Mickey Mantle Was What Babe Ruth Warned Us About

In 1920, Babe Ruth hit fifty-four home runs. The entire St. Louis Browns hit thirty-seven. One man outhomered an entire franchise. Ruth broke baseball. He ended the dead-ball era. He killed Ty Cobb's game of bunts and stolen bases and replaced it with power. And he warned the world. The home run is the future. The game will never go back. Thirty years later, the future he predicted walked out of a zinc mine in Commerce, Oklahoma. His name was Mickey Mantle. He had Ruth's power and Cobb's speed and something neither of them had: the ability to switch-hit with devastating force from both sides of the plate. This documentary tells the story of the prophecy and the man who fulfilled it. Discover how Mutt Mantle, a zinc miner who breathed toxic dust that would kill him at thirty-nine, named his son after Mickey Cochrane and taught him to switch-hit using tennis balls because baseballs were too expensive. How osteomyelitis nearly cost Mickey his leg at fifteen. How Casey Stengel watched the nineteen-year-old hit .402 in spring training and told reporters the kid would be better than Ruth or DiMaggio. Learn how the pressure crushed him, how Stengel sent him to the minors, how he called his father and said he wanted to quit. How Mutt drove to Kansas City and started packing Mickey's suitcase. I thought I raised a man. You ain't a man. You're a coward. Mickey Mantle never talked about quitting again. This documentary examines the injury that changed everything. Game Two of the 1951 World Series, when Mantle's cleat caught on a drainage cover chasing a Willie Mays fly ball. The torn ACL never properly repaired. Seventeen seasons on two destroyed knees, wrapping both legs in bandages from thigh to ankle before every game. And the moment Mutt collapsed in the hospital hallway visiting his injured son, diagnosed with the same Hodgkin's lymphoma that killed Mickey's grandfather at thirty-four. Mutt died at thirty-nine. No man in my family has ever lived past forty, Mickey told friends. That belief destroyed him. Learn how a man who thought he would die at forty drank like a man with nothing to lose. How he and Billy Martin and Whitey Ford tore through New York's nightlife. How he showed up to games unable to see straight and still hit home runs four hundred feet. How Stengel shook his head: if he could just take care of himself, he would be the best player I ever managed. The film chronicles the greatest season by a switch-hitter in history. In 1956, Mantle hit .353 with 52 home runs and 130 RBI, winning the Triple Crown. He hit a 565-foot home run that inspired the term tape-measure home run. He nearly hit fair balls out of Yankee Stadium on five occasions. Ted Williams said the sound of Mickey hitting a baseball was like an explosion. Discover the 1961 home run race against Roger Maris. How Mantle was the sentimental favorite. How a contaminated injection from Dr. Feelgood caused an infection that sidelined him at fifty-four home runs. How Maris hit sixty-one on the final day to a crowd of 23,000, many rooting against him, his hair falling out from the stress. This documentary examines what Mantle accomplished on two destroyed knees. Three MVP awards. Seven World Series championships. 536 home runs. The all-time World Series records for home runs with eighteen, runs with forty-two, RBI with forty, walks with forty-three, and total bases with 123. Every one still stands. Bill James called him the player whose career was most diminished by injuries. Historians estimate a healthy Mantle would have hit over 700 home runs. The film chronicles the final years. The drinking that consumed four decades. The Betty Ford Clinic in 1994. God gave me everything. But I wasted it. The liver cancer. The transplant that could not save him. The press conference where he looked into the camera and told America: Don't be like me. He died on August 13, 1995. He was sixty-three. The man who believed he would die at forty had outlived his father by twenty-four years. The prophecy of early death turned out to be wrong. He had plenty of time. He just did not know it. Ruth created the game that produced Mickey Mantle. He warned us power came with a price. Ruth held the career strikeout record. Mantle broke it. Ruth lived recklessly and died at fifty-three. Mantle lived recklessly and died at sixty-three. Both left behind the same haunting question: what if they had taken better care of what they were given? The prophecy was fulfilled. The price was paid in full. And baseball has never stopped wondering what might have been.