Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood - By Jane Leavy

Leavy covers Mantle from boyhood in Oklahoma, his days as a Yankee to the day he dies in vivid, complete detail. Nothing is left out or edited. She goes into great detail about his exploits as a homerun hitter measuring the exact distances of tape measure shots. His relationships with buddies Billy Martin, Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer, his father, mother and family are all developed as well as his drinking, not caring about his God given gift of a terrific baseball body and talent, the disastrous day an outfield water drain made his career less than it would have been had he not stepped on it, his post baseball career. He was THE consummate baseball player an iconic figure for the ages. A wonderful book.

I guess I would describe as a "Jewish" biography. MM is portrayed mostly in relationship as is the author herself. His heroics as well as his anti-heroics are fully on display. Anyone who wants a cardboard cut out of the Mick should look elsewhere. I liked the person I read about, but it did remind me of the AA saying, "Love the person, hate the disease." No one likes to see their heroes taken down off the pedestal. I hated the "Jewish" biography of Lenny Bruce and couldn't read the one of Bob Dylan. The thing is Mantle was not even Jewish when he started out, but after years of being a Yankee, he was assimilated.

As an avid baseball fan, I received this book from my wife for Christmas. As she did with her biography of Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy was able to weave through an engaging tale from Mantle's grim childhood in Oklahoma to his glory days with the Yankees. A great book for baseball fans like myself, and historians in general.

https://www.the store.com/dp/0060883529/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_11
My son and husband are die hard baseball fans. So when I came across this book it was fate. Mickey Mantle is from Oklahoma, where we live, this makes learning about Mr. Mantle even more interesting. But the thing I loved the most about buying this book thru the store.com was/is the availability of getting the book used. I am all was looking for a way to save money, so having the option of saving $5 or more by getting this used was a blessing. When the book arrived I couldn't even tell it had been used. From this point on I will be looking to buy my books thru the store.com.

I recently submitted a poor review for Stevenson's Book Sellers when I purchase the The Last Boy (Mickey Mantle). The seller immediately contacted me and sent me a new book and mentioned that I could keep the damaged book and not have to return it.

In my opinion, Stevenson Book Sellers did everything possible to satisfy me as a customer.

Pete

Great book if you love baseball and is about argubly the best baseball player ever. Mick had all the talent in the world but due to a knee injuries and a party life style his life went to the darker side.

After reading this book, I finally realize what the term "tragic hero" means. I was a young boy growing up in the 60s, and have memories of my father taking me to Yankee Stadium when Mickey Mantle was in his waning playing years. I remember attending one of the games in 1968 that was dedicated to The Mick that Ms. Leavy mentions in her book; if you made a banner in his honor you got to be in an on-field parade and walk the entire perimeter of the playing field. Mickey Mantle was a baseball god, and I hoped that perception might stay with me forever. But now, having read this book, I have to accept the other side of him that I knew existed, but now understand so much better.

This book is about his feats on the field, and his escapades in the evening. If you're looking for a book about Mantle's glorious baseball career and not much else, this may not be the book for you. However, if you want to learn (or learn in more detail) about what eventually did him in, during, and mostly after his playing career was over, this book provides excellent insight into the personal life of one of the great baseball players of all-time.

I thought it started a bit slow, covering much of his youth in Commerce, OK with his family, and I wondered and hoped if the book would get any better, and it does. Structurally, the book is a bit choppy with not too much flow from one topic to the next, but the author manages to cobble the parts together and the story takes shape.

Between an injury prone career, to the alcohol, and all his womanizing, who knows how good Mantle might have been? Throughout the book, the question arises about who was the best player of their era; Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays. About the difference of how he hit lefty vs righty. About his tape-measure home runs (which is how that term originally came to be). In fact there is a chapter dedicated to his first "tape measure" home run in Baltimore, and the author actually tracks down and interviews the boy (now an older man) who found the ball when it landed across the street. The book also covers the memorabilia and autograph signing boom in baseball, and how Mantle was almost single handedly responsible for it. It became a source of income for him far greater than his baseball salaries.

It seemed as though Mantle never really grew up, and once his playing days were over, he was always traveling from one promotional event to the next, and sadly, alcohol became his best friend, and ultimately led to his demise. I ended up feeling sorry for him and his family, due to all the other things they had to endure. I guess I wanted to keep The Mick up on a pedestal from my boyhood memories, but alas, "Mickey Mantle - The Last Boy" provides a deeper and broader insight into the less glorious side of this tragic Yankee hero.

If you love baseball and its history you'll enjoy this book, and be prepared to come away with a side of The Mick you may not have known at this level of detail. I would recommend this book as a human interest story that happens to be about one of the great baseball players who ever stepped onto a diamond.

This excellent bio has polarized readers. Some prefer their memories of a 1950s golden glow alight with motes of dust playing in a late afternoon sunray and just dont want to see or hear anything that they feel tarnishes the highly polished hagiography of the Mantle of their youth. Here is a terrific bio that shows him as a real man and it seems many dont wanna hear it. Go ahead and read it.

Grown up with the Mick and this book really delves into his personal life. Since he was my idol and to many people in the 50's and 60's and it was all about baseball. There was no social media to cover his extra curricular activities like today. Its a shame he never grew up until it was to late. This man was in terrible pain most of his life and just to think how great a baseball player he could have been if not for his injuries and his running around with the booze and women.

The author apparentlly did some heavy duty research to give the reader a good account of Mickey M. and I did enjoy reading about one of my sports heroes. The author chose to flex her vocabulary muscles throughout even when ordinary words would have sufficed. I needed a dictionary throughout the book and I am an avid reader. Still this was an authoritative work and was a good read.
CTT

Well done relating some different point of views on an American icon. The Mick was not one of my baseball heroes, but was a player I greatly admired and respected. Overall an enlightening look at this flawed young man, but, for my taste, too much detail on the negatives and, frankly, more than I wanted to know. The Mick, versus Willie and Duke was interesting, but the subject seemed to be exhausted (and exhausting). The book does, however, make a great case for a super star and what one could mean to a team and a sport. I had heard earlier reviews on NPR, where some commented on how well a woman could write about baseball, which now seems a bit demeaning. The author is a bona fide baseball fan, expert and an excellent writer...period.

Amazing detail and insight for those of us who admire Mickey and remember wanting to play baseball as he did.

Countless times, Jane Leavy made the scene so realistic that I felt I was at the ballpark.

As I reached halfway in the book, I began to regret that I was approaching its conclusion.

It's so great to read about Mickey. I don't want the book to end.

I was very disappointed in the book. I thought I was going to read about an American icon and instead read an attempt to knock him off the pedestal. I didn't think it important to about his crudeness when drunk, the fact that he farted (were we supposed to think he didn't), the fact that he kept porn in his locker and so forth. What purpose did it serve to prove his most noted long distance home run didn't really go 565 feet? At the same time, the detailed account about his last few months did serve to prove him a human being in a very human way.

The human mind is more incredibly complex than we can imagine, and Jane Leavy has done an outstanding job in sorting out the demons that inflicted baseball superstar Mickey Mantle. To get the complete picture of Mantle one must delve into the sordid stories that were part of his past. His disrespect for women may be traced to a number of problems including his being molested as a toddler. He had a predisposition for alcohol addiction, and the life of a baseball player places one where each city on the road had temptations that beckoned the unwary player. Mantle was one to state that, "If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself." Mantle's father among other relatives were lucky to reach the age of forty, and Mickey was one to say that "I didn't want to get cheated." Live fast, love hard, die young, and leave a beautiful memory appeared to be his motto, and fellow Yankees such as Billy Martin, Whitey Ford, Johnny Blanchard, and Ryne Duren were others who suffered from alcohol abuse as well.

A.E. Houseman wrote, "And early though the laurel grows it withers quicker than the rose." Fame is fleeting and Mantle was lost when age and years of bodily abuse robbed him of his ability to perform on the baseball diamond. He frustrated Manager Casey Stengel since Stengel could see that Mantle could be even better than he was if he just took care of himself. Of course, Casey encouraged his wandering players to go out on the town since he didn't want his players doing their drinking in the team's hotel because that's where he did his drinking. When Stengel was asked who was the best player he ever had he named DiMaggio and not Mantle. This, despite the fact that Stengel never had a good relationship with DiMaggio as well.

Mantle said the first time Joe DiMaggio spoke to him was when Joe called Mickey off on a fly ball to right center field in the 1951 World Series. How dare Mantle catch a fly ball when the great DiMaggio was there to make the catch as well. This may have led to the mishap that caused Mantle to step into a drain injuring his knee. Throughout Mickey's career the ego-driven DiMaggio exhibited a jealously towards Mantle that author Leavy brings out in several examples. Mantle said he would always be sure to welcome rookies to the team because he remembered how he felt when DiMaggio ignored him in 1951.

Yes, there is a lot of profanity in the book including several anecdotes involving crude stories about the Yankee superstar. I guess to give an honest rendition to this biography all sides of his life must be included. Fame is, indeed, fleeting and glory is sure to fade. Mantle enjoyed being around his teammates relishing continued adolescence in the clubhouse atmosphere and enjoying making the rounds at Toots Shor's and other eateries around the league. This continued abuse, along with infidelity, and lack of doing the necessary rehabilitation after injuries couldn't continue indefinitely, and life after baseball wasn't something he spent much time thinking about.

As death approached Mantle began to concern himself with eternity. He asked for former teammate and Christian Bobby Richardson to visit him, and Richardson led him to an acceptance of Christ as his savior. In that respect the story of Mickey Mantle had a happy ending.

Tells the story behind the story of a great American Heroas he grows up to become a legend for the BNew York Yankees. THere are my little stories which show the private life of a childhood hero to many youngsters in the 50's and 60's.

Part of the author's (Jane Leavy) opening book dedication is: "IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER, WHO TAUGHT ME NOT TO THROW LIKE A GIRL." Her Father would be very proud of the fact that her daughter wrote this book the way she was taught to "throw". This book is written with the perfect combination of exposing without restraint the shortcomings and inappropriateness that was Mickey Charles Mantle, the *COMMERCE COMET*... along with the almost mythical talent and accomplishments this once in a lifetime player achieved. It's akin to the literary combination of a pitcher like Sal "The Barber" Maglie or Bob Gibson dusting you off and then striking you out with pinpoint accuracy.

As welcome as it is to see a new book that includes *MICKEY MANTLE* in the title... seasoned sports fans might immediately ask: What can possibly make this book different as compared to all the previous *MICKEY MANTLE* books? After all, "DURING HIS LIFETIME, MANTLE WROTE OR COLLABORATED ON AT LEAST SIX DIFFERENT BIOGRAPHIES, IN ADDITION TO INSPIRATIONAL AND INSTRUCTIONAL TOMES." "SINCE HIS DEATH, AT LEAST TWENTY NEW VOLUMES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE CANON." Realizing this, the author "PICKED TWENTY DAYS FROM HIS LIFE AND CAREER FOR CLOSER INSPECTION, EACH PIVOTAL OR DEFINING. THEY REPRESENT HIGHS, LOWS, FLASH POINTS, AND TURNING POINTS."

The varying range of these touchstones in Mantle's life is what elevates this book above the volumes of Mantle books that have come before. His beloved Father, Mutt Mantle's death... monstrous tape measure homeruns that not only first introduced the world to what the talent of Mickey Mantle promised to become... but a tape measure homerun that defined the catchphrase *TAPE-MEASURE-HOMERUN*... and additionally it is both surprising and captivating... the lengths the author goes to in order to possibly disprove the actual reported distance of a record shattering blast. There is also the famous (What isn't famous when it's Mickey Mantle related?) career threatening injury to Mickey in the 1951 World Series when he stepped on a sewer drain cover in the outfield. The author goes way past the injury itself in dissecting the dislike of DiMaggio and his personality and declining skills that helped cause the accident. Leavy does not hold back from discussing how some facts are not as they seem... and how time and memory shade long held beliefs. The fact that the author holds steady throughout the book in her approach of putting even time honored beliefs under the microscope is one of the main strengths of this book.

Additionally... like icing on a cake... the author sprinkles what can only be described as baseball poetry in the midst of her hardcore reporting. If you're the type of baseball fan that loved the movie *FIELD OF DREAMS* and realized that large portions of the script were poetic homage to all that is good about baseball... you'll be touched with the beauty of certain passages. Such as during Mantle's first spring training, when all the rookies were mesmerized, not only with their surroundings but the food. "IT WAS THE STANDING RIB ROAST THAT CIRCULATED THROUGH THE DINING ROOM ON A ROLLING CART. EVERY NIGHT, WAITERS WOULD LIFT THE PLATTER'S HEAVY SILVER-PLATED HOOD AND THE KIDS WOULD HELP THEMSELVES TO A JUICY SLAB OF PROMISE." And the sadness of youth and future potential lost after the horrendous 1951 World Series injury. "THAT OCTOBER AFTERNOON WAS THE LAST TIME MANTLE SET FOOT ON A BASEBALL FIELD WITHOUT PAIN. HE WOULD PLAY THE NEXT SEVENTEEN YEARS STRUGGLING TO BE AS GOOD AS HE COULD BE, KNOWING HE WOULD NEVER BE AS GOOD AS HE MIGHT HAVE BECOME."

As a kid who grew up in baseball crazed New York in the fifties there will always be the discussions/arguments of who was better *WILLIE-MICKEY-OR-THE-DUKE* and I have never seen it more fairly discussed than in this book.

I recommend this book highly.

It started with an excerpt in Sports Illustrated which featured late-night NYC carousing by Mick and other Yankee players. It was enough to make me want to read the entire book; after all, Micky Mantle was my boyhood baseball hero from about 1960 through 1966. I didn't think about him as much as I got older, but when he died in 1995 I read all the articles and being forty years old at the time, with my own experiences with excessive drinking and its consequences, I felt bad that my boyhood hero wrecked his liver and was quoted as saying, "Don't be like me." Anyway, after reading this book, I have a much better understanding of the man. He seems more like a real person, not just a guy on a baseball card. Jane Leavy really did her research,and the book was totally interesting, not a boring biography. It has a well-balanced combination of positive and negative stories, and while I was concerned that I might conclude that my boyhood hero was really a drunken jerk, I actually ended up liking him even more. Yes, he had a lot of flaws, but there were reasons for them, and he really was heroic at times. The title's reference to "the End of America's Childhood" is very accurate. You can't go back, as much as you might want to, and you have to live (or die) with the choices you made. I didn't intend to get all philosophic, but I really did enjoy this book, and I recommend it highly.

What a tragedy? One of the games greats' a drunk, fool, sexist, and jerk. I thought this would be more of a chronology of his baseball career. All we get are medical reports of his bad knees, and boring stories of long home runs. Poor Mick!

This book reveals another side to the iconic Mantle. Flawed in many ways,yet he was a hero to almost every kid of my era. A life that was ultimately sad for such a great athlete. I couldn't put it down.