Mickey Mantle Biography - Life, Childhood, Death, History, Wife ...

Quick rise to the majors

Mantle reported to the Yankees' minor league team in Independence, Kansas, in 1949 as a shortstop. After two years in the minor leagues, the Yankees invited him to their major league training camp. He earned a place on the roster, and the New York media soon began comparing him to Babe Ruth (1895–1948) and other past Yankee greats. Only nineteen years old and two years out of high school, Mantle did not immediately live up to the hype. He started slowly in his new position—right field—and was sent back to the minor leagues. Mantle's difficulties continued when, in 1952, his father died of Hodgkin's disease, a form of cancer, at the age of thirty-nine. Mantle had been very close to his father, and he took the death hard.

Mantle was moved to center field when Joe DiMaggio (1914–1999) retired from the Yankees following the 1951 season. He began to adjust to big-league play, and in 1952 he batted .311 with 23 home runs and 87 RBIs. That season Mantle began to establish himself as one of baseball's best home-run hitters. During one game against the Washington Senators, Mantle hit a ball completely out of Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. Measured at 565 feet, it is believed to be the longest home run ever hit. The New York Yankees won the World Series during each of Mantle's first three seasons, from 1951 to 1953. During the 1952 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, Mantle batted .345 with two home runs. In the 1953 Series, again against the Dodgers, he batted only .208 but hit two more home runs.