And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me
And nothing else at all
I’ve been a Mickey Mantle fan for as long as I can remember, and I thought I knew just about everything there was to know about him.
But I recently learned something new about Mantle – namely that he had identical twin brothers who also played professional baseball.
Ray and Roy Mantle were five years younger than their legendary older sibling. Ray was a righty and Roy was a lefty, indicating that they were mirror-image twins. (I have identical twin daughters, one of whom is a righty and the other of whom is a lefty.)
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| Mickey Mantle flanked by his brothers Roy and Ray |
The twins signed contracts with New York just after graduating from Commerce (OK) High School in 1954, and were assigned to the Yankees’ class D Sooner State League team in nearby McAlester.
Both were promoted to the Yankees’ class C Monroe, Louisiana affiliate in 1955. Roy had a decent year, hitting .273/.368/.405 in 101 games and appearing in the Cotton States League all-star game. But Ray’s slash line was only .220/.287/.326, and he decided to give up baseball and enlist in the Army.
Roy split the 1955 season between class C and class B. Like Mickey, he had a good batting eye – he had almost as many walks as hits, so his on-base percentage was excellent – but he hit only two home runs in 72 games. He suffered a leg injury midway through the season and retired from baseball.
Both brothers ended up in Las Vegas, working for casinos and playing a lot of golf.
* * * * *
Mickey Mantle had four sons. The oldest – Mickey Jr. – was born in my hometown (Joplin, Missouri) less than a year after I was born.
If your name is Mickey Mantle Jr., you pretty much have to try to play baseball – right?
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| Mickey Mantle with his oldest son, Mickey Jr. |
Mickey Jr. tried but failed. He played briefly with the minor-league Alexandria (VA) Dukes in 1978 – the year after I moved to the Washington area – and he was horrible, batting .070 and striking out in almost half of his at-bats.
* * * * *
From what I can tell, Mickey Jr. was the only one of Mickey’s sons who attempted to play baseball professionally. However, all four sons did follow in their father’s footsteps in another way: at one time or another. they all spent time at the Betty Ford Clinic.
Mickey Mantle was far from being a teetotaler during his playing days, but his drinking got completely out of control after he retired from baseball. Alcoholism ran in his mother’s family, so perhaps it’s no surprise that he and all his sons abused alcohol. (Mantle’s wife also suffered from alcoholism.)
* * * * *
Mantle’s father’s family were cursed in a different way. His grandfather, father, and uncle died from Hodgkin’s disease – cancer of the lymphatic system – when they were around 40 years old. Given that family history, Mantle assumed that he would die young as well. (“If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself,” he was quoted as saying later in life.)
Mickey’s brother Roy died of Hodgkin’s disease when he was 65. Ray succumbed to another form of cancer 12 years later.)
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| Mickey Mantle with his parents |
Mickey’s youngest son, Billy, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s when he was only 19. Billy was getting treatment at a drug and alcohol rehab clinic in Dallas when he had a heart attack and died in 1994. He was 36 years old.
Mickey had just gotten out of the Betty Ford Clinic when Billy died, and he managed to stay on the wagon for the remaining 17 months of his life. He was diagnosed with an inoperable liver cancer early in 1995, and received a liver transplant that June. But his cancer was unusually aggressive – the antirejection drugs given to Mantle after his transplant may have accelerated the cancer’s spread – and he died on August 13, 1995.
Mickey Mantle Jr. was 47 when he succumbed to cancer in 2000.
Mantle’s two other sons, David and Danny, are still alive. Click here to see a video of them throwing out the first ball at Yankee Stadium in 2016.
* * * * *
Weeks before his death, Mantle had held a press conference and said these words to the people who viewed him as a role model: “This is a role model: don't be like me.”
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| Mickey Mantle at his final public appearance in 1995 |
Sportscaster Bob Costas distinguished between role models and heroes when he eulogized Mantle at his funeral:
In the last year of his life, Mickey Mantle, always so hard on himself, finally came to accept and appreciate the distinction between a role model and a hero. The first, he often was not. The second, he always will be. And, in the end, people got it.
Costas – a fan of Mantle’s since he was a boy – went on to describe him as a fragile hero “to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic.” That describes my feelings about Mantle perfectly.
* * * * *
When I was a young man, I might have agreed to give up a year of my life in exchange for the experience of being Mickey Mantle for a day. (I’m guessing Costas would have done the same.)
Today I see things differently. I just turned 72, and I’m not willing to sell a year of my life so cheaply – there are a few things I might trade a year of my life for, but very few.
* * * * *
2 or 3 lines featured Roy Clark’s recording of “Yesterday When I Was Young” when Clark died in 2018. Here’s an excerpt from that post that explains why I’m featuring it again today:
Clark’s most memorable hit single was “Yesterday When I Was Young,” an English version of a song that was originally written and recorded by French singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour.
Clark performed “Yesterday When I Was Young” at Mickey Mantle’s funeral in 1995. “Mickey and I were good buddies,” Clark later told an interviewer. “He always talked about that song. One day we were playing golf, and he came up and said, ‘When I die, I want you to sing that song at my funeral. That’s my life.’ I shrugged it off. I said, ‘Naw, you don’t want that song.’ He said, ‘Yes, I do. Promise me.’ When he found out how sick he was, he called me up and said, ‘Remember: You promised.’”
Click here to listen to Clark’s recording of “Yesterday When I Was Young.”
Click here to buy it from Amazon.
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