DiMag & Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers - Hardcover

Castro, Tony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1630761249 ISBN 13: 9781630761240

Publisher: Lyons Press, 2016

Synopsis

In what Rolling Stone called "an epic The Natural meets The Rookie buddy drama," DiMag & Mick presents American pop cultural legends Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle together in 1951 as an aging, ailing Joltin' Joe prepares to leave the superstar stage of New York City while The Mick struggles stepping into the hero's cleats at Yankee Stadium -- so raise the curtain on Broadway! "A dream of a book..." -- Chicago Tribune
DiMag & Mick is the critically-acclaimed portrait of the two baseball stars by the author whose best-selling Mickey Mantle: American's Prodigal Son has been hailed by The New York Times as the definitive biography of the Yankee switch-hitting slugging icon. Historian Tony Castro, who is also the author of the landmark dual biography Gehrig & The Babe: The Friendship and The Feud, magnificently paints Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle in the pivotal setting of 1951: DiMaggio's farewell season and Mantle's rookie year. The book brings them alive as the old and young exemplars of what was a more confident, masterful age not only in baseball but in the country where they were held up as cultural heroes over two generations, symbolic of an America celebrating its recent triumph over Nazism and ever-curious about the new age of color television, rocket ships, and technology. 
DiMag & Mick is also the story of fathers and sons, rebels and heroes, and reveals the rite of passage of two men who would go down in baseball immortality - DiMaggio as he reluctantly prepares to leave the spotlight of adoration and hero-worship for glitzy world of Marilyn Monroe's exploding Hollywood celebrity, and Mantle in his awkward attempt to leave his country roots of Dust Bowl Oklahoma for the big city exposure and expectations of greatness being placed on him. Yankee legend and glory holds a special magic all its own, and Castro examines the heart and soul of that mystique, especially the bond of the players themselves and how that came to breed and spread the perception that there was any animosity between DiMaggio and Mantle - two polarizing personalities who drove many teammates away from one and galvanized their friendship with the other.

About this title

About the Author

Tony Castro, whom The New York Times has called the definitive biographer of Mickey Mantle, is a Harvard and Baylor-educated historian and author of seven books. Mantle: The Best There Ever Was is the finale of his Mickey Mantle Trilogy that includes Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son (2002) and DiMag & Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers (2016).

His other books include Gehrig & The Babe: The Friendship and the Feud (2018) and Hemingway: Spain, The Bullfights and A Final Rite of Passage (2016). He is currently working on a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Tony is also the author of the landmark civil rights history Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America  (1974), which Publishers Weekly  acclaimed as "brilliant... a valuable contribution to the understanding of our time."

His poignant coming-of-age memoir The Prince of South Waco: American Dreams and Great Expectations (2013) was hailed by distinguished Texas editor and educator Tony Pederson for its "startling and frequently disturbing insights into growing up Hispanic and talented in Texas in the 1950s and 1960s. He lays bare the tortured and sometimes heartbreaking soul of his youth and life as a young adult."

As a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Tony studied under Homeric scholar and translator Robert Fitzgerald, Mexican Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, and French history scholars Laurence Wylie and Stanley Hoffman.

Tony lives in Los Angeles with his wife Renee LaSalle and Jeter, their black Labrador retriever. Their two grown sons, Trey and Ryan, also reside in Southern California.

Review

This is a dream of a book. Castro, author of perhaps the best biography of Mickey Mantle, America's Prodigal Son, takes on the myth that in 1951, Joe DiMaggio, in his last season, snubbed the rookie who would replace him in center field for baseball's greatest dynasty. Castro offers a revisionist history of the friendship of the two Yankee greats. Castro reveals a fascinating bond where others, over the decades, found no relationship at all. (Chicago Tribune)

"There have been a number of wonderful books about Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, but none are as good as this one. I thought I knew everything there was to know about these two Yankee legends. Boy, was I wrong! Tony Castro has given us a great piece of sports journalism. Many of the intimate details found in DiMag and Mick are simply jaw-dropping."
---- Peter Golenbock, author of Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949-1946 and 7: the Mickey Mantle Novel

"For all their valor on the field, Joe and Mickey were complicated people off it. Tony Castro breaks that down in this revealing book about two American legends and what made them tick."

Marty Appel, author of Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees From Before the Babe to After the Boss


“Tony Castro resurrects ––warts and all––the Hall-of-Fame careers and personal lives of legendary Yankee greats Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. From Mantle’s baptism in New York’s glamorous and seductive nightlife to DiMaggio’s graceful feats on the field and publicly stoic departure from baseball, Castro has produced a remarkable work of journalism."

Dale Tafoya
Author
Bash Brothers: A Legacy Subpoenaed

Tony’s work illustrates the human side of the athlete. His diligence into the deeper life off the field shows that our heroes also have feelings and are more than just that homerun or double in the gap. It’s refreshing to gain the access into all aspects of their lives to see what really build these men into the immortals that they truly became.
-Andrew Vilacky, Safe at Home Ballpark Collectibles, Cooperstown, NY

“DiMAG & MICK” is a fulfilling book that will satisfy any baseball fans need for a look inside the real lives of these legends. Being a friend of Mickey’s for over 25 years, Tony has done an amazing job capturing not just the ballplayer, but also the man.
-Tom Catal, Mickey Mantle Museum, Cooperstown, NY

For one thrilling summer and fall, two baseball giants -- Joe DiMaggio, a flickering but still brilliant star at the end of a legendary career -- and Mickey Mantle, an ascendant comet in his rookie season -- played together for the New York Yankees, baseball's most storied franchise. In DIMAG & MICK: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers, award-winning journalist Tony Castro takes the reader beyond the field and the locker room and into the lives, loves, and heartbreaks of two of America's greatest sports stars and cultural icons, during a time when America seemed innocent and full of promise. DIMAG & MICK is a must-read for sports fans, for Yankees followers, for students of American history.

Ruben Castaneda, author of S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in D.C.

The on-field heroics and off-field lives of Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio have been well-documented. (And in Mantle’s case, in another wonderful book by Tony Castro.) In DiMag & Mick, Castro offers a fascinating look at the one season that the two Yankee greats played together, and how their lives intersected in both baseball and their respective social circles. It’s a fresh take on two men who have been written about many, many times before.

Kevin Tankersley, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Public Relations & New Media at Baylor University

In the genre of biography, it's rare these days to read a brand new story. It seems that every story worth telling has been told many times over. However, with his latest work, Tony Castro gives us a compelling and completely new account of the friendship - as complicated as it is misunderstood - between two of the greatest heroes of the sports world, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. This is not only an informative and vastly researched book, it's also quite moving... and, I dare say, a lot of fun. I enjoyed it immensely.
- J. Randy Taraborrelli, New York Times best-selling author

In DiMag & Mick, Tony Castro offers a revisionist history that turns out to be the real history and has found a fascinating relationship where others had seen no relationship at all. Your knowledge of the Yankees from the DiMaggio through the Mantle years isn’t complete until you’ve read this book.

Allen Barra, author of Mickey and Willie: The Parallel Lives of the Golden Age of Baseball

Edition details

• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1630761249
• ISBN 13: 9781630761240
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 296