In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Mantle
  • Frank Ardolino (bio)
George Roy and Steven Stern. Mantle. HBO Sports, 2005.

The hbo film Mantle does not offer significant new material concerning the Yankee great, but it puts the events of his life into a narrative—the rise, fall, and resurrection of a great ballplayer who could never achieve the stature off the field that he had on the diamond until he faced his imminent death from cancer with dignity and magnanimity. The video presents images of Mickey Mantle in rapid succession, showing him as a child and young athlete in the zinc-mining town of Commerce, Oklahoma and, primarily, as the great, stalwart Yankee with a broad back and a switch-hitting prowess that allowed him to smash tape-measure homers and strike out in Ruthian fashion. Everything about him spelled heroic icon. As a number of the celebrity voiceovers attest, he made you feel good just looking at him in a uniform, chasing down a long fly and reaching up effortlessly to snare it; striking out and angrily throwing his helmet; or running around the bases after a homer with his head down, his arms bent at the elbow, and his knees stiff.His alliterative names, each with six letters; his nickname "the Mick"; his bulging muscles; his Yankee gray pinstripes; his number, the lucky number seven; his crew-cut, blonde-haired, blue-eyed country-boy look and twang; his apparent "aw shucks" personality as the "hayseed from Oklahoma"; his prodigious speed and power; his position in centerfield, linking him to his great New York contemporaries Mays and Snider; and his role as heir to Yankee greats Ruth and DiMaggio—all of these characteristics and dimensions made Mantle the epitome of the Bronx Bombers. He came up in 1951 with great expectations, but he slumped and was sent down to the Minors. However, after a stern lecture from his dad, Mickey returned and became the next Yankee great, winning three Most Valuable Player Awards, achieving a triple crown in 1956, and leading the Bombers to [End Page 160] seven World Series championships in his eighteen-year career. Yet because of continuing injuries and his frequent carousing, there was a sense among his supporters and within himself that he never lived up to his potential. There was always a sadness about him, as Bob Costas maintains, and it is the purpose of this video to analyze its cause.

Perhaps the sadness came from his sense of doom based on the genetic threat of Hodgkin's disease, which caused the early deaths of his grandfather, father, and uncles. This has been the standard interpretation of the Mantle malaise: because of his sense of impending doom, he leaped into the New York nightlife so that his life consisted solely of baseball and carousing. He ignored his real family, creating a fraternity of teammates intent on having a good time. He and Billy Martin scorched the town with their frat boy drinking and sexual antics, and in turn, his lifestyle adversely affected his baseball accomplishments, which were nevertheless prodigious. He could have been so much more; yet he didn't care about his performance and, moreover, didn't recognize or value what he represented to his fans, who idolized his image as a great but suffering hero. Mantle never seemed to have the self-respect commensurate with his baseball skills.

The last four years of his playing career were filled with increased pain as well as personal and Yankee ineptitude. His .250 batting average from 1965 through 1968 reduced his career average to .298, which caused him a great deal of regret. When he retired he had little money, low self-esteem, and numerous celebrity jobs that involved schmoozing and increased drinking. To emphasize his alcoholism, the video scenes are blurred and Mantle's face looks rubbery. Ironically, at this time, he decided to bond with his four sons but did so through alcohol; and, consequently, as his wife Merlyn remarked, she now had five active alcoholics. Mantle was a toxic drunk, an embittered man who belittled himself, his career, and his role as icon. He was saved from self-destruction by the onset of the memorabilia craze...

pdf