SUPERMAN IN PINSTRIPES

By Steve Wulf

Leonardo da Vinci stood on one end of the stage, Mickey Mantle on the other. The Mick seemed a little out of place in the company of Da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Mahatma Gandhi, but this was my son's third-grade class biography project, titled Who Am I?, and an understanding teacher had allowed him to portray his favorite baseball player, a preference passed down like DNA from both his mother and his father. "I was born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, in 1931," said this child born in New York City in 1986, "and my father named me after his favorite player, Mickey Cochrane. I grew up in Commerce, Oklahoma, and later became known as the Commerce Comet...Who am I? Hi, I'm Mickey Charles Mantle."

Who was Mickey Mantle? According to the facts provided by my son, the switch-hitting centerfielder played in 2,401 games for the New York Yankees from 1951 until 1968, won the Most Valuable Player award three times, hit a record 18 homers in 12 World Series and entered the Hall of Fame in 1974. Although he was known as No. 7--my son turned his back to the audience to show off the number on the back of the uniform his mother had made for him--he wore No. 6 when he first came up to the Yankees as a 19-year-old rookie. In 1953 he slugged the longest home runs ever measured, 565 ft., off Chuck Stobbs of the Washington Senators, and in 1956 he won the rare Triple Crown (.353 batting average, 52 homers, 130 runs batted in). He accomplished all this even though he played in pain all the time.

Left out of the third-grade presentation were Mantle's depression over the death of his father, at only 39, from Hodgkin's disease; his constant and fatalistic drinking; his bumpkinish trust in swindlers; and the indifferent treatment he gave his wife and four sons, one of whom, Billy, died last year at the age of 36, having suffered from Hodgkin's disease. In his later years, Mantle tried to atone for his sins, entering the Betty Ford Center, freely admitting his alcoholism and making peace with his sons. Mickey Jr., David and Danny were by his side when Mantle died of a rapidly spreading hepatoma at Baylor University Medical Center early Sunday morning.

Who was Mickey Mantle, or more precisely, what was it about him that inspired the fierce devotion of four generations of fans? He was handsome, of course, in the way high school heroes were thought to be. There was music in that name; even he said it sounded "made up." He was a country boy in the big city. He came along at a time when the TV set became the centerpiece of the living room. He was Superman in pinstripes. The eternal debate as to who was the best centerfielder in New York City, Mantle, Willie Mays of the Giants or Duke Snider of the Dodgers, was really no contest, even though Mantle personally deferred to Mays. According to Roger Angell, the peerless baseball writer for The New Yorker, "You watched Willie play, and you laughed all the time because he made it look fun. With Mantle, you didn't laugh. You gasped."

There was something more to Mantle, something all of us picked up from his most ardent admirers--his teammates. They would watch him come into the clubhouse (sometimes after a late night drinking), tape his legs from buttocks to ankle, then go out and hit tape-measure homers. Unlike the aloof Joe DiMaggio, whom he replaced at center, Mantle was generous and funny and self-effacing. Even in 1961, when he and Roger Maris were chasing Babe Ruth's home-run record, Mantle was supportive of Maris. "I'll always be a Yankee," he once said, and indeed, he followed the fortunes of the club religiously.

Though Mantle had been sober for more than a year, 42 years of drinking caught up to him on May 28, when he entered Baylor Medical complaining of stomach pains. On June 8 he received a liver transplant that outraged those who thought, incorrectly, that he got preferential treatment.

Over the years, Mantle may have lost several fortunes, but he never lost his sense of humor. At a press conference a month after the transplant, Mantle spotted noted collector Barry Halper and asked, "Barry, what did you pay for my old liver?" The prognosis for Mantle was hopeful then. But an undetected lung cancer began to spread, and on Aug. 4 he re-entered the hospital.

Last Thursday some of his old teammates gathered at his bedside: Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer, Moose Skowron, Bobby Richardson, Johnny Blanchard. "He's got a tough battle," said Richardson. "But every time he talks there's a laugh in his voice." Mantle was said to be especially appreciative of an autographed "Get Well, Mick" ball from the 1995 Yankees.

Imagine. Baseball's most cherished autographer touched by a ball signed by the current Yanks. But then, that was Mickey Mantle.