| January 16, 1974 (36 Years):
Mickey
is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
March 1, 1969 (41 Years): Mickey
announces his retirement from baseball.
March 11,
1956 (54 Years): In a spring training game in St.
Petersburg against the St. Louis Cardinals Mickey crushes a
spectacular home run over the left-field bleachers, across a street and into
Tampa Bay.
March 12, 1956 (54
Years): Warming
up for what will be his Triple Crown winning season, Mickey clouts
a second formidable home run against the Cardinals, a one-hopper
into Tampa Bay.
March 20, 1961 (49 Years): In
his first spring under manager Ralph Houk, Mickey crushes a high home run
off Roger Craig against the Dodgers at Dodgertown in Vero
Beach, Florida. Mickey's left-handed drive goes completely out of the park
over the rightfield fence and disappears into the distance.
March 20, 1956 (54
Years): On
a tear for what will be his finest spring training since 1951, Mickey -
facing the Cardinals in St. Petersburg yet again - unleashes
another tremendous tape-measure home run, this one high over the centerfield
barrier at Al Lang Stadium, at least 500 feet long. Cardinals'
centerfielder Bill Virdon (Yankees manager from 1974-75) says it's the
longest homer he ever saw.
March 24, 1956 (54
Years):
Mickey hits yet another historic home run, this
time at Miami Stadium in Miami against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The ball goes over the 35-foot centerfield wall at the 400-foot mark.
It's the first time ever a ball has gone out of Miami Stadium
over the centerfield wall. The next day the homer is reported as a
500-footer by the Associated Press.
March 26, 1951 (59 Years): Mickey
crushes two monster home runs in an exhibition game played at Bovard Field at
the University of Southern California (USC). The first goes out of the park, across
the street bordering the field, and hits the second-story porch of the third
house down. Mickey's second homer - a moon shot if ever there was one - left the park in
right-centerfield and crossed a football field adjacent to the baseball diamond.
It may the longest home run ever hit, traveling 656 feet!
April 10,
1962 (48 Years): Mickey hits his last Opening
Day home run. It goes some 425 feet into the right-centerfield bleachers at
Yankee Stadium and the Yankees nipped Baltimore 7-6.
April 12,
1953 (57 Years): Mickey's first son, Mickey
Jr., is born.
April 13,
1955 (55 Years): Mickey homers on Opening Day
for the first time.
April 17,
1951 (59 Years): Mickey makes his Yankees debut
against the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC.
April 17,
1953 (57 Years): Mickey blasts a monster
565-foot homer out of Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. Yankees PR director
Red Patterson coins the term "tape measure home run" by
measuring the homer during the game. It may be the most famous home run ever
hit. The Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the longest home run
to be measured at the time it was hit.
April
17, 1957 (53 Years): Mickey
belts two tremendous Opening Day homers against the Washington Senators at
Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. President Eisenhower cheers Mickey from
his seat behind the Senators dugout. Both homers are searing line drives that
go over 500 feet, each clearing the 31-foot wall in centerfield. The first
lands atop a house across from the park and the second lands in a clump of
trees and rolls onto Fifth Street. Only Babe Ruth had ever hit a ball into the
trees outside Griffith Stadium.
April 20,
1951 (59 Years): Mickey plays his first major
league game at Yankee Stadium.
March 19, 1960 (50 Years): Mickey's
fourth son, Danny, is born.
May 1, 1951 (59 Years): Mickey
hits his first major league home run at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The ball
travels nearly 500 feet. May
5, 1956 (54 Years): Mickey hits his first
home run to strike the façade at Yankee Stadium to beat the Kansas City
A's
5-2. It's his first homer to nearly go out of Yankee Stadium. A's broadcaster
Merle Harmon says, "If not for the roof, it would have hit the subway
across the street!" May
13, 1955 (554 Years): Mickey has the only
three-homer game in his career and first switch-hit homer game – one righty
and two lefty – goes 4-for-4 and drives in all five runs to beat the Detroit
Tigers
in New York. All three homers are hit to the right-centerfield bleachers. Each
is well over 400 feet.
May 16,
1951 (59 Years): Mickey hits his first major
league home run at Yankee Stadium.
May 22,
1962 (51 Years): Mickey hits "the hardest
ball I ever hit" at Yankee Stadium off Bill Fischer of the
Kansas City A's. The ball
hits the façade inches from the top and bounces back to the infield. It wins
the game in the bottom of the tenth inning.
May 30, 1956 (54 Years): Mickey
crushes a homer off Pedro Ramos that nearly goes out of Yankee Stadium,
hitting the right-field facade. It's his second homer of the month to hit the
façade.
June, 1949 (61 Years): Mickey
signs with the Class "D" Independence Miners of the Yankees organization
on the day he graduates from high school.
June 6, 1955 (55 Years): Mickey
hits the first home run ever to go over the centerfield screen at Briggs
Stadium in Detroit. June
7, 1955 (55 Years): Mickey smashes the first
home run ever to go into the centerfield "black seats" at Yankee
Stadium. It goes 486 feet.
June 8, 1969 (41 Years): "Mickey
Mantle Day" - the third day honoring Mickey - is held at Yankee Stadium. 70,000 people attend.
June 19, 1951 (59 Years): Mickey
homers in both games of a doubleheader for the first time.
July 6, 1953 (57 Years): Mickey
slams his first pinch-hit home run, over 500 feet out of Shibe Park in
Philadelphia.
July 9, 1955 (55 Years): Mickey
has his first five-hit game with a double and five singles.
July
13, 1951 (59 Years): After striking out four
times in a doubleheader in Boston, Casey Stengel sends Mickey down to the
triple-A Kansas City Blues. July
23, 1957 (53 Years): Mickey hits for the
cycle for his first and only time. He goes 4-for-5, scoring two runs and
driving in four. His homer flies 465 feet into the rightfield bleachers to
beat the White Sox 10-6 in New York. July
26, 1952 (58 Years): Mickey belts his first
career grand slam into the upper deck in left-centerfield at Briggs Stadium
in Detroit.
August
4, 1968 (42 Years): "Mickey
Mantle Banner Day" - the second day honoring Mickey - is held at
Yankee Stadium.
August 5, 1954 (56 Years): Mickey smashes the
famous "Joe Collins" home run, one of two homers, leading the
Yankees to a 5-2 win in Cleveland.
August
6, 1954 (56 Years): Mickey
slams his first pinch-hit home run, over 500 feet out of Shibe Park in
Philadelphia. August 7,
1953 (57 Years): Mickey hits his first
inside-the-park home run as the Yankees beat Chicago 6-1 at Yankee Stadium.
August
11, 1954 (56 Years): Mickey
has his first two-homer game in a 7-0 win over the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.
August 12, 1974 (36 Years):
Mickey is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with friend and teammate
Whitey Ford.
August 13, 1995 (15 Years):
Mickey passes away in Dallas at age 64.
August 10, 2009 (1 Years):
Mickey's wife, Merlyn Mantle, passes away in Dallas at age 77.
August 13, 1996 (14 Years):
"Mickey Mantle Day" - the fourth day honoring Mickey -
is held at Yankee Stadium one year after his death.
August 22,
1951 (59 Years): Casey Stengel keeps his word
and brings Mickey back up to the Yankees from the minor leagues.
September
1, 1963 (47 Years): Mickey
hits the famous "hangover" home run in Baltimore after unexpectedly
being taken off the disabled list a day early and being called upon to pinch-hit.
September 10,
1960 (50 Years): Mickey wallops a tremendous
home run over the rightfield roof at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The ball crosses
Trumbull Avenue and lands in lumber yard. It was measured years later and found
to have gone 643 feet! The Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the
longest home run ever measured (after the fact) in baseball history.
September
17, 1952 (58 Years): Mickey
clouts a prodigious home run off the upper deck football press box to beat the
Tigers in Detroit.
September
17, 1958 (52 Years): Mickey
belts a mammoth homer over the roof and out of Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
September
18, 1965 (45 Years): "Mickey
Mantle Fan Appreciation Day" - the first day honoring Mickey - is
held at Yankee Stadium with Robert F. Kennedy in attendance. Among the gifts
Mickey receives are two quarter horses.
September
23, 1961 (49 Years): Mickey
comes off the disabled list to hit home run #54, his career season high, and
helps pal Whitey Ford win his 25th
game.
September 28,
1968 (42 Years): Mickey plays his last game –
number 2,401, the most ever for the Yankees – in Boston. Andy Kosco
substitutes for Mickey after his first at bat.
September
30, 1956 (54 Years): Mickey
beats out Ted Williams in the batting title race on the last day of the season
to win baseball's Triple Crown. His numbers: .353 average, 52 home runs, 130 rbi, leading both leagues in each category. He is only the twelfth player in
history to win the Triple Crown.
September, 1949 (61 years): Mickey
wins his first championship with the Yankees Organization as the Independence
Miners capture the K-O-M (Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri) league title.
October 4, 1951 (59 Years):
Mickey plays his first World Series game.
October 4, 1953 (57 Years):
Mickey crushes a tremendous first pitch grand
slam into the upper deck in left-centerfield as the Yankees beat the Dodgers
11-7 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. It's only the fourth grand slam in World
Series history.
October 5, 1951 (59 Years): Mickey gets his first
World Series hit but is
seriously injured when his spikes get caught in a sprinkler head while chasing
down a fly ball hit by Willie Mays. His right knee is never the same
afterward. Mickey's knee injury is the first of many career injuries.
October
5, 1953 (57 Years):
The Yankees with their fifth consecutive World
Series championship.
October 10, 1951 (59 Years): Mickey wins his first
World Series championship
as the Yankees beat the Giants in six games. He watches it from his hospital
bed at Lennox Hill Hospital in New York, where he is recovering from his
knee injury in the World Series five days before.
October 10, 1964
(46 Years):
Mickey
crushes the first pitch from Cardinals' relief pitcher Barney Schultz into
the third deck at Yankee Stadium for career World Series homer number 16,
breaking Babe Ruth's record. It's Mickey's "called shot" - he predicted
the homer to Elston Howard in the on-deck circle while Schultz warmed
up.
October 14, 1964 (46 Years): Mickey
adds to his World Series home run record by smashing number 17 to beat
the Cardinals 8-3 in Game 6 in St. Louis.
October 15, 1964 (46 Years): Mickey
belts his 18th and final World Series home run to set the all-time
World
Series home run record. It is Mickey's last World Series game.
October 16, 1962 (48 Years):
Mickey wins his seventh and final World Series
championship on Willie McCovey's dramatic line drive out with two on and two out
in the ninth inning of game seven.
October 20, 1931 (79 Years):
Mickey
is born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, a small town near Commerce in northwestern
Oklahoma.
December 5, 1957 (53 Years): Mickey's
third son, Billy, - named after Billy Martin - is born.
December 23, 1951 (59 Years): Mickey
marries his high school sweetheart, Merlyn Johnson.
December 25, 1989 (21 Years): Mickey's
best friend and teammate, Billy Martin, dies in a motor vehicle accident.
December 26, 1955 (55 Years): Mickey's
second son, David, is born.
© Copyright 1998- 2010 - Lewis Early |
