Before I was even a teenager in the 1960's, baseball was most kids favorite sport to watch and follow. The New York Yankees were the best team most of those years; at least to the middle 60's. I was a Yankee fan. They had pretty much the same players every year or at least it seemed like it. There was Elston Howard and Yogi Berra catching. Whitey Ford, Steve Hamilton, and Mel Stottlemyre were the pitchers I remember the most. Al Downing is also memorable. Joe Pepitone and Moose Skowron were the first basement. Tony Kubek was at shortstop and Bobby Richardson played second. Clete Boyer was the third baseman. The awesome outfield was Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Tom Tresh.
I remember 1961 when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's record and hit 61 home runs. What a year!! A lot of the year it looked like Mantle would break the record and then he got hurt. Years later I found out that people didn't like Roger Maris because he broke the "Babes" record and many thought that Mantle should have broke it if anybody did.
I am presently reading "The Last Boy Mickey Mantle". It is a great book but it led to to view Mickey Mantle a little differently than when I was a kid.
Mickey Mantle was probably even better than I imagined when I was younger. He hit mammoth home runs. Now he was my hero as a kid but he was a better hitter, according to his peers than I even viewed him as at that time.
But Mickey Mantle would not have survived with today's press. The press used to protect their sports heroes. I know the Nebraska Cornhuskers used to do a lot of things wrong but never received space in the newspapers or on TV. It was ok then.
The same happened with Mickey Mantle. He drank in excess even when he was playing baseball. Some of his best games came after a hard all night drunk. He is reported to have spent a lot of time with other women even though he was married. By the way his wife stayed with him until the end even though he knew a lot of these things were going on. Mantle later died of alcohol.
I didn't realize when I was following the Yankees as a kid the injuries that Mantle suffered. He had so many that we never really saw him reach his REAL potential. Mantle's knee had so many scars from operations that he never wanted to wear shorts when in public.
The Yankees were dominated by white players. Al Downing and Elston Howard were a couple of players who weren't. This may have attributed to their downfall in the late 60's. The National League had embraced non-white players and they went past the Yankees and the American League during this time.
The late 50's and during the 60's major league baseball was everything. You found a way to watch the game of the week. I can remember Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean did a lot of the games I used to watch. It was a very special time and unlike today when you could watch every game on TV if you want to pay for it.
I looked at every newspaper during the baseball season to see how my Mickey Mantle had done the day before. I followed Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax. I liked the Minnesota Twins and I followed Harmon Killebrew. I remember actually listening to the Houston Astros, of all teams,on the radio. Joe Morgan, Nolan Ryan, and Rusty Staub are some of the players I remember following. Those were the days.
I would be curious to know if others have memories from this time.
