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"What's the Matter?" After six weeks in Kansas City, Mickey was batting .361. Recalled, he found himself in the midst of a pennant chase, then in a World Series with the Giants. In the second game, running: toward a fly ball, Rightfielder Mantle stumbled, tore the ligaments of his right knee and fell hard. Old Pro DiMaggio caught the fly ball, then waved for help. Mickey, who was semiconscious, remembers DiMaggio anxiously asking "What's the matter, kid?" DiMaggio's anxiety was a measure of how far Mickey had traveled.
In spring training last year, still favoring the injured knee, Mantle was just another aspirant for DiMaggio's vacated job. Other rookies were brought up. The Yankees bought Centerfielder Irv Noren from Washington, and there was some speculation as to whether Mickey would make it. By mid-May, Mickey had answered all the speculation. He got the job, put in his first full season as a major-leaguer. After his .311 batting average last season and his fancy .345 against Brooklyn in the World Series, there was no question as to who would be the Yankee centerfielder in 1953. The main question was how long it would take Mickey to become one of the game's alltime stars.
Box Scores & Westerns. Temperamentally, Mickey seems well-fitted for a durable career as a star. Loaded with physical confidence, he does not suffer from an enlarged hatband. Diffident and uncommunicative around strangers, he seems barely aware of the buzz he creates in a restaurant or strolling through a hotel lobby. Two years ago he married his Oklahoma sweetheart, Merlyn Johnson, and now has a son, Mickey Mantle Jr.
Mutt Mantle, who lived to see his son play in the World Series, died last year. Since then, Mickey has been the head of the Mantle family, which includes his mother, a sister and his three ballplaying younger brothers. Responsibility has left Mickey with a sober interest in security, which is represented for him, among other things, by the house he has built back in Commerce.
With his clubmates he is no sobersides. At ease with them, and fully accepted, Mickey sometimes horses around in warmups, imitating Yankee pitchers.Other players grin at Mickey's antics; a crouch and a furtive look toward first for Pitcher Johnny Sain; a portentous, aldermanlike rear-back for Allie Reynolds; a waggling arm stretch for Vic Raschi.
Outside the ball park, Mickey fits happily into the standard preoccupations of his profession: thick steaks. Southern fried chicken, sleep (up to eleven hours a night), a close reading of the box scores and comic books. Mantle adds to this a special interest in hillbilly records (his favorite: the late Hank Williams). Since the Mantles have not yet picked a house in the New York area, Merlyn and Mickey Jr. stay in Commerce most of the time, and Mickey lives in hotels when the team is at home as well as traveling, gets his fun by going to the movies with teammates. His favorites: westerns.