Mickey Charles Mantle October 20 1931 August 13 1995 nicknamed the Mick and the Commerce Comet was an American professional baseball player Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball MLB career 19511968 with the New York Yankees primarily as a center fielder Mantle is regarded by many as being one of the best players and sluggers of all time He was an American League AL Most Valuable Player three times and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974 He was raised by his father to become a baseball player and was trained early on to become a switch hitter Despite a career plagued with injuries beginning with his knee injury in the 1951 World Series he became one of the greatest offensive threats in baseball history and was able to hit for both average and power He is the only player to hit 150 home runs from both sides of the plate Mantle hit 536 career home runs while batting 300 or more ten times Mantle is 16th alltime in home runs per atbat and 17th in onbase percentage He 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 was an AllStar for 16 seasons playing in 16 of the 20 AllStar Games that he was selected for He also had an excellent 984 fielding percentage when playing center field winning a Gold Glove in that position Mantle appeared in 12 World Series winning seven championships and holds World Series records for the most home runs 18 RBIs 40 extrabase hits 26 runs 42 walks 43 and total bases 123 and he has the highest World Series onbase and slugging percentages After retirement Mantle briefly worked as sports commentator for NBC and later as a parttime coach in the Yankees farm system Despite being one of the best paid athletes of his era he was a poor businessman and suffered financial setbacks from business failures His private life was plagued by tumult and tragedy His marriage fell apart due to his alcoholism and infidelity and three of his sons became alcoholics two of them dying from it Towards the end of his life he came to regret his hard lifestyle and the damage he had inflicted on his family In his final year he was treated for alcoholism later warning others of the dangers of hard drinking and telling fans Dont be like me He died from liver cancer brought on by years of alcohol abuse in Dallas Texas aged 63 From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
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