A Hero All His Life: Merlyn, Mickey Jr., David, and Dan Mantle : A Memoir by the Mantle Family

by Merlyn Mantle, Mickey E. Mantle, David Mantle

Mickey Mantle was the golden boy of American sport. A hero to millions, he embodied the ideal of small-town athlete made good every time he stepped up to the plate. Now, for the first time, Mantle's wife, Merlyn, and their sons tell the unique and inspirational story of their very separate, often harrowing private lives with the husband and father who lived in the glare of the public eye and how they came together during Mantle's last year to fight the cancer that eventually took his life.
Merlyn Mantle takes the reader from the early days of her courtship with Mickey through his stellar baseball career and her life as the wife of our first national sports hero, candidly discussing the alcoholism and rampant infidelities that would plague their lives together. In an unvarnished look at the events that led to their many dislocations, the death of their son Billy, and her own private anguish that she shared with no one, Merlyn discusses with unbridled candor how, despite the many trials through which they suffered, their basic love and connection to each other remained unshakable through the years.
Interweaved with Merlyn's story are her sons' vivid accounts of their lives growing up with an emotionally and physically absent father. They reflect on the peculiar difficulties of desperately seeking the approval of a man whom they dearly loved but whose struggles with alcoholism, coupled with the demands of being a hero to a nation, created emotional chasms that were not bridged until the last years of his life. Finally, in an inspirational story of recovery, they tell how they all courageously battled alcoholism during Mantle's final years, ultimately overcoming the disease with the help of the Betty Ford Center.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Memoir, Biography

272 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Merlyn Louise Mantle was an American author and widow of New York Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle.

In 1996, Ms. Mantle co-authored a memoir of Mickey Mantle's life, entitled Hero All His Life. The book was co-written with her sons, Danny Mantle and David Mantle, and writer Mickey Herskowitz.

Reviews

[Frank Taranto · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very personal and emotional book for me for two reasons.
One is that Mickey Mantle was my boyhood hero, and like him my father died young; and like him, I thought I would die young too. "Live hard and leave a good looking corpse."
The second reason is that I am alcoholic too. Luckily for me, I found an answer to that problem before it killed me.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most gifted athletes of his generation, the other side of Mickey Mantle was rarely mentioned until the bombshell book, “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton. For the first time, that book publicly revealed the drinking, womanizing, and partying until late hours by Mickey Mantle and his friends. In this book, his family reveals his absence from their world and how it affected them. Mickey, his wife and all four of their boys spent time in the Betty Ford Clinic to receive treatment for substance abuse.
His wife Merlyn, Mickey Jr., David, and Dan Mantle all write sections about Mickey and their personal experiences with drugs and alcohol. It is a very frank expression of their lives and relationships with Mickey. In many ways they support what was a fundamental premise of the Bouton book, that as good as he was, Mantle possibly could have been the best of all time had he taken care of himself and drank less.
If Mantle had not suffered the leg injury that hobbled him, it is likely that he would have been the best of all time, even with the drinking. When batting left-handed, he was once clocked at going from home to first in 3.1 seconds, the fastest time ever recorded. An amazing athlete, Mantle was correct when he said in a press conference to announce his medical condition that he is a role model on what not to do. Leading your children down a path of substance abuse is a tragic event, this book details this issue, even though the Mantle boys go to great lengths not to blame their father for their issues with chemical dependency.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this on my shelf for a long time but avoided reading it. I'm not a big fan of books about athletes written by family members. This book is less a book about baseball and more about a very dysfunctional family and their baseball-playing patriarch, and how they find a measure of redemption and healing towards the end of Mantle's life. Different sections of the book are written by Mantle's adult children and his wife, each sharing what life was like living with America's greatest athletic hero of the 1950s and 60s, living under a media microscope, and living with a father and husband who descended into alcoholism after retiring from baseball. The healing and family restoration to some degree that took place in the final years of Mantle's life was very inspiring, but earlier parts of the book are quite sad and almost depressing. The value of a book like this is that it peels back the curtain of celebrity that obscures and obfuscates the story of someone like Mantle, and allows his family to tell the real, honest story. Some Mantle fans may not want that curtain drawn back and would probably do well to avoid the book. Others will appreciate this deeper and honest look into the life of a flawed athletic hero.

[Shane Schirmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the book was not well organized at times, it certainly was an emotionally raw depiction of life in the Mantle household. I found Merlyn's candor to be breathtaking at times. Her ability to open up about the things in the book really amazed me. Mickey Mantle was my father's boyhood hero, so the subject matter really jolted me at times. By the end of the book you have love, loathed, pitied, and felt sorrow for the Mick. A very interesting read.

[Beth P · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a biography, with one chapter auto-biography, about Mickey Mantle. Each chapter is written by either a son or the wife of Mickey. It's interesting to read different interpretations of the same event - each shares his or her feelings about the man they loved as a father or husband.
I recommend it.

[Blaik Swailes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book I read was A Hero All His Life by the Mantle Family. This book takes place from when Mickey was younger to when he died in 1995. The main character in my book is Mickey Mantle. People who influenced his were his father and his kids. My author wrote this memoir to let people know that just because you're in the Majors doesn't mean you're perfect.
One event that is exciting is when Mickey was given a plaque from Joe DiMaggio and has his jersey retired. Second Mickey had the courage to go to the Betty Ford Center. After a while Mickey started to be there for his kids. Mickey dedicated any time that he had to work on baseball, when he was a kid.
My opinion on this book was there were parts that were boring. They repeated over and over again like how he was a drunk and wasn't really there for him kids. Something that inspired me was when he talked about how whatever time that was left in the day, he still used it to get better. One thing he should've included was that he should have described some things more than he did. In conclusion the book was inspirational because he put drinking aside to play great baseball but I don't really recommend this book because its hard to stay reading it.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not always the most organized or articulate narrative, but conveys the pain, the pride and the love of "The Mick's" family.