May 14th was Mother’s Day and this token was given to all mothers at the ball game.
It was Sunday, Mother’s Day, May 14th, 1967. The Yankees were playing the Baltimore Orioles. Stu Miller was on the mound for the Orioles. Ever since Mickey hit #499 eleven days earlier, when he would hit #500 became the main topic of conversation in New York.
It was the bottom of the seventh inning with two outs. The Yankees were holding on to a 5-4 lead. Mickey had worked Stu Miller to a full count. Mickey launched the next pitch deep into the right-field lower stands and became just the sixth player, in baseball history, to hit 500 home runs or more.
After the game Mickey said, “It felt like when you win a World Series – a big load off your back. I wasn’t really tense about hitting it, but about everybody writing about it. We weren’t doing well and everywhere you’d see, ‘when is Mantle going to hit 500’ instead of about the team winning or losing. Now maybe we can get back to getting straightened out.”
The Yankees won the game by a final score of 6-5. Mantle hit 36 more home runs before he retired for a total of 536 career homers.
Also one of the fastest players ever to play Major League Baseball
I’ll never forget meeting Mickey in 1980. We actually had a drink together at the San Jose Ca. Hyatt.
It was right after Dave Winfield had signed for all that money with the Yanks. Biggest contract to date.
I asked him about the signing. This is what he said: “shoot,,,if I’d had the year he just had, I would’ve been told to take a pay cut!” Back then George Weiss was the Gm and was incentivized by ownership(Webb and Topping) to keep the payroll down. The year after Mick won the triple crown in 56, he hit for a higher average but less home runs and RBI’s. He had to fight to keep from taking a 10% pay cut!!!
Mick was quoted as saying,”when we played we were stupid-now the owners are stupid”!!
God rest your soul Mick. Thanks for the memories.
Mickey was the greatest to ever play the game of baseball. He could do it all better than anyone. He gave me many,many,many exciting moments and thrills. Just to see him come up the plate,I would get all tensed up and excited. And he was a great team player.All the players looked up to him,not only the yankee players,but all the players. He commanded a great deal of respect,and he gave it as well.Mickey was truly the personification of the all American athlete then and now. God bless you Mickey,You will never be forgotten,and god bless your family.Truly the Magnificent Yankee
He is my all time favorite player. I was fortunate to see Mickey play and saw one of his towering shots into the third deck of right field. Imagine what even more impressive stats he would have put up were it not for the injuries. He had it all, power, strength, speed. I also wonder, what if he had played for another team? Maybe, he is not as famous, but I think he would have surpassed Ruth for career homers as hitting in Yankee stadium cost him many home runs. I read once that he and Whitey estimated that between long fly outs and doubles that would have cleared the fence, on average he hit about 18 balls a season in Yankee stadium that would have been homers in all other parks. Let’s take his most productive years of 52-64, or twelve seasons and that is another at least 200 home runs. People often overlook his defensive abilities. He was an excellent defensive player. I saw him play several times. And while there are people who will cite Pete Rose and Eddie Murray as having better stats, Rose hit for average and slapped the ball for hits (much like Ty Cobb). Murray, yes, he is the only switch hitter with 500 home runs and 3000 hits, but had his career extended by 4 seasons due to the DH rule, Mantle in my opinion remains the best switch hitter of all time and certainly the best slugger of all time as he hit balls out of the park from both sides. Many switch hitters have a much better side and do not hit equally well from both sides. Mickey did. He was electrifying, simply the best.
Years ago I did taxidermy for Mick. He expressed an interest in putting me in business. I remember talking to Rooster one day and was asked about how much it would take. I certainly didn’t want to disappoint one of the men I looked up to. I thought about the rock bottom start up price and called them back…..they got a laugh at my numbers. They wanted to give me 100 times what i asked for. I declined by saying I would rather remain friends and just do work for them than be responsible for that kind of cash. I’ve kicked myself for that a few times but have fond memories of our brief meetings and giving a young man a feeling of self worth…..Mick you were a regular guy in many ways…miss you.
Awesome ! I was lucky enough to see Mickey play in Yankee Stadium in about 1967 vs Detroit. I was even more fortunate to see him play almost every Saturday in the 50’s and 60’s on TV with my Dad. I think he was the greatest switch hitter and power hitter ever. Probably the fastest, too. He, along with Lou Gherig, were the greatest ever. Thank you, Mick, for giving us young kids hope in the 50’s and 60’s. God Bless You
I remember going with my uncle to Yankee Stadium to see Mickey Mantle do his stuff. Now this was during the riots in Newark, NJ. That shows that there was NOTHING that would stop us from going to see Mick hit his home runs. On the way home we saw a man approach a National Guardsman and saw the Guardsman hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle. Yet all we could talk about was the Mick.
I was fortunate enough to attend the game where Mickey hit his 500th home run along with my mother and father. The trip from central New York state to Yankee Stadium was a birthday gift for me and a mother’s day gift from my mother from Dad. Thanks Dad! We sat across from 3rd base about 5 rows up from the field. What a thrill it was to watch Mickey play baseball and to top it off with his 500th career home run was awesome to this 16 year old.
I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad and just waiting for the Mick to come to the plate. You just knew that when Mickey came to the plate some thing was going to happen you could just feel it.
Thanks for those little boy memories
You will always be my YANKEE HERO
In 1965 I was sitting behind home plate and Mick hit the billboard over the seats at the 457 ft left field sign. It was the loudest baseball I had ever heard being hit. A few innings later, Mick tried scoring from 2nd on a passed ball. It was the loudest torn hamstring I have ever heard. He missed a bunch of weeks but can remember that day as if it were today. Always my hero, even today.
I got Mickey Mantle’s autograph when I was 12 years old in the spring of 1965, in Bradenton, FL. The Yankees had won a spring road game 6-3, against the then Kansas City A’s at McKechnie Field. The Yankees had lost the previous season’s World Series in seven games to the Cardinals. It was Mickey’s last WS. Roger Maris had signed my baseball after the game and when I looked up, I saw Mickey sitting by himself on a small bench. I very nervously went up to him and asked if he would sign my ball. He said “Sure kid.”, with that big Oklahoma grin on his face, the smile that attracted so many to him. I also got Tony Kubek, the Yankee shortstop, Bobby Richardson, 2nd baseman, Joe Pepitone, first baseman, Tom Tresh, left fielder and pitcher Steve Hamilton to sign that ball. When I got older and played, like many kids before me, I always wore No. 7. I wore it to honor him in my own way. Mick went on to play 3 more years, though he didn’t have to. Many stats guys will tell you he would have been a lifetime .300 hitter if he had just retired. I wanted him to play forever. My Dad had taken me out of school that day at noon to see my beloved Yankees and the M&M Boys. I never forgot him for that, God rest his soul.
Went to Yankee stadium several times in the early sixties and saw Mickey and his teammates play. I tell everyone the best hotdog I ever had was there sitting with my dad watching the game.
I have a funny story related to the homer. My father drove a New York City cab, and actually drove one for over 50 years. The Friday before the game, he picked up Earl Weaver from some bar in Midtown. Weaver was as drunk as a skunk, and my father realized who it was right after he picked him up. My dad told him that we were going to the Sunday game for my birthday, and if, possibly, one of the Oriole pitchers could lay one in so Mantle could hit it for a homer. Weaver used some filthy language in reply, and still soused as could be, my father brought him back to the hotel the Orioles were staying at. Lo and behold, Stu Miller served up a cream puff that Mantle hit out, and we can thank my dad for putting the thought into the drunk Weaver’s head.
My wife and I recently drove through Commerce Oklahoma. My had never heard of Commerce Oklahoma, but knew who Mickey Mantle was. I mentioned that that was where he grew up. We googled his home address and went there. We were disappointed that there is no museum or open house to look inside. There is a plaque, and the garage that Mickey and his father used to practice in was still standing. We took photos of it, and the house, but were disappointed at the state of the property. The grass is mowed regularly, but the garage is falling down, and the house is sure to follow. I would love to see someone take charge of the property, re hab it, and open it up to visitors. It was done for Hank Aaron’s boyhood home, and it was a thrill to visit.
I was at a ballgame in Briggs Stadium in Detroit in 1959 at age 11, and the Tigers were playing a double header against the Yankees. I was sitting in the upper deck slightly to the right of home plate and watched the entire first game from there. Mick went 0 for 4. During the second game, I talked my dad into letting me walk down to the lower deck around the box seat area slightly to the right of the Yankee dugout. For a few innings I evaded the ushers as I trespassed in the area without a ticket. Batting right-handed, Mickey absolutely crushed a fastball and it went out over shortstop like a laser and crashed into the chain link fence in left center field for the hardest single I’ve ever seen hit. The ball couldn’t have been much over 9 feet off the ground the whole way out on its way to rattling that fence. A few innings later I was still sneaking around the box seat area when he came up again. Again batting right-handed, he topped a ball toward shortstop and lit out for first. It was obvious to me that he wouldn’t beat the throw, but he churned toward first digging as hard as he could. His face and neck turned red with the effort and the vein on the right side of his neck bulged as he tried to beat the throw. What I saw that day I will never forget; the power and violence of his swing and his maximum effort despite the certainty of being thrown out. Mick only went 1 for 8 in the doubleheader that day, but I was no less impressed than if he’d gone 8 for 8. I had seen the maximum effort in everything he did and the reasons that he was so revered and appreciated by the athletes that he played with. In this day and age, it’s almost inconceivable to think that you could play 18 years on a torn ACL, but that’s what he likely did. He fell victim to a subtle disease process that afflicts millions of otherwise fine people, and it unfortunately compromised his family life. Like many, I appreciated his coming to grips with it later in life and doing all he could to make amends. He remains the quintessential American hero. I don’t hesitate to educate younger people regarding his career.
Mickey Mantle was, and still is, my hero…and I’m 70!
At the end of his career, I would watch Mick at bat, turn to another channel until I thought he’d be up again, watch him at bat, and change channels again. Did that every game all season.