7 revisited

Richard Sandomir, sports media columnist for The New York Times, <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/sports/baseball/05mantle.html”>opines on Peter Golenbock’s new "salacious" novel on Mickey Mantle</a> which includes sexually explicit descrpoiotns of his brief fling with Marilyn Monroe.

"What is it about Mantle that makes him fascinating enough to have become <a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=190,height=240,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/05mantle_1_190.jpg”><img title=”05mantle_1_190″ height=”189″ alt=”05mantle_1_190″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/05mantle_1_190.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> <a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=160,height=123,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/sndomir.jpg”></a>something of a literary muse?," Sandomir asks. "He brought his great talent from the country to the New York spotlight; he hit massive home runs but had a body that was breaking down even before he put on a Yankees uniform; he was a blond, blue-eyed Adonis loved by men and women who played in 12 World Series in his first 14 seasons And in his final acts, which would lead him to that Golenbockian heaven, came alcoholism treatment, public atonement, a liver transplant and death by cancer."

The column offers ruminations from baseball authors including Robert Creamer, Bruce Markuseen, and David Falkner, who wrote The Last Hero: The Life of Mickey Mantle.

Mantle colaborated on several books including The Education of a Baseball Player, written with Bob Smith (1967); Herb Gluck on The Mick (1985); Phil Pepe on My Favorite Summer: 1956, a memoir of his Triple Crown season (1991) and Mickey Herskowitz on All My Octobers, a World Series reminiscence (1994).

In all, Mantle was the subject of some 20 books, but none of them delved into his womanizing in any great detail.