Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Mantle

The Best There Ever Was

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"Mantle's life story has been told many times, but it's never received as loving a treatment as this one." Booklist, Starred Review
Mickey Mantle is one of baseball's all-time greats. Playing for the New York Yankees for his entire professional career, Mantle was named to the All-Star team for 11 consecutive seasons, won three MVP awards, and was a seven-time World Series champion. He quickly became an icon who achieved hero status even while playing through injuries for most of his career.
In Mantle: The Best There Ever Was, Tony Castro makes the impassioned argument that Mickey Mantle truly was the greatest ballplayer of all time. Acclaimed by the New York Times as the definitive biographer of baseball's fabled number 7, Castro shares many of his personal conversations with Mantle, demystifying the legend and revealing intimate, never-before-published details from Mantle's personal life. In addition, Castro offers illuminating new insights into Mantle's extraordinary career, including the head-turning conclusion based on the evolution of analytics that the beloved Yankee switch-hitting slugger may ultimately win acclaim as having fulfilled the weighty expectation once placed on him: being even greater than Babe Ruth.
Drawing from hundreds of interviews with ex-teammates, friends, and family, Castro masterfully blends Mantle's public and private selves to present a fully rounded portrait of this complex, misunderstood national hero.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 1, 2019
      Journalist Castro (Mickey Mantle: American Prodigal) expertly reveals the flawed yet glorious life of New York Yankee Mickey Mantle (1931–1995), one of baseball’s greatest switch hitters. The shy Oklahoma country boy, raised by a domineering father, joined the Yankees in 1951, replacing an aging Joe DiMaggio. Castro chronicles the psychological wounds of Mantle’s childhood (his grandmother whipped him, and he wet the bed until age 16) and a traumatic molestation by his half-sister, all of which, Castro argues, contributed to his womanizing and his troubled relationship with his wife, Merlyn Johnson. The writer also delves into Mantle’s alcoholism, which led to cirrhosis later in life, and its effects on his family (Merlyn and three of their four sons were also treated for alcoholism). Nevertheless, by 1968—Mantle’s last year before retiring as a Yankee—he had been a 20-time All Star, a seven-time World Series champion, and recipient of three MVP awards: “I may not have been the best goddamned ballplayer of all time, but if I wasn’t, I’d like to see who was,” he once said. Informative and entertaining, Castro’s biography is certain to please Yankee and Mantle fans alike.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from March 15, 2019
      Castro, a veteran journalist, has written extensively on baseball icon Mickey Mantle, and, through the years, he conducted hundreds of interviews with Mantle, his teammates, managers, family, and friends. This new biography is the product of 50 years of those interviews, including several with Mantle's wife, Merlyn, that Castro couldn't use until after her death in 2009. It's an extraordinary effort that can be read not only as a biography of a baseball legend but also as a chronicle of the dark side of fame. For baseball fans, the basic outline of Mantle's life is well known: the son of an overbearing father, Mantle became the foundation of the New York Yankees' incredible success from the early fifties through the mid-sixties. As good as he was, he suffered debilitating injuries that diminished his abilities, and his adult life, as Castro details, was also troubled by alcoholism, womanizing, the ongoing ramifications of his relationship with his father, and the sexual abuse he suffered as a child by a much older half-sister and her friends. Castro was Mantle's friend, and he uses that relationship to bring an intimacy to the book. Mantle's life story has been told many times, but it's never received as loving a treatment as this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading