This week (Oct. 11) in Sports Illustrated

Baseball gets the cover treatment as it heads into the post-season.

Tom Verducci does a profile on Rays’ ace David Price
Joe Sheehan on the Phillies and Giants pitching, and Twins and Rangers
Bruce Chen on the Reds

But of more interest to the Bookshelf is this excerpt from Jane Leavy‘s new bio, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. I’ve been trying to get this one for awhile now, but the publisher — Harper — was not sending out review copies until the excerpts appeared in large-market publications. (By the way, here’s an interview from Amazon.com with Leavy and Bill Madden, author of the latest George Steinbrenner bio.)

Leavy published Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy (P.S.) in 2002, which was widely acclaimed. Of perhaps less fame, she also wrote Squeeze Play : A Novel (1990)about — surprise — the trials and tribulations of a female sportswriter covering a baseball team.

I have high hopes for the Mantle book, since many baseball fans of a certain age seem to love reading about their childhood years. He’s the “last hero” (or one of them; Howard Bryant used that appellation for his book on Hank Aaron), the fair-haired boy of the Eisenhower administration, before the U.S. went to s***.

On the downside — and I haven’t read the entire SI excerpt yet — my eyes fell on these lines right at the top: “Men wanted to be him. Women wanted to be with him.”

Really? How many celebrities have had that written about them?

FYI, Leavy will be at the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls, NJ, on Thursday, Oct. 14, at 7: 30 p.m.

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Tagged as: Jane Leavy, Mickey Mantle, Sports Illustrated

{ 2 comments }

1 James Bailey October 8, 2010 at 1:11 pm: I reviewed “The Last Boy” for Baseball America this week. (http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/book-guide/2010/2610753.html). I thought Leavy did a great job with it. She spent years researching it and really brought out all facets of Mantle, including some that really made you glad you didn’t know the guy. I’ll be curious to see what you think when you get your paws on it.
2 Anonymous October 8, 2010 at 2:31 pm: Nice piece, James. I’m looking forward to reading it. As you say, previous books have told of mantle’s “sins,” and it will be interesting to read Leavy’s take. As you say, Mantle was look upon, after his retirement, as the wayward family member that the family still loves despite his transgressions.