Talk:Mickey Mantle/Archive 1

Status
Mickey Mantle was recently nominated to be promoted to good article status, and has passed! Congratulations and keep up the great editting! Highway 20:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

One of the greatest of all time cite
I won't dispute that he is one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but the citation for that remark (the third reference cited in the article) is from posting to the SprortingNews.com message board by a 13 year old. No offense to this poster, but surely there must be a more authoritative source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.185.21 (talk) 20:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree - looks like that one slipped through. Though I don't believe a source is needed, considering he's in the Hall of Fame - by default that would make him one of the greatest players of all time. And we're not saying he's specifically "the 2nd greatest" or something along those lines (like we are for the switch hitter part of the same sentence). I think for this we can follow Disputed statement and leave it as is - as this statment does not contain unlikely information nor does it contain information that would be particularly difficult to verify.--Yankees76 (talk) 16:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Rest easy folks. He has been on many lists as one of the greatest players of all and I mean top twenty or thirty and not merely Hall of Fame worthy. Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, for one source, lists him way up there. 65.79.173.135 (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2015 (UTC)Will in New Haven65.79.173.135 (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Discussion
A paragraph recently added to this article claimed that a film with the bizarre title Famous Yankees Player: A Mickey Mantle Story is due for release in 2007 from Disney. Attempting to check the title and the spellings of the people involved, I find that I can't find any WWW evidence outside of Wikipedia to say that the project even exists. This includes general Google searches, Google News searches, and searches on disney.go.com. Likewise, none of the names listed in the paragraph are established actors/directors according to imdb.com.

The linked-to Wikipedia page which is supposedly providing further details about the film is riddled with bizarre spellings and states "facts" that would most likely not be known until after the movie was made.

I think this whole thing is a fake. I've deleted the paragraph from this article; obviously if someone can confirm that the movie project exists, then they should put it back. On the other hand, if it's a fake, then the other page should also be deleted.

--Anonymous, 04:20 UTC, September 10, 2005

Inflation
A figure of $140 is given a Wikipedia inflation to 2018 from 1949 as $1500. However, an average US house in 1950 was $7000, and in 2018 was $210,000. Clearly inflation is not limited to house prices, but the 30 times inflation figure is more realistic than ten times. IMHO A chocolate bar or an ice cream has has increased in price from 10c in 1970 to three dollars now. DDB (talk) 02:55, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/622/MickeyMantle.html The Mick and a Miracle] to personify "The Mick"
Guyfl and sockpuppet, 68.201.28.24, please refrain from adding spam links to this article. I would suggest you read the External links style guide for Wikipedia, particularly, Links to normally avoid. Thank you. Yankees76 21:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I would also toss in http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/art_hr.shtmlas source information for the distance of the homeruns. The information within seems to be credible.

MMHomeRunsList.htm
A complete list of Mickey Mantle home runs year-by-year can be obtained using the Wayback Machine and searching the heading above, or with the direct link: http://web.archive.org/web/19990417033756/http://www.themick.com/MMHomeRunsList.htm

Movie Credits
Mantle appeared in Safe At Home! and That Touch of Mink, and has 21 IMDb credits.

GA Re-Review and In-line citations
Members of the WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 21:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

GAR
Mickey Mantle is currently up for Good Article Review. Those that want it to remain a GA may want to look at suggesstions to show their case at this time. -- Wizardman 16:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

GA delisted
As per the Good Article review on this article, it has been delisted with a 5 to 0 vote, primarily for weak writing and a too-short lead, and lack of references. Review archived at Good articles/Disputes/Archive 12. Homestarmy 22:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, a lot of baseball fans got tired of the overkill regarding Mantle. Just because he played for the Yankees doesn't mean he desevered all the attention he got at the end. I know a lot of baseball fans who got tired of Costas and his hero worship of Mantle. Mickey himself said he was a jerk.
 * None of this is encyclopedic, it's simply your original research, speculation and personal opinion. Yankees76 05:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Should add the following
One of the mysteries about his career is the flat spot he hit from ages 26 through 28, which are usually a player's peak career years, per Bill James' research, but which were off years for Mickey. It is very rare to see a hitter attain such peaks as he did at ages 24-25, and then to not have an excellent year again until age 29.

There is also another story within the story concerning Mantle, that he didn't win as many MVP awards as he really should have. Part of the reason is that sabermetric understanding of baseball statistics wasn't advanced enough in the 1950's to fully appreciate how dominant Mantle was in the American League, and part of it is that the sportswriting community appears to have punished him for having off years, even when those years were still better than anyone else was doing in the A.L. From a sabermetric standpoint it is difficult to understand why Mantle lost to Jackie Jensen in 1958, and to Roger Maris in both 1960 and 1961. Even Yogi Berra's 1955 MVP and Brooks Robinson's 1964 MVP awards are somewhat questionable in light of what Mantle did in those two years.

When you add in that Mantle was having another MVP-level year in 1963 when he broke his foot and lost most of the year to injury, he was statistically the best or arguably the best player in the league for nine out of the ten years that began in 1955. This is giving due weight to the fact that he had very high slugging and on-base percentages, hit into few double plays, and played a defensive position (centerfield) that normally is populated with much lighter hitting players. He gave his team a huge edge at his position that only Willie Mays in that era came close to matching.

My overall point here is that despite his fame, Mantle is ironically underappreciated as a hitter. He was more dominant, longer, than most sportswriters and fans realized.

i think we should change to the colors of the infobox to yankees colors #1c2841 and #6d7380 instead of the color it has
 * The above text is okay but it reads like a newspaper columnists opinion that actual verifiable facts. Can you provide sources for your assertations? I agree that the color should be blue. Yankees76 13:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Comments
Thgis article is pretty good, one comment I have about it is that it jumps back and forth a little too much. I personally would prefer it to be more chronological. Trevor GH5 21:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Prodigious/Abnormal Power Production
A section about his power, in that he was somewhat of a physiological anomaly, evidenced by the numerous 500+ foot home runs, his uncommon speed (before becoming injured), and his relatively small stature of 5'11 195 compared to players of the current era. All this without the help of organized strength training programs, steroids, tightly wound baseballs, smaller ballparks, nor the higher tech bats made for current players. Furthermore, pitchers of his day most likely threw at lower velocities than today's pitchers, making it even more difficult to produce the power necessary for such long home runs.

If someone else doesn't start it I may, but I don't have much free time.


 * This would mostly be speculation. I agree that Mantle was genetically gifted as an athlete, but comparing players from different eras in an encyclopedia would require reliable sources attributing these statements to experts/sportswriters. --Yankees76 22:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I added the note about Josh Gibson having been rumored to hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium, as there is no solid support that it actually happened, except for one teammate who said it did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.146.199 (talk) 01:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Themick website
I was looking for Mickey Mantle's official website and I do not think there is one. Is someone more familiar with him aware of an official site? The best I can find is themick, and that simply appears to be a privately run site with official merchandise. I think there should be at least a couple of really useful EL's out there, any ideas? //Tecmobowl

Tribute in Seinfeld
My English is not good enough, so could someone else fit this in in the Mantle article?
 * "Seven."
 * "Seven Costanza... You're serious?"
 * "Yeah. It's a beautiful name for a boy or a girl. Especially a girl... Or a boy."
 * "I don't think so."
 * "What, you don't like the name?"
 * "It's not a name. It's a number."
 * "I know. It's Mickey Mantle's number. So not only is it an all-around beautiful name, it is also a living tribute."
 * (George and Susan, in "The Seven")

Mickey's birthplace
I grew up in Jay, Oklahoma, and my baseball coach was an oldtimer that knew Mickey and used to go to every Yankee spring training session, where he talked with Mantle quite a bit. He said that Mickey was actually born in a tiny house in Eucha, Oklahoma, a tiny little town "down in the holler" between Jay, Oklahoma, and Spavinaw, Oklahoma. The family very soon after his birth moved to Spavinaw. I have no proof of this, but I know the oldtimers from that area back 30-40 years ago, seemed to all know this. I would be interested to know if anyone else has similar info.

Wantally (talk) 15:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Years in baseball
A "hidden" piped link such as "1951" to stand for "1951 in baseball is going to be clicked on by no one. Please consider not linking in this way in the main text or, indeed, the infobox, and putting the most important ones in the "See also" section, where they don't need to be piped and are explicit. Readers are far more likely to go there under those circumstances. Tony   (talk)  16:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Opening paragraph
The opening paragraph states that Mantle spent his entire career as the center fielder for the Yankees. This, however, is not true. During his rookie year, 1951, Joe DiMaggio was still the center fielder. I think this should be changed.
 * ✅ He didn't end his career as a center fielder either. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:01, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Longest homer he ever hit...at age 19?)
The Los Angeles Times carried a fine story today about an exhibition game homer by Mantle before he had played in a regular season game in the majors. Perhaps some parts of this story are worth editing into the article? See: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0326-mickey-mantle-20110326,0,5398006.story Publius3 (talk) 18:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

"Mickey Manta"
On the "Flipper" TV series (original run 1964-1967), one of the sons (Bud) suggests a name for a manta ray: Mickey Manta, an obvious take-off on the player who is the subject of this Wikipedia article. Does anyone else remember that? This happened when Mantle was still playing, although the show's premiere comes not far ahead of Mantle's last World Series appearance (Yankees lost to Cardinals in 1964). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.82 (talk) 21:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Mutt Mantle's persuasion
The article twice mentions Mutt Mantle driving to persuade Mickey from quitting while in a minor-league slump: in 1949 when Mantle was with the Class D Independence Yankees, and in 1951, when Mantle was sent down to the Kansas City Blues. I don't doubt that the incident happened, as I have seen video of Mantle reciting the anecdote. However, it is incredibly unlikely that Mutt Mantle would have done so twice; he would not have tolerated a second such act by his son. I have not removed either reference, because I do not know which one is accurate. The sources cited are contradictory. It is a strong anecdote and definitely has a place in the article. The question is, where is that place? → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 02:41, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

16-time All-Star (played 19/20 games)
Mantle is a 16-time All-Star (played 19/20 games) not 20-time All-Star. He was chosen to the AL All-Star team 16 times for 16 seasons and didn't play the 1962 All-Star 2nd game. Double All-Star games had separate lineups and reserve All-Star players (Mantle reserve-1962, game 2). Mantle was actually a member of 16 AL All Star teams not 20. — Preceding unsigned comment added by YahwehSaves (talk • contribs) 07:29, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand you. If double All-Star games had separate lineups, they should be counted separately. Perhaps we should phrase it differently, such as "He was named an All-Star in 16 seasons" or "He played in 19 of the 20 All-Star games he was selected for".  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 04:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

When a team plays a double-header they don't say they were different teams and a player that is on the roster of both games is a two-time major leaguer for that. The All-Star team is still the team whether they play 1-2 games a year. Nellie Fox HOF bio says he was a 12-time AL All-Star but here they say 15x All-Star. He was named to the All-Star team 12 times. Aparicio HOF says was named to the All-Star squad 10 times, here they say 13 times. You're a one time All-Star for the season no matter if you play or not any game. There is reserve players. They give Gold Glove Awards for seasons not for games. Does this help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by YahwehSaves (talk • contribs)
 * But it is not the same as a regular team playing a double-header. In the years when there were two All-Star Games, they were usually weeks apart, and not only had different starting lineups but completely different rosters, although with many of the same players. Each All-Star Game was considered a separate event.  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 22:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC),br.

Here you can see for yourself Mantle is a 16 year (16 time) All-Star (16 AS awards)
 * I count 20 times in 16 years on that page. The multi-year games are listed on separate lines.  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 04:26, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Spellcheck
"Mays' fly was hit to shallow center, and as Mantle came over to back up DiMaggio Mantle's cleats caught a drainage cover in the outfield grass. His knee twisted awkwardly and he instantly fell" That line doesn't make much sense. Either a comma or ... needs to be placed after Dimaggio or another word. 99.109.1.145 (talk) 11:03, 8 March 2013 (UTC)majinsnake
 * ✅ - fixed with a comma. Thanks for spotting that.--JayJasper (talk) 17:11, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Right or left?
Hello, can people decide whether they want pictures all on the right, or some on the left? Last edit moved all to the right..Super48paul (talk) 12:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

"Post-playing career" Section: Link To "Mickey Mantle's Restaurant & Sports Bar" Needs to be changed or removed.
I noticed in the "Post-playing career" section, there's a section that discusses Mantles business ventures, including the successful Mickey Mantle's Restaurant & Sports Bar located at Central Park South in Manhattan. The link doesn't transfer to a Mickey Mantle's Restaurant & Sports Bar page: It directs to the "Cuisine of New York City" Wikipedia page. The link should be corrected; If there is no Wikipedia page for Mickey Mantle's Restaurant & Sports Bar, then the link should be removed altogether.

". . . Despite the failure of Mickey Mantle's Country Cookin' restaurants in the early 1970s, Mickey Mantle's Restaurant & Sports Bar opened in New York at 42 Central Park South (59th Street) in 1988. It became one of New York's most popular restaurants, and his original Yankee Stadium Monument Park plaque is displayed at the front entrance. Mantle let others run the business operations, but made frequent appearances . . ." --Wiseguy007 05:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Mantle's All-Star awards (Awards and achievements)
Mantle received 16 All-Star awards (article ref: [19]/[66]), only one AS award was awarded per year including in 1959-62 when 2 All-Star games were played ([65]). Article "Awards and honors" section: "# of Times" (awarded) = 16 not 20; # of Years (awarded) = 16. YahwehSaves (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Best discussed at WT:BASEBALL since this affects a number of articles instead of just this one. There are good points on both sides of the issue, but if the discussion is spread out over too many pages, it's hard to reach good conclusions. Here is one of the past discussions on the issue at WT:BASEBALL. EricEnfermero (Talk) 03:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like Mr. Saves above was the one trying to make the change before and the consensus was clearly against him.. so i'm reverting the article back the way it was. Spanneraol (talk) 04:20, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The article introduction has this in case you overlooked it... "All-Star sixteen times". 16 is the correct # of All-Star awards (Baseball-Reference.com YahwehSaves (talk) 07:14, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * There's conflicting info in the article body versus the infobox. The question here is not what is in the article, but what consensus says should be in the article. Right now, as far as I can tell, consensus at WT:BASEBALL threads would tell us to use 20, not 16. If there are good reasons to use 16, it's really, really important to take that back to WT:BASEBALL. We can't do it one way at Mantle's entry and then rediscuss it at some other player's article. A solid consensus at WT:BASEBALL will allow us to refer to that for all of these articles. EricEnfermero (Talk) 09:01, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've posted a notice on the project page for further comment. Spanneraol (talk) 23:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Info box: Career Highlights and awards
Shouldn't this be "Career awards and highlights"? The Info box begins with "All-Star" which according to MM article ref: [66] is under "Awards" ("AS") - Baseball-Reference.com. The MM article has section: "Awards and achievements" and begins with "All-Star" .... YahwehSaves (talk) 00:12, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The info box is used on all the baseball articles and cant easily be changed. Spanneraol (talk) 01:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Assessment comment
Substituted at 23:58, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified (January 2018)
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Rookie Season / ACL injury
This section refers to an "exposed drain pipe". Although the incident occurred before I was born, the cause of the injury was repeated often during the 1950s and early 1960s, my childhood as a devoted Yankee fan. I also attended games at the old Yankee Stadium which had some fair territory behind the monuments in deep center. See Monument_Park_(Yankee_Stadium).

IIRC, his cleats were caught on a drain GRATE not a pipe. Drainage was important in that part of the field but I doubt there was an exposed "pipe" -- FWIW, I never saw one. Can someone clarify this part of MM's story with an actual source cited? Martindo (talk) 02:04, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Disappointment at not having .300 MLB batting average?
I recall reading something about that (and notice .298 here on Wikipedia). His MLB average was pulled down by his late-career performance. Carlm0404 (talk) 03:59, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Try looking up Mantle here: https://www.billjamesonline.com/300/ Carlm0404 (talk) 04:04, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Wording
The wording is terrible in many areas in the section about his career. I have fixed it, but Modernist reverts it, claiming "take it to the talk page." I have fixed the wording to be more concise and read better. I also removed some sentences and phrases that had nothing to do with the man. Comparing him to DiMaggio or telling people who started in an All-Star game over Mantle is unnecessary and pointless. Just leave the revision alone as it doesn't change any of the statistics or facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.7.177.7 (talk) 20:12, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus for this change...The so called changes are essentially unnecessary. The article was better before; context matters; Dimaggio and other All Star ballplayers were and are important to the historical context that Mantle played baseball in...Modernist (talk) 21:41, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking first at the statement about having the lowest GIDP% and highest SLG/OBP among the CFs on the All-Century team, has this been written about in a reliable source before? If that distinction has received significant coverage, then I think we might have a basis for referring to it as important context. If not, I'm not sure I feel the same way. Larry Hockett (Talk) 22:44, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

If you want to leave unsourced stats about the All-century team, fine. The description of his first home run is not necessary. The sentence about Dimaggio's retirement is unnecessary. If you want to say following Dimaggio's retirement, Mantle moved to CF, fine. But a paragraph in an article about Mantle shouldn't start with a sentence about DiMaggio. Put that on Dimaggio's page. The sentence about Dom DiMaggio is terrible. Nobody plays AT CF, they can play IN CF. "He homered for the third Yankee run in a 3–2 Game 6 win and he knocked in the winning runs in the 4–2 Game 7 win"-nobody who watches baseball talks like this. The way it was rewritten is much more concise. "Although DiMaggio's status was not yet in the cards, Mantle had his first 100 plus RBI year, in 1954, in a full season and regained .300 status. The next is arguably his first great year, as he concluded with 37 home runs and a .306 batting average."-the way this is written is terrible. Again, you can't compare DiMaggio to Mantle. Yes they were both superstars but in different ways. DiMaggio hit 361 HRs(almost 200 less than Mantle), batted .325 for his career and struck out almost 1400 less times. They were two completely different players. There are a lot of issues with this page. I'm only trying to help clean it up, but if you're going to be stubborn about this, screw it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.7.177.7 (talk) 02:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

20x AllStar?
Sumithar (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2020 (UTC) He played only 18 seasons, so how could he be 20x All Star?
 * , because several of those seasons had two All-Star Games. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:The Mick (TV series) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:34, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Military draft status in injury section
In the Injuries subsection of the Player Profile right after the description of Mantle's injury in the World Series, it says that Mantle was rejected from the military draft in '49. Firstly, I don’t think his draft status is relevant to his player profile, and, secondly, it is wildly out of place chronologically. I question if it is necessary to the article at all, but if people think it is I suggest moving this fact out of the Player Profile and into the Early Life section of the article. IrishStephen (talk) 17:22, 15 April 2022 (UTC)