The Last Hero - The Life of Mickey Mantle

(Book summary from inside jacket cover)

The death of Mickey Charles Mantle sparked a nationwide outpouring of emotion.  How could someone who had stood for so long as a symbol of indestructible American power and vigor die so soon?  And why were so many, for whom Mantle symbolized the youth they'd left behind long ago, so bereft at his passing?

Mickey Mantle's life was spent waiting for a death that seemed just around the corner.  In Commerce, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression it was understood that if you ever worked at all you would work in the mines, where the dust and fumes turned your lungs to parchment.  Even for those without the genetic sword of Hodgkin's disease hanging over their heads, that life was no better than a death sentence.

But Mutt Mantle had a dream for his son, a dream of a baseball-playing life that would keep him out of the mines and take him beyond the horizon visible from the alkali fields.  Mickey, named for Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane, grew up big and strong and powerful: the kind of athlete we frequently see today - a Bo Jackson, a Herschel Walker, a Michael Jordan - but who was almost unprecedented at the time.  Mickey Mantle hit the ball incredible distances; he could run like a deer; he was anointed the next great New York Yankee superstar before he was old enough to vote.

Mickey inherited from Joe DiMaggio the greatest glamour position in all of sports - centerfield for the New York Yankees - at a time when baseball was the only sport that mattered.  If he did not always satisfy the fans who expected him to surpass DiMaggio, there was no question of his greatness: a Triple Crown in 1956, four home-run titles, a career home-run total that ranked third of all time when he retired, and the all-time World Series home-run mark.  Yet there was always a what-if that lingered about Mantle: What if he had not had so many injuries?  And there was a question he himself cam to ask: What if he had partied less and slept more?

Mantle's drinking and wildness were often explained by invoking the shadow of death that lurked around him; neither his father nor his uncles lived past age forty-one.  But as Mickey grew older and that feared illness never came, a bitter edge crept into his dealings with the outside world.  He became the focal point of an incredible boom in memorabilia, with his rookie baseball card commanding tens of thousands of dollars, the grown men turning silly at the sight of him.  But to Mantle, still the country boy after all his years in New York, it was utter foolishness.  Mantle hated the attention and the lack of privacy even as he grew dependent on it for his livelihood.  Although he often treated fans and even some former teammates with harsh disrespect, in many ways he saved his fiercest punishment for himself.

And yet, Mickey Mantle's story is ultimately one of redemption.  Mantle's much-publicized stint at the Betty Ford Clinic put an end to his drinking, but not before his liver was irreparably damaged.  In the aftermath of his liver transplant, cancer ravaged his body, and his death came with astonishing speed.  Yet he faced the end bravely, even nobly: His last public utterances were not about himself but about his hopes that young people would not use him as a role model, and that others would more seriously consider signing organ donor cards, the first cards he would probably gladly have signed for free.

In The Last Hero, David Falkner examines Mantle from several perspectives: as the boy from the mining town of Oklahoma; as a breakthrough ballplayer, the embodiment of power and speed; as a teammate, a leader of men who remained a boy at heart; as a hero to millions in ways he could never fathom; and, finally, as a tragic figure, dying bravely after coming to terms with the price of the irresponsible life he had led.  With grace, intelligence, and dept, Falkner provides us with a perceptive look at the man, the athlete, and the American phenomenon who will always be known as, simply, The Mick.