• Share This Post
• Pin It
• 0
• 0
• Sparkle (
  0
  )
   

The Last Boy; Mickey Mantle Stories Come Alive 

NY Times Bestseller, Jane Leavy Brings Sports Collectors Baseball Cards and a Legend Together

Yankee baseball legend Mickey Mantle was brought to life recently, with the release of Jane Leavy’s latest book “The Last Boy, the story of Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood”.  The New York Times Bestselling author sat amongst family, friends and admirers…surrounded by an incredible collection of sports memorabilia and a stunning array of crystal Major League baseball collectibles during a recent signing for the new Mickey Mantle biography.

More than Mickey Mantle Baseball Cards in the Yankee History Timeline

The walls of Steuben’s flagship store on Madison Avenue came to life with sports and baseball treasures showcasing everything in baseball history from “Babe Ruth and Roger Maris HR Record” to “1961 World Champion Yankee Team”.  Most appropriate for this event, the “Mickey Mantle World Series Home Run Record also decked the walls and of course, the requisite Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card; a near mint version of the same card worth $282,000 as late as 2006.   This entire incredible collectible sports memorabilia was courtesy of Going, Going, Gone Sports and its curator, Neil Scherer.

Telling Mickey Mantle Stories and Quotes

Leavy addressed the packed audience, initially remarking that, “I’ve never signed books in a place so classy”…a nod to the elegant surroundings and crystal sports memorabilia glittering from the tables scattered throughout the room. She then took us on a walk down memory lane as she reminisced about her interviews with Mickey Mantle, her idol. She humbly acknowledged that The Last Boy was five years in the making…and that it required more time to write than Tolstoy took writing War and Peace. Never mind the fact that The Last Boy draws on more than 500 interviews with friends, family, teammates and opponents of Mantle's including both Danny and David Mantle—Mickey’s sons—and their late mother, Merlyn.

Leavy's Own Mickey Mantle Story

Leavy is surprisingly candid about her conversations with Mantle…and joked that she could never have printed much of what transpired in her interview in 1983, when she was a reporter with the Washington Post.  While talking with fellow sports writer, Bill Madden, Leavy says of the interview "It forced me to see the world as it was, not how I wanted it to be."

You’ll have to read the book to fully understand her meaning behind this previously untold Mickey Mantle story!

As the wine flowed and the talk of baseball legends intensified, Jane Leavy took her place behind a desk featuring a MLB regulation-sized Yankees baseball bat made out of crystal  and began signing copies of her book for those who’d gathered to meet this prolific author. The book signing event for The Last Boy was elegant, fascinating and memorable. Being surrounded by so many one-of-a-kind general sports and specifically baseball collections, painstakingly dedicated to the legends in sports history…and listening to the conversations of those committed to reading about and preserving the memories of these legends made for a perfect home run of an evening.

You had to know that was coming.