Mickey C Mantle

Mickey Mantle Famous Center Fielder Born: October 20, 1931 Spavinaw, Oklahoma Died: August 13, 1995 (aged 63) Dallas, Texas Batted: Switch Threw: Right MLB debut April 17, 1951, for the New York Yankees Last MLB appearance September 28, 1968, for the New York Yankees MLB statistics Batting average .298 Hits 2,415 Home runs 536 Runs batted in 1,509 Teams New York Yankees (1951–1968) Career highlights and awards 20× All-Star (1952–1965, 1967, 1968) 7× World Series champion (1951–1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962) 3× AL MVP (1956, 1957, 1962) Triple Crown (1956) Gold Glove Award (1962) AL batting champion (1956) 4× AL home run leader (1955, 1956, 1958, 1960) AL RBI leader (1956) New York Yankees No. 7 retired Monument Park honoree Major League Baseball All-Century Team Member of the National Empty Star.svg Empty Star.svg Empty Star.svg Baseball Hall of Fame Empty Star.svg Empty Star.svg Empty Star.svg Induction 1974 Vote 88.2% (first ballot) Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed The Commerce Comet and The Mick,[1] was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York Yankees as a center fielder, right fielder, and first baseman. Mantle was one of the best players and sluggers and is regarded by many as the greatest switch hitter in baseball history.[2] Mantle was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974[3] and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. Mantle was one of the greatest offensive threats of any center fielder in baseball history. He has the second highest career OPS+ among center fielders, (behind Mike Trout) and he had the highest stolen base percentage in history at the time of his retirement. In addition, compared to the other four center fielders on the All-Century team, he had the lowest career rate of grounding into double plays, and he had the highest World Series on-base percentage and World Series slugging percentage. He also had an excellent .984 fielding percentage when playing center field. Mantle was noted for his ability to hit for both average and power,[4] especially tape measure home runs,[5] a term that had its origin in a play-by-play caller reacting to one of Mantle's 1953 home runs.[6] He hit 536 MLB career home runs, batted .300 or more ten times, and is the career leader (tied with Jim Thome) in walk-off home runs, with thirteen — twelve in the regular season, one in the postseason. Mantle is 16th all-time in Home runs per at bats. He is 18th in on-base percentage . He was safe three out of four times he attempted to steal a base. He won the MVP Award three times, came in second three times, and came within nine votes of winning five times. Mantle won the Triple Crown in 1956, when he led the major leagues in batting average (.353), home runs (52), and runs batted in (RBI) (130). He later wrote a book (My Favorite Summer 1956) about his best year in baseball. He was an All-Star for 16 seasons, playing in 16 of the 20 All-Star Games that were played during his career.[a] He was an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times and a Gold Glove winner once. Mantle appeared in 12 World Series including seven championships, and he holds World Series records for the most home runs (18), RBIs (40), extra-base hits (26), runs (42), walks (43), and total bases (123). Early years Mantle was born on October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, the son of Lovell (née Richardson) Mantle (1904–1995) and Elven Charles "Mutt" Mantle. He was of at least partial English ancestry; his great-grandfather, George Mantle, left Brierley Hill, in England's Black Country, in 1848. Mutt named his son in honor of Mickey Cochrane, a Hall of Fame catcher.[9] Later in his life, Mantle expressed relief that his father had not known Cochrane's true first name because he would have hated to be named Gordon. Mantle spoke warmly of his father and said he was the bravest man he ever knew. "No boy ever loved his father more," he said. Mantle batted left-handed against his father when his father pitched to him right-handed, and he batted right-handed against his grandfather, Charles Mantle, when his grandfather pitched to him left-handed. His grandfather died at the age of 60 in 1944, and his father died of Hodgkin's disease at the age of 40 on May 7, 1952. When Mantle was four years old, his family moved to the nearby town of Commerce, Oklahoma, where his father worked in lead and zinc mines. As a teenager, Mantle rooted for the St. Louis Cardinals. In addition to his first love, baseball, Mantle was an all-around athlete at Commerce High School, playing basketball as well as football. He played halfback and Oklahoma offered him a football scholarship. His football playing nearly ended his athletic career. In his sophomore year, he was kicked on the left shin during a practice game, and he developed osteomyelitis—a crippling disease that was incurable just a few years earlier—in his left ankle. Mantle's parents drove him at midnight to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he was treated at the children's hospital with the newly available penicillin, which reduced the infection and saved his leg from amputation.