Mantle

"Mantle's life story has been told many times, but it's never received as loving a treatment as this one." Booklist, Starred Review
Mickey Mantle is one of baseball's all-time greats. Playing for the New York Yankees for his entire professional career, Mantle was named to the All-Star team for 11 consecutive seasons, won three MVP awards, and was a seven-time World Series champion. He quickly became an icon who achieved hero status even while playing through injuries for most of his career.
In Mantle: The Best There Ever Was, Tony Castro makes the impassioned argument that Mickey Mantle truly was the greatest ballplayer of all time. Acclaimed by the New York Times as the definitive biographer of baseball's fabled number 7, Castro shares many of his personal conversations with Mantle, demystifying the legend and revealing intimate, never-before-published details from Mantle's personal life. In addition, Castro offers illuminating new insights into Mantle's extraordinary career, including the head-turning conclusion based on the evolution of analytics that the beloved Yankee switch-hitting slugger may ultimately win acclaim as having fulfilled the weighty expectation once placed on him: being even greater than Babe Ruth.
Drawing from hundreds of interviews with ex-teammates, friends, and family, Castro masterfully blends Mantle's public and private selves to present a fully rounded portrait of this complex, misunderstood national hero.

Tony Castro, an American historian and Nieman Fellow at Harvard, is the author of seven books, including the literary biography Looking for Hemingway and the landmark civil rights history Chicano Power, which Publishers Weekly hailed as "brilliant . . . a valuable contribution to the understanding of our time." Mantle: The Best There Ever Was completes Castro's Mickey Mantle trilogy, which includes Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son, the best biography ever written about the Hall of Fame icon according to the New York Times, and DiMag & Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers. He is currently working on a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. Castro lives in Los Angeles with his wife Renee LaSalle and their black Labrador retriever Jeter.

Part One: The Best There Was
Prologue: "I've Beaten Gehrig"
Chapter One: The Hero's Widow
Chapter Two: Myths and Curses
Chapter Three: Of Fathers and Sons
Chapter Four: The Boy Who Would Be Best
Chapter Five: Eyes on The Babe
Chapter Six: The Child of Stengel and Destiny
Chapter Seven: DiMaggio and Mantle
Chapter Eight: Scouts, Taxmen, and Swindlers
Chapter Nine: Life in the Big Apple
Chapter Ten: The Fateful Day
Part Two: The Best There Is
Prologue: Breakfast of Champions
Chapter Eleven: Mickey Mantle in Excelsis
Chapter Twelve: The Prince of America
Chapter Thirteen: Now Teeing Off . . . Mickey Mantle
Chapter Fourteen: Holly Brooke
Chapter Fifteen: Down the Rabbit Hole
Chapter Sixteen: Svengali
Part Three: The Best There Ever Will Be .
Prologue: "I Gave You Such a Good Start . . ."
Chapter Seventeen: Best in the Game
Chapter Eighteen: Angels and Demons
Chapter Nineteen: The Last American Hero
Chapter Twenty: The Triple Crown
Epilogue: The Greatest
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
About the Author