Mickey Mantle: The American Dream Comes To Life®
The Award-Winning Videography Program & Its Companion Volume
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Important
Mickey Mantle Anniversaries

in 2008
 
January 16, 1974 (34 Years): Mickey is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

March 1, 1969 (39 Years): Mickey announces his retirement from baseball.

March 26, 1951 (57 Years): Mickey crushes two monster home runs in an exhibition game played at Bovard Field at the University of Southern California. Mickey's second homer 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 (46 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 (55 Years): Mickey's first son, Mickey Jr., is born.

April 13, 1955 (53 Years): Mickey homers on Opening Day for the first time.

April 17, 1951 (57 Years): Mickey makes his Yankees debut against the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC.

April 17, 1953 (55 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, 1956 (52 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 (57 Years): Mickey plays his first major league game at Yankee Stadium.

March 19, 1960 (48 Years): Mickey's fourth son, Danny, is born.

May 1, 1951 (57 Years): Mickey hits his first major league home run at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The ball travels nearly 500 feet.

May 5, 1956 (52 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 (53 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 Tigers in New York. All three homers are hit to the right-centerfield bleachers. Each is well over 400 feet.

May 16, 1951 (57 Years): Mickey hits his first major league home run at Yankee Stadium.

May 22, 1962 (49 Years): Mickey hits "the hardest ball I ever hit" at Yankee Stadium off Bill Fischer of the 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 (52 Years): Mickey crushes a homer off Pedro Ramos that nearly goes out of Yankee Stadium, hitting the right-field façade. It's his second homer of the month to hit the façade.

June, 1949 (59 Years): Mickey signs with the Class "D" Independence Miners of the Yankees organization on the day he graduates from high school.

June 6, 1955 (53 Years): Mickey hits the first home run ever to go over the centerfield screen at Briggs Stadium in Detroit.

June 7, 1955 (53 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 (39 Years): "Mickey Mantle Day" - the third day honoring Mickey - is held at Yankee Stadium. 70,000 people attend.

June 19, 1951 (57 Years): Mickey homers in both games of a doubleheader for the first time.

July 6, 1953 (55 Years): Mickey slams his first pinch-hit home run, over 500 feet out of Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

July 9, 1955 (53 Years): Mickey has his first five-hit game with a double and five singles.

July 13, 1951 (57 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 (51 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 (53 Years): Mickey belts his first career grand slam into the upper deck in left-centerfield in Detroit.

July 29, 1952 (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 4, 1968 (40 Years): "Mickey Mantle Banner Day" - the second day honoring Mickey - is held at Yankee Stadium.

August 6, 1954 (54 Years): Mickey slams his first pinch-hit home run, over 500 feet out of Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

August 7, 1953 (55 Years): Mickey hits his first inside-the-park home run as the Yankees beat Chicago 6-1 at Yankee Stadium.

August 11, 1954 (54 Years): Mickey has his first two-homer game in a 7-0 win over the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.

August 12, 1974 (34 Years): Mickey is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame with friend and teammate Whitey Ford.

August 13, 1995 (13 Years): Mickey passes away in Dallas at age 64.

August 13, 1996 (12 Years): "Mickey Mantle Day" - the fourth day honoring Mickey - is held at Yankee Stadium one year after his death.

August 22, 1951 (57 Years): Casey Stengel keeps his word and brings Mickey back up to the Yankees from the minor leagues.

September 1, 1963 (45 Years): Mickey hits the famous "hangover" home run in Baltimore after unexpectedly being taken off the disabled list and being called to pinch-hit.

September 10, 1960 (48 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 (56 Years): Mickey clouts a prodigious home run off the upper deck football press box to beat the Tigers in Detroit.

September 17, 1958 (50 Years): Mickey belts a mammoth homer over the roof and out of Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

September 18, 1965 (43 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 (47 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 (40 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 (52 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 (59 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 (57 Years): Mickey plays his first World Series game.

October 4, 1953 (55 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 (57 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. It is the first of many career injuries.

October 5, 1953 (55 Years): The Yankees with their fifth consecutive World Series championship.

October 10, 1951 (57 Years): Mickey wins his first World Series championship as the Yankees beat the Giants in six games.

October 10, 1964 (44 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 (44 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 (44 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 (46 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 (77 Years): Mickey is born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, a small town near Commerce in northwestern Oklahoma.

December 5, 1957 (51 Years): Mickey's third son, Billy, - named after Billy Martin - is born.

December 23, 1951 (57 Years): Mickey marries his high school sweetheart, Merlyn Johnson.

December 25, 1989 (19 Years): Mickey's best friend and teammate, Billy Martin, dies in a car accident.

December 26, 1955 (53 Years): Mickey's second son, David, is born.

© Copyright 1998- 2008 - Lewis Early

 

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