Tramel: What if Mickey Mantle had signed with the Dodgers?
From Berry Tramel at The Oklahoman on April 29, 2020, with mention of SABR member Jim Kreuz:
The pinstripes. The centerfield monuments. The mammoth home runs. The World Series year after year after year. Bronx summers in the sun during the 1950s, the last decade of American innocence.
Did baseball ever beget a union as magnificent as Mickey Mantle and the Yankees?
The most beloved of all Yankees, the franchise of Ruth and Gehrig, DiMaggio and Berra, Mattingly and Munson, Jeter and Rivera, was the Commerce Comet. The Mick. Mutt Mantle’s switch-hitting son.
Paul Simon first tried to use Mickey Mantle for his lyrics in “Mrs. Robinson,” switching to DiMaggio only because the cadence of his name was a bit better. Mantle and the Yankees are the most romanticized story in baseball history.
But what if instead of The Bronx, Mantle had played in Brooklyn? What if instead of the Yankees, Mantle had been a Dodger?
Read the full article here: https://oklahoman.com/article/5661196/what-if-mickey-mantle-had-become-a-brooklyn-dodger-instead-of-a-new-york-yankee-its-not-far-fetched
Originally published: April 29, 2020. Last Updated: April 29, 2020.