Over the Holiday, on a very long flight, I read the most recent baseball biography by Jane Leavy, this one on Mickey Mantle.
When I finished, I was troubled and more than a bit unsettled.
Compared with her effort on Sandy Koufax, my initial thoughts were this one didn't measure up..this was not what I wanted to read about Mickey Mantle.
I wondered why she would write in such graphic detail about the "off-the-field" life of her childhood hero. Why include his efforts to "hit" on her in the midst of another drunken stupor in Atlantic City?
Since finishing the book, I realize how much it has caused me to think. On one side, I am contrasting it to the impressions created by her book on Koufax. I am also contrasting the information with what I learned in reading "Willie Mays, the life and legend."
In the past 10 days or so, I have come full circle.
"The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle".. compelling. A great, great baseball player, a very tragic life and a family situation I could not imagine.
Super Human on a baseball field. Frail and poignantly human off of it.
Combine these 3 with the relatively recent books on Williams, Clemente and a few others..wonderful reading for those who grew through an era...with cherished and often times naive perspectives.
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