The Mick :
Maybe she winked at me. I don’t know. But Dad knew something was up—and he didn’t like it a bit. Later, he took me aside.
“Mickey, you do the right thing and marry your own kind.”
“It’s not what you think, Dad.”
“Maybe not, but Merlyn is a sweet gal and you know she loves you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“The point is, she’s good. Just what you need to keep your head straight.”
“I know.”
“Well, then, after the Series you better get on home and marry her.”
I half turned from him, nodding silently. There was nothing more to discuss.
“She was older,” Merlyn told me. “She had a kid almost as old as Mick. She more or less got in with this attorney. Mutt saw the situation. He knew it was trouble. Mick could be very easily swayed.”
While Brooke trysted with him in major and minor
Similar Books
