Strike One

Besides carrying the biggest stick in baseball, Mickey Charles Mantle, 29, speaks with a soft-selling voice in the world of advertising. A switch-hitter, Mantle has personally endorsed a clutch of products ranging from Camel cigarettes to an anti-smoking pill called Bantron, now leads both leagues in the amount of money he collects from testimonial ads--a sum so large that his business agent prudently will not divulge it.

Last week, stepping in to umpire Mantle's off-diamond performance, the Federal Trade Commission coldly advised the Yankee slugger to stop endorsing one product he admittedly does not consume: the milk marketed by Mid-West Creamery Co., Inc. of Ponca City, Okla.--which got the rights to Mantle's name from a dairy association that has him under contract. Well aware of the dangers of arguing with the ump, Oklahoma-born Mantle promptly agreed.

By snatching away Mantle's milk money, the FTC took a line that could put a painful crimp in the $500 million-a-year business of testimonial advertising. Does Arthur Godfrey really use Sucaryl? Does Comedian Tom Poston actually sip Heublein martinis? Is it a fact that New York Giants' Quarterback Charley Conerly deodorizes himself with Trig? If the FTC vigorously enforces its policy, an eager world may yet learn the answers to all these questions and more.

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