Mickey Mantle Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

Full name Mickey Charles Mantle
Born October 20, 1931, Spavinaw, Oklahoma
Died August 13, 1995, Dallas, Texas
Buried at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas (Mausoleum-St. Mark NE-N-C-13-A)
First Game: April 17, 1951; Final Game: September 28, 1968
Bat: Both Throw: Right Height: 5' 11.5" Weight: 195

Selected to the Hall of Fame in 1974
Named AL Most Valuable Player by Baseball Writers' Association of America (1956 to 1957 and 1962)
Named Major League Player of the Year by The Sporting News (1956)
Named AL Player of the Year by The Sporting News (1956 and 1962)
Named outfielder on The Sporting News Major League All-Star Team (1952 and 1956 to 1957)
Named outfielder on The Sporting News AL All-Star Team (1961 to 1962 and 1964)
Won AL Gold Glove as outfielder (1962)

MICKEY MANTLE
This article was written by James Lincoln Ray and is presented in part, courtesy of the Society for American Baseball Research

Even before he was born into this world, Mickey Mantle was being prepared for life as a future big-league baseball player. His father, Elvin “Mutt” Mantle, a former semipro player and a lifelong baseball fanatic, proclaimed that if his first child turned out to be a boy, he would name him Mickey, in honor Mickey Cochrane, who was the best catcher in baseball at the time.

And so, when Mutt’s wife, Lovell, delivered a boy on October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, they named the little slugger-to-be Mickey Charles Mantle. What the elder Mantle didn’t know at the time was that Cochrane’s actual first name was Gordon, and Mickey was just a nickname. Years later, the younger Mantle expressed relief that his father had not known Cochrane’s true first name, saying derisively, “I would have hated to be named Gordon.”i

By the time Mickey was 3 years old, the country was mired in the Great Depression. Like so many other able-bodied men, Mutt Mantle found himself unemployed and nearly broke when he moved the family to Commerce, Oklahoma, in 1934. Mutt had been lucky enough to land a job working in the Eagle-Picher company’s lead and zinc mines. The work was exhausting, dirty, and dangerous. Those who worked for many years at the plant were at risk for lung disease, heart ailments, and cancer. In fact, cancer had been the grim reaper of the Mantle family, claiming among others, Mickey’s uncle, his grandfather, and a couple of other relatives, all in their 40s or younger.