A Hero All His Life: Merlyn, Mickey Jr, David, and Dan Mantle: a Memoir

Mickey Mantle was the golden boy of American sport. A hero to millions, he embodied the ideal of small-town athlete made good every time he stepped up to the plate. Now, for the first time, Mantle's wife, Merlyn, and their sons tell the unique and inspirational story of their very separate, often harrowing private lives with the husband and father who lived in the glare of the public eye and how they came together during Mantle's last year to fight the cancer that eventually took his life.
Merlyn Mantle takes the reader from the early days of her courtship with Mickey through his stellar baseball career and her life as the wife of our first national sports hero, candidly discussing the alcoholism and rampant infidelities that would plague their lives together. In an unvarnished look at the events that led to their many dislocations, the death of their son Billy, and her own private anguish that she shared with no one, Merlyn discusses with unbridled candor how, despite the many trials through which they suffered, their basic love and connection to each other remained unshakable through the years.
Interweaved with Merlyn's story are her sons' vivid accounts of their lives growing up with an emotionally and physically absent father. They reflect on the peculiar difficulties of desperately seeking the approval of a man whom they dearly loved but whose struggles with alcoholism, coupled with the demands of being a hero to a nation, created emotional chasms that were not bridged until the last years of his life. Finally, in an inspirational story of recovery, they tell how they all courageously battled alcoholism during Mantle's final years, ultimately overcoming the disease with the help of the Betty Ford Center.

A poignant tribute to Mickey Mantle, the famed Yankee star who died of cancer last summer at age 64 following a failed liver transplant, this reminiscence presents alternating chapters by his widow and three of his sons; the fourth, 36-year-old Billy, died in 1994. The couple, both from the same small Oklahoma town, were married in 1951 and moved to New York City, a milieu that overwhelmed them. In due course they both developed serious drinking problems. The ballplayer was almost always on the road, either playing baseball or starring on the lecture circuit. He became an open womanizer, in two instances engaging in long-term affairs his wife was aware of. As the Mantle sons grew up, they became their father's drinking partners. All of them developed alcohol and/or drug addictions and were treated at the Betty Ford Clinic. Mickey is quoted here as saying he was a poor husband and father, an assessment readers will consider accurate, but his family expresses only love for him and recalls the qualities that endeared him to them. Photos not seen by PW. $85,000 ad/promo; simultaneous HarperAudio; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It only looked like the American Dream. When Commerce, Oklahoma, native Mickey Mantle, heir apparent to Joe DiMaggio, arrived in New York in 1951, Yankee manager Casey Stengel cautioned the press, "Go easy on the kid. He's never seen concrete." The press took Casey's advice, but the Mick didn't. Beginning with an introduction written by Mantle shortly before his death in 1995 and including contributions from Mantle's wife, Merlyn, and his three living sons, this memoir tells the whole sad story of an American hero's perpetual adolescence and the devastating effects it had on his family. Mickey's alcoholism--barely manageable in his playing years, out of control after--extended eventually to the entire family: Mick, Merlyn, and all four sons did time at the Betty Ford Center. We hear all the grisly details about the boozing and brawling and womanizing first from a contrite Mick and then from an ironic Merlyn and the shell-shocked boys. Somehow, though, this account never grates like a whiny talk-show confessional--Oprah Does the Mantles. What saves it is the stereotype-shattering voice of Merlyn, whose weary irony encompasses both love and anger. Her backstage voiceover, set against the dying Mick's genuine bafflement at how he could have screwed up something that looked so good, should echo in the ears of every American sports star. Bill Ott

Mickey Mantle's wife and three sons recount the life and death of an American hero.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.