Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 14, 1995                   TAG: 9508150018
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By HAL BOCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

MANTLE'S TALENTS WERE AS GREAT AS HIS LEGEND

It was there when he took batting practice, when other players would stop and watch his cuts.

It was there when he ran the bases, flashing speed few players possessed.

It was there in the outfield, running down balls in the vast expanses of Yankee Stadium.

Definitely not ordinary.

If Yankee Stadium was the House that Ruth built and DiMaggio decorated, it was where Mantle set up housekeeping.

The Yankees brought up Mantle in 1951, just as Joe DiMaggio's career was ending. The rookie was not greeted warmly by New York fans, who preferred DiMaggio to a new kid.

This, though, wasn't just any kid. ``The Mick'' was a switch-hitter with speed and power, a recipe for stardom.

It was an era of slow-footed sluggers and runners advancing one base at a time. Mantle could slug with the best of them. He would hit a homer in one at-bat, then beat out a bunt the next time. He could steal a base, or go from first to third on a single.

He struggled in his first year. The Yankees sent Mantle back to the minors for a while. He even talked about quitting the game. By season's end, though, he was back in New York, playing right field alongside DiMaggio in the World Series.

And then, disaster.

Pursuing a fly ball in Game 2 of the 1951 World Series against the Giants, Mantle pulled up when he saw DiMaggio settling under it. When Mantle stopped, he stepped on a drainage cap in the outfield and went down as if he had been shot. He tore up his right knee that day, the first of many injuries to his legs that ultimately sapped his natural speed.

The next year, DiMaggio was gone and center field at Yankee Stadium was turned over to Mantle.

This was no ordinary center field. It is a vast expanse of green that seemed to stretch forever. It was DiMaggio's playground.

Mantle covered the territory effortlessly. He ran down long drives, much as DiMaggio had, even saving Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series with one such play, robbing Gil Hodges.

And he could hit. Oh, could he hit.

In 1953, he hit a pitch from Chuck Stobbs out of Washington's Griffith Stadium. The ball landed so far away a Yankees official, Arthur ``Red'' Patterson, found a tape measure and had it measured at 565 feet. It became baseball's first tape-measure home run.

Then there was the drive he hit off Pedro Ramos that came within inches of clearing the right-field roof at Yankee Stadium. No fair ball has ever been hit out of that ballpark. This one almost was, glancing off the facade. He matched that feat in 1963.

When Mantle hit a homer, there was no showboating, no standing in the batter's box to admire his feat. He would put his head down and trot around the bases, very businesslike, very classy. And when he got to the dugout, there were no curtain calls.

In 1956, he won the Triple Crown, leading the American League with 52 home runs and 130 runs batted in and batting .353. Ruth never won the Triple Crown. Neither did DiMaggio. The next year, Mantle batted .365. By then, watching pitchers, it seemed there was fear every time Mantle came to the plate. They had no idea how to deal with him, and neither did their managers. The lefty-righty strategy was wasted on him. He had power from both sides of the plate.

In 1961, he staged a furious pursuit of Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season with teammate Roger Maris, falling short when he was injured late in the season. He finished with 54 to Maris' record 61. But he gained more losing that race than Maris gained winning it.

That year marked a turnaround in Mantle's relationship with the fans, who wanted Ruth's record to stay in the family. Mantle was a homegrown Yankee. Maris was imported, acquired in a trade. The boobirds switched targets.

Mantle was strong and young and a Yankee. Now, with the fans on his side, he owned the town - by day and by night. He played hard on the field and off it.

But he couldn't stay away from injuries, mostly to his legs. Mantle would sit in the clubhouse before games and have both legs taped from his ankles to mid-thigh. His once easy gait around the bases became a stiff-legged trot that looked as painful as it felt.

Perhaps it was the pain that turned Mantle sour. In the dressing room, he would sit facing his locker, his back to reporters. He would walk away in the middle of a question. He thought nothing of shouting at a reporter, loud enough for the rest of the room to hear.

His teammates loved Mantle, because he was one of the boys and had that down-home, dry sense of humor.

Once, when manager Casey Stengel appeared before a congressional subcommittee looking into baseball, the old man went into one of his patented discourses, a melange of words and phrases that left everyone bewildered. Mantle was the next witness and broke up the hearing, saying, ``Whatever Casey said goes for me, too.''

But there was a surly side to him, as well.

Late in his career, with the Yankees struggling through a difficult season, Mantle delivered four hits in the first game of a doubleheader. It was a reminder of the player he had been. In the dressing room, Mantle wouldn't talk. When longtime Yankees official Bob Fishel tried to intercede, Mantle chased off one of the game's nicest guys with a string of invectives.

In 1968, his final season, he was switched to first base to preserve his legs. Detroit was on its way to the World Series, led by fun-loving 31-game winner Denny McLain. In Mantle's last game at Tiger Stadium, McLain telegraphed a pitch, a little gift to a legend. Mantle didn't believe it the first time, so McLain did it again. This time Mantle hit it out, one of the last of his 536 home runs.

After he retired, Mantle's demeanor changed. He was happy to talk - and a little bewildered at his celebrity status.

Once, at an auction of one of his old uniform shirts, he was astounded when it fetched $50,000.

``Fifty thousand!'' he said in disbelief. ``If I had known it was worth that much, I'd be sleeping in it.''

It was typical down-home Mantle humor. Collectors had turned him into a cottage industry. He appeared regularly to sign autographs, and recalled how men would bring their children to shake hands with him, introducing him with a touch of awe in their voices.

``They'd say to their kids, `This is Mickey Mantle. He's the greatest ballplayer alive.' It's a great ego-builder. It gives me goosebumps.

``Then the kids say, `Dad, that's an old man.'''

Not really. He never got a chance to grow old.