I think its funny how yank fans think mantle was a god and cant stand aroid.
Anyone remember the 61 season?
Its likely that was not the only time mantle experimented with drugs.
Even Aaron took amphetamines when he got injured. Could he have reached those numbers without the drugs?
Look at the dip in production in the middle of Mantles career and then his return to superstar at the end.
Mantle is a good example of the hubris and hypocrisy of the BBWAA voters in this regard. Out of baseball for a year in 1961, former Yankees manager Casey Stengel published his autobiography. In it, Stengel named two personal all-star teams. One was of Yankees he had managed, the other a more comprehensive list of players he had played or managed against and considered the best of his time, an almost-continuous stretch of nearly 50 years at that point. Stengel's best player, Mantle, made the former list, but not the latter. Stengel listed six outfielders on his American League 1912-60 team, including three center fielders -- Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Joe DiMaggio. Mantle, who had done things like win a triple crown for the old man, did not merit even an honorable mention.
Casey Stengel and Mickey Mantle (Getty Images)
At the time, this was seen as an inexplicably callous gesture, but it was consistent with a stance Stengel had taken for a few years. As early as 1954 he had called Mantle out publicly for dogging it in the field and on the bases. In 1958, he had taken an earlier crack at a Yankee all-star team and left Mantle off altogether. Hank Bauer asked Stengel how the manager could have named him ahead of Mantle. Stengel's answer: "You gave 110 percent every time you were in the lineup."
How could any manager express disappointment -- and that was what Stengel was implicitly doing -- with a player who often played hurt, who played his entire career (as we now know thanks to Jane Leavy) without an anterior cruciate ligament in one knee, and who nonetheless was a two-time MVP in the Stengel years, with batting averages as high as .365 and as many as 52 home runs? The answer is simple: You could criticize him if you thought he should have been consistent at those levels, if you believed in your heart he could have been even better.
That seems like an unrealistic standard unless Stengel felt that Mantle was not giving his best effort, and we now know that he didn't.
For me the emblematic moment of Mantle's failing to keep himself in game-shape above and beyond the many legitimate injuries he suffered (catching your foot on a chickenwire fence is going to mean a broken ankle drunk or sober) is his yielding the home-run record to Roger Maris in 1961 because, having slumped in mid-September while fighting a cold, he went to quack doctor Max Jacobson, "Dr. Feelgood." Jacobson gave Mantle a shot of amphetamines, but delivered it ineptly, creating a major infection site that abscessed down to the bone. Mantle was effectively done for the season, as well as all but six at-bats of the World Series, from that point on.
Between the cold -- and Mantle's carousing means it's fair to wonder if he was more susceptible to a random virus than he might have been otherwise -- and the botched shot, Mantle was effectively sidelined for the last 10 games of the season. He trailed Maris by six home runs at that point, so chances are even if fully healthy Mantle wouldn't have made his own assault on the record, but we'll never know.
Anyone remember the 61 season?
Its likely that was not the only time mantle experimented with drugs.
Even Aaron took amphetamines when he got injured. Could he have reached those numbers without the drugs?
Look at the dip in production in the middle of Mantles career and then his return to superstar at the end.
Mantle is a good example of the hubris and hypocrisy of the BBWAA voters in this regard. Out of baseball for a year in 1961, former Yankees manager Casey Stengel published his autobiography. In it, Stengel named two personal all-star teams. One was of Yankees he had managed, the other a more comprehensive list of players he had played or managed against and considered the best of his time, an almost-continuous stretch of nearly 50 years at that point. Stengel's best player, Mantle, made the former list, but not the latter. Stengel listed six outfielders on his American League 1912-60 team, including three center fielders -- Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Joe DiMaggio. Mantle, who had done things like win a triple crown for the old man, did not merit even an honorable mention.
Casey Stengel and Mickey Mantle (Getty Images)At the time, this was seen as an inexplicably callous gesture, but it was consistent with a stance Stengel had taken for a few years. As early as 1954 he had called Mantle out publicly for dogging it in the field and on the bases. In 1958, he had taken an earlier crack at a Yankee all-star team and left Mantle off altogether. Hank Bauer asked Stengel how the manager could have named him ahead of Mantle. Stengel's answer: "You gave 110 percent every time you were in the lineup."
How could any manager express disappointment -- and that was what Stengel was implicitly doing -- with a player who often played hurt, who played his entire career (as we now know thanks to Jane Leavy) without an anterior cruciate ligament in one knee, and who nonetheless was a two-time MVP in the Stengel years, with batting averages as high as .365 and as many as 52 home runs? The answer is simple: You could criticize him if you thought he should have been consistent at those levels, if you believed in your heart he could have been even better.
That seems like an unrealistic standard unless Stengel felt that Mantle was not giving his best effort, and we now know that he didn't.
For me the emblematic moment of Mantle's failing to keep himself in game-shape above and beyond the many legitimate injuries he suffered (catching your foot on a chickenwire fence is going to mean a broken ankle drunk or sober) is his yielding the home-run record to Roger Maris in 1961 because, having slumped in mid-September while fighting a cold, he went to quack doctor Max Jacobson, "Dr. Feelgood." Jacobson gave Mantle a shot of amphetamines, but delivered it ineptly, creating a major infection site that abscessed down to the bone. Mantle was effectively done for the season, as well as all but six at-bats of the World Series, from that point on.
Between the cold -- and Mantle's carousing means it's fair to wonder if he was more susceptible to a random virus than he might have been otherwise -- and the botched shot, Mantle was effectively sidelined for the last 10 games of the season. He trailed Maris by six home runs at that point, so chances are even if fully healthy Mantle wouldn't have made his own assault on the record, but we'll never know.
