(5 of 7)
After the game, Mickey, his father and Greenwade talked terms. Greenwade offered Mickey a contract with Independence, Kans., a Class D (bottom rung) Yankee farm club, at $140 a month. Mutt Mantle, who had raised his son from the cradle to be a ballplayer, never considered demanding a bonus. But he pretended to bargain. He pointed out that Mickey could make more by working in the lead mines and playing semipro ball on weekends. In a day when raw rookie high-school talent was selling for signature bonuses of $50,000 and up Mickey Mantle joined the Yankee farm system for an extra $1,150.
At Independence, in 89 games, Shortstop Mantle batted .313. It was good enough to earn him a trial at the Yankees' training school at Phoenix, Ariz, the next year. After watching the 18-year-old Oklahoman run the others bowlegged in trial sprints, Yankee Manager Casey Stengel spoke his first words to Mickey: "You keep chasing them jack rabbits, boy" Mickey did. He moved up a notch that summer, to Joplin (Class C), and hit a walloping .383.
Shortstop Mantle made a mark of another sort: 55 errors. Scout Greenwade began to despair of his shortstop candidate. He phoned Yankee General Manager George Weiss, who carefully watches the progress of farm boys and records the doings of some 300 of them in an IBM index system. Said Weiss, with his mind on Joe DiMaggio, then 36: "Well, you know we've got to be thinking of centerfield. ' From that day on, Shortstop Mantle became Outfielder Mantle.
Trumpet Blasts. After his seasons at Independence and Joplin, Mickey reported to the Yankee spring training camp at Phoenix in 1951. What came next was a deluge of headlines. New York sportswriters watched Mickey for three or four days, then they reached for their trumpets. Some of the blasts they blew: rookie of the eons, Magnificent Mantle, Mighty Mickey, young Lochinvar, Commerce Comet, Oklahoma Kid, superstar, one-man platoon. Mickey lived up to the raves at bat. In the field, alternating between left and right (DiMaggio was in center), Mickey was beaned by a misjudged fly ball. But he was learning fast.
The Yankee timetable called for Mickey to play at Beaumont (Class AA) in the Texas League that season. Mickey, just 19, rewrote the timetable by his hitting in spring training: a .402 average. Casey Stengel took a chance and let Mickey open the season in rightfield for New York instead of Beaumont.
Swinging for the fences, Mickey was soon in trouble: he was driving in more runs than any other Yankee but he was also striking out more often. Playing a doubleheader in Boston, Mickey fanned five times in a row. The fifth time, he dragged back to the dugout and told Stengel: "Put someone in there who can hit the ball. I can't." Six weeks later. Mantle got what he expected: a one-way ticket to the Kansas City farm club.