Time for Baseball: On Reading "A Season in the Sun" by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith
I got this autograph not long before Mickey Mantle died.
A Season in the Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle
Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith
Reviewed by Alan Good
I loved Mickey Mantle because my grandpa loved him—or because, after my grandpa died, I heard stories about how much he’d loved Mantle. I grew up in Joplin, Missouri, not that far from Mickey’s hometown of Commerce, Oklahoma. Mickey also played minor league ball in Joplin. He’s one of our only legends. Mickey Mantle. Langston Hughes. George Washington Carver. There were always rumors that Mickey played golf at Loma Linda, a private club for rich people. Something I never understood: if you were rich, why the fuck would you live in Joplin? I would play sometimes at Loma Linda South, which was public, harboring a stupid fantasy that I would somehow see my idol, like maybe he would take a wrong turn and end up at the pleb course. I was an idiot.
I wore the number 7 for a long time, but I had a better season, my senior year of high school, after I switched to 8, which had no history or baggage behind it. I learned from reading Mantle’s autobiography, The Education of a Baseball Player, that I should switch to center field. Like Mantle, I was too wild to play shortstop. In center I could roam and curse and fucking launch it. Moving to center also helped me have a better season; I was freer, less in my head.
Mickey Mantle was a good idol to have because he was flawed, and when I learned about the flaws I wasn’t disillusioned. I accepted that my heroes didn’t have to be perfect. I still loved him. In A Season in the Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle, Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, whom I have to admit I’m now extremely jealous of, strip away the bullshit, the phoniness, the manufactured image of Mantle, and leave you with the man. He was flawed. He drank too much. He ran around on his wife. He was a hell of a ballplayer.
Something many people live their whole lives without learning is you can love someone, or something, in spite of flaws, weaknesses, and mistakes. I’d suggest that you don’t really love Mantle if you don’t know that he cursed out an old woman from the dugout. You can’t love an illusion: “The sports journalists who knew him best largely hid that he wasn’t remotely like his public persona and was instead an often moody, angry, hard-drinking, philandering, flawed man. They sold Mickey like political columnists sold America during the Cold War.” The fact that his image was phony doesn’t take away from his accomplishments or greatness. You don’t have to buy Mickey as a hero, as a dutiful husband or moral paragon, to appreciate him, just as you don’t have to whitewash our history to love or appreciate this country.
I can picture the hardcore dumbasses calling the authors a couple of social justice warriors for suggesting that part of the reason America fell in love with Mantle was because he was white, a great white player at a time when some white people feared white athletes were getting overtaken by black athletes. The truth of American racism or white grievance doesn’t take anything away from Mickey Mantle. There’s no indication he saw himself as some great white hope. He just wanted to play ball, and even through all the injuries, pressure, criticism, and fuckups, he played baseball like no one else.
I picked this book up at the library, wasn’t sure I would get around to reading it, but goddamn I’m glad I read it. Summer’s coming. The Rockies, as of this writing, are half a game out of first place. My son, who throws right and bats left and looks like a natural hitter, is about to play t-ball. I’m harboring this delusion that if he keeps batting lefty I’m going to teach him Mantle’s drag bunt. I know I’m being delusional, ignoring numerous other factors, but it seems like this country really started going to shit with a purpose when football became the most popular sport. It’s time for baseball.
A Season in the Sun: The Rise of Mickey Mantle
Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith
Basic Books-Hachette
ISBN: 9780465094431
$28
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