Whitey and Mickey: The Joint Autobiography of the Yankee Years [An Autobiography of the Yankee Years]

198 pp. Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed The Commerce Comet and The Mick,[1] was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York Yankees as a center fielder, right fielder, and first baseman. Mantle was one of the best players and sluggers and is regarded by many as the greatest switch hitter in baseball history.[2] Mantle was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974[3] and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. Mantle was one of the greatest offensive threats of any center fielder in baseball history. He has the second highest career OPS+ among center fielders, (behind Mike Trout) and he had the highest stolen base percentage in history at the time of his retirement. In addition, compared to the other four center fielders on the All-Century team, he had the lowest career rate of grounding into double plays, and he had the highest World Series on-base percentage and World Series slugging percentage. He also had an excellent .984 fielding percentage when playing center field. Mantle was able to hit for both average and power,[4] especially tape measure home runs,[5] a term that had its origin in a play-by-play caller reacting to one of Mantle's 1953 home runs.[6] He hit 536 MLB career home runs, batted .300 or more ten times, and is the career leader (tied with Jim Thome) in walk-off home runs, with 13, 12 in the regular season and one in the postseason. He is the only player in history to hit 150 home runs from both sides of the plate. Mantle is 16th all-time in home runs per at bats. He is 17th in on-base percentage. He was safe three out of four times he attempted to steal a base. He won the MVP Award three times, came in second three times, and came within nine votes of winning five times. Mantle won the Triple Crown in 1956, when he led the major leagues in batting average (.353), home runs (52), and runs batted in (RBI) (130). He later wrote a book (My Favorite Summer 1956) about his best year in baseball.[7] He was an All-Star for 16 seasons, playing in 16 of the 20 All-Star Games that were played during his career.[a] He was an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times and a Gold Glove winner once. Mantle appeared in 12 World Series including seven championships, and he holds World Series records for the most home runs (18), RBIs (40), extra-base hits (26), runs (42), walks (43), and total bases (123).[8] Despite his accolades on the field, Mantle's private life was plagued with tumult and tragedy, including a well-publicized bout with alcoholism that led to his death from liver cancer.[9]--Wikipedia. Edward Charles "Whitey" Ford (October 21, 1928 – October 8, 2020),[1][2] nicknamed "The Chairman of the Board", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played his entire 16-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the New York Yankees. He was a 10-time All-Star and 6-time World Series champion. In 1961, he won both the Cy Young Award and World Series Most Valuable Player Award. Ford led the American League (AL) in wins three times and in earned run average (ERA) twice. He is the Yankees franchise leader in career wins (236), shutouts (45), innings pitched (3,17) Ford signed with the Yankees as an amateur free agent in 1947 and made his major league debut in 1950. Following a two-year sojourn to serve in the United States Army during the Korean War, Ford returned to the Yankees in 1953 and pitched for them until retiring in 1967. During his tenure with the team, Ford set numerous World Series pitching records, including consecutive scoreless innings (32⁄3), wins (10), games started (22), innings pitched (146), and strikeouts (94). The Yankees retired his uniform number 16 in 1974 and dedicated a plaque in his honor in Monument Park in 1987. Ford served as the Yankees pitching coach in 1964 while still a player and from 1974 to 1975 after retiring. He also served as the team's first base coach in 1968. In the wake of Yogi Berra's death in 2015, George Vecsey of The New York Times suggested that Ford was now "The Greatest Living Yankee".[4] Ford died on October 8, 2020, at the age of 91.--Wikipedia.