The Last Boy (61 page)

“One day I was standing by the players’ gate when a beer truck pulled up. The beer distributor said, ‘Hey, kid, you want to get into the Yankee clubhouse?’ What kid doesn’t want to get into the Yankee clubhouse? The door to the trainer’s room was open. Mickey was lying on the table. The trainers were stretching out and measuring yards upon yards of tape. He had to be put together like a mummy.”

—Yankee fan Paul Berkman

“What’s the one thing you miss the most about baseball?” Mantle was asked after he retired.

“Stepping in the batter’s box at Yankee Stadium and hearing that ripple of applause make its way through the crowd. It sounds farther away than it really is. Sort of like rain falling on a tin roof. When it rains now, that’s what I always think of. I’d give my best year in baseball just to hear that sound again.”

—author Richard Andersen, “The Dust of the Fields Behind Us”

“He just wanted to have fun and feel good. Baseball was his favorite toy. Life was his favorite toy. You wanna stay nineteen the rest of your life no matter how old you get.”

—Yankee teammate Joe Pepitone

gave me a Styrofoam cup embossed with a photograph of the young, smudged Mick standing by an Eagle-Picher pickup truck. I treasure it. Max Mantle drove one hundred miles to the gravesite of Grandpa Charlie to verify his age at the time of his death.

I cannot predict how his loved ones will receive this effort. I hope they feel I kept my promise to return his humanity to him in full.

Documenting this life was a team effort. Victoria Torchia, Bill Leggett, Jon Gaither, and Claire Ulak assisted me with humor and tenacity. The intrepid and uncomplaining Paul Janov at the Library of Congress located every historical document no matter how obscure. Tim Wiles, Ted Spencer, and the retired rock ’n’ roller Russell Wolinsky at the Hall of Fame were tireless in their efforts on my behalf. Larry O’Neal at the Baxter Springs Heritage Center and Museum in Kansas provided a guided tour through the archives and the landscape of the Tri-State Mining district.

Louis Plummer and Mike Owens at PhotoAssist helped me find the images that make words superfluous. Bill Richmond in Dallas helped secure legal documents. Marti Hagan, proprietress of Word Wizards in Atlanta, made the inaudible audible and translated it into the printed page with kind dispatch. Stu Hancock and Rick Prescott saved me from permanent computer angst.

Major props to the copyediting staff at HarperCollins—Lynn Anderson, John Jusino, Tessa Roush, and especially mensch David Koral; Beth Silfin, legal bodyguard; Kate Blum, P.R. maven; art director Archie Ferguson and senior designer William Ruoto; George Quraishi and especially Barry Harbaugh, who always had my back.

The indefatigable and irreplaceable Antonella Iannarino at the David Black Literary Agency always sounded glad to hear from me, even when she had no reason to be. Emily Parliman, office intern, is my candidate for Rookie of the Year. Ann Gerawa Hess held down the fort at home.

Knute Rockne had Four Horsemen. I have Four Davids. Dave Smith has been an invaluable reader and trusted friend since our serendipitous meeting, communing over Sandy Koufax’s perfect game. He read and reread, vetted and revetted every statistic in this book and managed to sound interested and make improvements with each reading.

David Black, adviser/agent/consigliere/friend, is my go-to guy. He
cares about books and words and the people who write them with a passion that is nothing short of heroic in a world that has little time or patience for either.

Dave Kindred, ink-stained wretch, wordsmith extraordinaire, first reader, is my best pard.

My editor and old friend David Hirshey, executive editor at Harper-Collins, is a tireless advocate, chivalrous and loyal, a Jewish knight errant in a fraught literary world. This damsel in distress will be always grateful for his protection, patronage, parsing, and patience. To press box cognoscenti, David will be forever known as Dr. Deadline. To me, he is the good and loyal doctor of letters.

Twenty years ago or so, I made an abortive attempt to write a memoir about life as a female sportswriter. I discovered the discarded first draft when I exhumed my 1983 Mantle files. The unfortunate lede went like this: “We both wore Number Seven, Mickey Mantle and me.”

In a moment of weakness, I sent the premature effort to Gerri Hirshey, who had the distinction of editing the first newspaper story I ever wrote—a sixteen-inch piece about the Queens College women’s basketball team. I didn’t get a byline, but if I had, she should have gotten one, too. Came in the mail a letter explaining firmly and deftly why what I had written should never see the light of day. But, she added: “Trust your voice. You have a right to have a voice.”

At a uniquely tender moment in my life, Gerri stepped up to the plate, wielding a sharp editorial eye and clout earned in over three decades in the business of words and friendship. She told me when to swing and when to lay off. She corrected flaws when my mechanics went awry. One day, near the end of the process, I received an e-mail, “your self-righteous scythe.” She was anything but—gentle, bemused, invested, and persuasive. I trust her more than I trust myself. It’s hard to say whether she’s a better writer, editor, or friend. Thank God, I don’t have to decide. This is the only part of the book she didn’t get her hands on. Undoubtedly, she’ll tell me it’s too long.

JL, June 2010

FICTION

Squeeze Play

NONFICTION

Sandy Koufax

*
Deceased since interview, as of July 2010

†
University of Southern California 1951 player/coach