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A review by citizen_noir
The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood by Jane Leavy
4.0
One of my favorite books as young boy was a biography about Mickey Mantle. I checked it out of the little town library we used to go to in Bridgewater, CT, and became utterly obsessed with the story, reading and re-reading it 15 times. I was always a Yankees fan growing up, but Mantle's final game was in 1968, when I was all of one-year-old, so it's not as if I ever saw him play. Still, Mantle's story transfixed me. Now after reading Jane Leavy's marvelous biography, THE LAST BOY: MICKEY MANTLE AND THE END OF AMERICA'S CHILDHOOD, I realize that what captivated me then about Mantle still captivates me today: the "What if?" aspect to his incredible life.
What if Mantle hadn't grown up the son of a demanding coal miner who decided early on that his son would be a baseball player? What if Mantle hadn't come from a legacy of men who died far too young? What if Mantle hadn't blown out his knee during the World Series in just his rookie year? What if Mantle hadn't been repeatedly sexually abused by a half-sister and a boy in the neighborhood while growing up? What if Mantle hadn't been a raging alcoholic through his adult life? What if Mantle hadn't treated women so poorly?
In the biography I read as a boy, the book only covered the first three aspects of the "What if?" to Mantle's story - a demanding and somewhat unloving father, a fatalism about how short he would live, and a terrible knee injury that caused him to play in pain through his entire career. Thankfully, Jane Leavy has provided the full story of Mantle - adding the non-heroic details of alcoholism, sexual abuse, and womanizing - that create a real picture of him.
Make no mistake, Leavy was a huge fan of Mantle's while growing up and remains one to this day. At times she seems reluctant to share these non-heroic details of her childhood hero. Many of these personal details come out when she recounts a weekend she spent with Mantle at a charity golf event in 1983 where she'd gone to interview him for a newspaper article. At the event, Leavy witnesses the good and bad of Mantle: from his generosity when he spots her shivering in the cold and gets her a sweater, to his heavy drinking, and eventually to his drunken pass at her late one evening, resulting in him falling asleep on her lap. As she recounts early on in the book:
In spite of all of these "What ifs?" Mantle had one of the most storied careers in Major League Baseball history. Perhaps no other player (including during the steroid era) has ever displayed the exceptional combination of power and speed. Before his knee injury, he was the fastest player ever recorded from home to first base. As a switch hitter, he slugged the ball so far it spawned the term "tape measure" home run.
Leavy is a remarkable journalist; her list of interviews for the Mantle book has to be in the hundreds of people, and she diligently tracks down the truth behind many famous Mantle moments. Leavy is coming out with a biography of Babe Ruth later this year. I'll be sure to reserve it as soon as DCPL lists it.
What if Mantle hadn't grown up the son of a demanding coal miner who decided early on that his son would be a baseball player? What if Mantle hadn't come from a legacy of men who died far too young? What if Mantle hadn't blown out his knee during the World Series in just his rookie year? What if Mantle hadn't been repeatedly sexually abused by a half-sister and a boy in the neighborhood while growing up? What if Mantle hadn't been a raging alcoholic through his adult life? What if Mantle hadn't treated women so poorly?
In the biography I read as a boy, the book only covered the first three aspects of the "What if?" to Mantle's story - a demanding and somewhat unloving father, a fatalism about how short he would live, and a terrible knee injury that caused him to play in pain through his entire career. Thankfully, Jane Leavy has provided the full story of Mantle - adding the non-heroic details of alcoholism, sexual abuse, and womanizing - that create a real picture of him.
Make no mistake, Leavy was a huge fan of Mantle's while growing up and remains one to this day. At times she seems reluctant to share these non-heroic details of her childhood hero. Many of these personal details come out when she recounts a weekend she spent with Mantle at a charity golf event in 1983 where she'd gone to interview him for a newspaper article. At the event, Leavy witnesses the good and bad of Mantle: from his generosity when he spots her shivering in the cold and gets her a sweater, to his heavy drinking, and eventually to his drunken pass at her late one evening, resulting in him falling asleep on her lap. As she recounts early on in the book:
I saw the best and worst of The Mick during the weekend I spent with him in Atlantic City but I wrote little of the latter in the piece that appeared in The Washington Post. In 1983, it would have been a firing offense to write what had really happened. Today it would be a firing offense not to write it - one measure of how much the landscape of public discourse has changed.
In spite of all of these "What ifs?" Mantle had one of the most storied careers in Major League Baseball history. Perhaps no other player (including during the steroid era) has ever displayed the exceptional combination of power and speed. Before his knee injury, he was the fastest player ever recorded from home to first base. As a switch hitter, he slugged the ball so far it spawned the term "tape measure" home run.
Leavy is a remarkable journalist; her list of interviews for the Mantle book has to be in the hundreds of people, and she diligently tracks down the truth behind many famous Mantle moments. Leavy is coming out with a biography of Babe Ruth later this year. I'll be sure to reserve it as soon as DCPL lists it.