Iconic Sports Shots - The decline of Mickey Mantle
Baseball Stories: The latest image in our iconic sports photographs series is of legendary New York Yankee Mickey Mantle
20th June 1965: Yankee Stadium, New York City, 72,000 people are watching as the New York Yankees played the Minnesota Twins in a double header on Fathers Day. Mickey Mantle is the Yankees hero coming towards the end of his hall of fame career.
Mickey Mantle was in his 14th year in Major League Baseball, with 1965 the season in which he started down the road of decline that inevitably comes to all sportsmen and women.
Micky Mantles arms - Making tree trunks look small since 1965
Mickey Mantle was a hard-drinking, hard-living and hard-hitting baseball player, who spent his entire career with the New York Yankees. Not only was he an exceptional baseball player, with remarkable statistics, but he was also well-liked as a personable and colourful character who was a regular on the New York City social scene.
His drinking turned to alcoholism and that plagued him, along with injuries his entire career, which make his statistics that much more remarkable.
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The image itself tells the story of a player frustrated with his form, throwing his helmet towards the dugout in disgust, following another unsuccessful at bat. Things that stand out from the image are the packed in crowd on Fathers day for a day game, and the sheer size of Mantle’s forearms.
He weighed around 88kg at 5 foot 11, which is a big human. To maintain this muscle mass and strength whilst drinking to excess daily shows what an extraordinary physical specimen he must have been.
One can only image what kind of career statistics “The Mick” may have had if he were not so found of the booze.
He remains one of the true baseball greats, and his record for number of hits was only surpassed by another Yankee legend, Derek Jeter, some 30 years after Mantle retired. In an age of squeaky clean athletes who are not allowed to drink, party or have any fun without intense scrutiny, Mantle is a reminder that at one point the superstars of sport were just like you or me.
