A Hero All His Life

(Book summary from inside jacket cover)

Mickey Mantle was the golden boy of American sport.  A hero to millions, he embodied the ideal of small-town athlete made good every time he stepped up to the plate.  Now, for the first time, Mantle's wife, Merlyn, and their sons tell the unique and inspirational story of their very separate, often harrowing private lives with the husband and father who lived in the glare of the public eye and how they came together during Mantle's last year to fight the cancer that eventually took his life.

Although others have written about Mantle from an outsider's point of view, this startlingly honest book is the only one that takes us into the home and day-to-day life of America's first sports media star, offering a very personal perspective that is candid, yet heartfelt and loving.  Merlyn Mantle takes the reader from the early days of her courtship with Mickey through his stellar baseball career and her life as the wife of our first national sports hero, candidly discussing the alcoholism and rampant infidelities that would plague their lives together.  In an unvarnished look at the events that led to their many dislocations, the death of their son Billy, and her own private anguish that she shared with no one, Merlyn discusses with unbridled candor how, despite the many trials through which they suffered, their basic love and connection to each other remained unshakable through the years.

Interweaved with Merlyn's story are her sons' vivid accounts of their lives growing up with an emotionally and physically absent father.   They reflect on the peculiar difficulties of desperately seeking the approval of a man whom they dearly loved but whose struggles with alcoholism, coupled with the demands of being a hero to a nation, created emotional chasms that were not bridged until the last years of his life.  Finally, in an inspirational story of recovery, they tell how they all courageously battled alcoholism during Mantle's final years, ultimately overcoming the disease with the help of the Betty Ford Center.

Heartbreaking, tender, and often humorous, this uplifting memoir tells the story of the unique American Mantle family and the lives they led in the shadow of Mickey's heroic stature.