Sport: Mick & the Babe

Aside from some secondary, late-season statistics, the American League pennant race is over. The Yankees are in. Yet even Yankee haters are still watching the ball games, for these days the Yanks supply their own competition. Every inning that he comes to bat, their broad-backed slugger, Mickey Charles Mantle, tangles with one of baseball's fanciest records: the massive total of 60 home runs hit by the Yankees' Babe Ruth during the 1927 season.

At week's end the Oklahoma Kid had 117 out of 154 games behind him; 42 homers were already in the book (10 righthanded, 32 lefthanded). He was eight games...

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