Several high-profile ballplayers share Oct. 20 as a birthday.
Tops on the list: Mickey Mantle.
There are dozens of books about The Mick. Many of the more recent ones examines his flaws as a person well as his strengths as an athlete, including Jane Leavy’s just-published The Last Boy. Since this book — and by extension, its predecessors — have appeared much on this blog of late, I won’t go into detail about them. Here’s a link to more than 400 titles from Amazon, many of which are designed for younger readers.
Not only is Mantle a cottage industry, but he’s an indispensable part of any book about the Yankees, sluggers, baseball in the 1950s and 60s (as well as American pop culture of that era), and a component of just about every auto/biography written by or about any major Major Leaguer of that generation.
Mantle would have been 79 today
Also celebrating the occasion:
Keith Hernandez (57), who many believe should be in the Hall of Fame along side Mantle and Juan Marichal (63), who also counts today as his cumpleanos.
Hernandez is the author of three books, including Pure Baseball
.
Marichal ostensibly wrote his story in 1967 in A Pitcher’s Story
is available on Amazon.com,
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