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The Last Boy
- Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood
- Narrated by: Jane Leavy, John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
Jane Leavy, the acclaimed author of the New York Times best seller Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, returns with a biography of an American original: number 7, Mickey Mantle. Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.
Meticulously reported and elegantly written, The Last Boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the author's weekend with The Mick in Atlantic City, where she interviewed her hero in 1983, after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences from friends and family of the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League's Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth's home run crown in the summer of 1961 - the same boy who would never grow up.
As she did so memorably in her biography of Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy transcends the hyperbole of hero worship to reveal the man behind the coast-to-coast smile, who grappled with a wrenching childhood, crippling injuries, and a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. In The Last Boy she chronicles her search to find out more about the person he was and, given what she discovers, to explain his mystifying hold on a generation of baseball fans, who were seduced by that lopsided, gap-toothed grin. It is an uncommon biography, with literary overtones: not only a portrait of an icon, but an investigation of memory itself.
"I believe in memory, not memorabilia," Leavy writes in her preface. But in The Last Boy, she discovers that what we remember of our heroes - and even what they remember of themselves - is only where the story begins.
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GOOD BOOK ON THE SEY-HEY KID & THE MICK!
- By USA VETERAN on 08-21-23
By: Allen Barra
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The Boys of Summer
- The Classic Narrative of Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field, Covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and What's Happened to Everybody Since
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.
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Classic book!
- By Christopher Arthur on 11-19-17
By: Roger Kahn
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Sandy Koufax
- A Lefty's Legacy
- By: Jane Leavy
- Narrated by: Charley Steiner
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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No immortal in the history of baseball retired so young, so well, or so completely as Sandy Koufax. After compiling a remarkable record from 1962 to 1966 that saw him lead the National League in ERA all five years, win three Cy Young awards, and pitch four no-hitters including a perfect game, Koufax essentially disappeared. Save for his induction into the Hall of Fame and occasional appearances at the Dodgers training camp, Koufax has remained unavailable, unassailable, and unsullied.
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Baseball Favorite
- By Thomas on 04-21-14
By: Jane Leavy
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The Big Fella
- Babe Ruth and the World He Created
- By: Jane Leavy
- Narrated by: Jane Leavy, Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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After hitting his 60th home run in September 1927, Ruth embarked on the mother of all barnstorming tours, a three-week victory lap across America, accompanied by Yankee teammate Lou Gehrig. In The Big Fella, acclaimed biographer Jane Leavy recreates that 21-day circus and in so doing captures the romp and the pathos that defined Ruth’s life and times. Drawing from more than 250 interviews, a trove of previously untapped documents, and Ruth family records, Leavy breaks through the mythology that has obscured the legend and delivers the man.
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Babe Ruth and American History
- By ALKinNYC on 10-21-18
By: Jane Leavy
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Luckiest Man
- The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Abridged
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Lou Gehrig was the Iron Horse, baseball's strongest and most determined superstar, struck down in his prime by a disease that now bears his name. But who was Lou Gehrig, really? Lou Gehrig is regarded as the greatest first baseman in baseball history. Shy and socially awkward, Gehrig was a misfit on a Yankee team that included drinkers and hell-raisers, most notably Babe Ruth.
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Wow! What an amazing story!
- By M on 08-13-14
By: Jonathan Eig
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Mantle
- The Best There Ever Was
- By: Tony Castro
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In Mantle: The Best There Ever Was, Mickey Mantle biographer Tony Castro brings to life the man who is arguably not only the greatest ballplayer of his time but also the greatest ballplayer of all time. Castro offers illuminating new insight into Mantle's extraordinary career, including the head-turning conclusion based on the evolution of analytics that the beloved Yankee switch-hitting slugger may ultimately win acclaim as having fulfilled the weighty expectations once placed on him: of being greater than even Babe Ruth.
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Loved this presentation.
- By Amazon Customer on 09-17-22
By: Tony Castro
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Mickey and Willie
- Mantle and Mays, The Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age
- By: Allen Barra
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed sportswriter Allen Barra exposes the uncanny parallels - and lifelong friendship - between two of the greatest baseball players ever to take the field. Culturally, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were light-years apart. Yet they were nearly the same age and almost the same size, and they came to New York at the same time. They possessed virtually the same talents and played the same position. They were both products of generations of baseball-playing families, for whom the game was the only escape from a lifetime of brutal manual labor.
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GOOD BOOK ON THE SEY-HEY KID & THE MICK!
- By USA VETERAN on 08-21-23
By: Allen Barra
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The Boys of Summer
- The Classic Narrative of Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field, Covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and What's Happened to Everybody Since
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.
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Classic book!
- By Christopher Arthur on 11-19-17
By: Roger Kahn
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Yogi
- A Life Behind the Mask
- By: Jon Pessah
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Lawrence "Yogi" Berra was never supposed to become a major league ballplayer. That's what his immigrant father told him. That's what Branch Rickey told him, too—right to Berra's face, in fact. Even the lowly St. Louis Browns of his youth said he'd never make it in the big leagues. Yet baseball was his lifeblood. It was the only thing he ever cared about. Heck, it was the only thing he ever thought about.
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"YOGI BERRA HITS A GRAND SLAM!"
- By USA VETERAN on 05-15-20
By: Jon Pessah
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Mickey Mantle
- Inside and Outside the Lines
- By: Tom Molito
- Narrated by: Greg Walston
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The year 2016 is the 60th Anniversary of Mantle's Triple Crown season, which many baseball experts consider one of the best seasons ever for a ball player. Of course, those who experienced that season are decreasing in numbers. But Mickey Mantle is more popular than ever. The value of his memorabilia is second to none. He remains respected and admired for the redemptive quality of his life.
By: Tom Molito
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The Bronx Zoo
- The Astonishing Inside Story of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees
- By: Sparky Lyle, Peter Golenbock
- Narrated by: Sparky Lyle
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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This best-selling, highly-acclaimed account is a hilarious but scathing baseball tell-all. After being voted the 1977 American League Cy Young Award winner, Sparky Lyle was rewarded for his efforts by being benched. The Yankees, a leader of free agency, signed Goose Gossage as their closer. Things only went downhill from there and the 1978 season turned out to be one of controversy, firings, fights, and acrimony. In short, it was a zoo.
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10 Hours of Incessant Whining
- By Read With My Ears on 04-24-21
By: Sparky Lyle, and others
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Willie Mays
- The Life, The Legend
- By: James S. Hirsch
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 27 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Willie Mays is arguably the greatest player in baseball history, still revered for the passion he brought to the game. He began as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, became a cult hero in New York, and was the headliner in Major League Baseball's bold expansion to California. He was a blend of power, speed, and stylistic bravado that enraptured fans for more than two decades. Now, James Hirsch reveals the man behind the player.
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If You Love Baseball... Learn about Willie
- By Steven on 07-18-17
By: James S. Hirsch
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The Last Hero
- A Life of Henry Aaron
- By: Howard Bryant
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 21 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 34 years since his retirement, Henry Aaron’s reputation has only grown in magnitude: He broke existing records (rbis, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least 30 home runs per season 15 times, becoming the first player in history to hammer 500 home runs and three thousand hits). But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball’s immortal figures.
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GREAT STORY but blame the producers for misreads
- By Eddie38 on 03-02-22
By: Howard Bryant
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October 1964
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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David Halberstam, an avid sports writer with an investigative reporter’s tenacity, superbly details the end of the 15-year reign of the New York Yankees in October 1964. That October found the Yankees going head-to-head with the St. Louis Cardinals for the World Series pennant. Expertly weaving the narrative threads of both teams’ seasons, Halberstam brings the major personalities on the field - from switch-hitter Mickey Mantle to pitcher Bob Gibson - to life. Using the teams’ subcultures, Halberstam also analyzes the cultural shifts of the '60s.
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an excellent baseball book
- By Joe H on 12-31-18
By: David Halberstam
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Ty Cobb
- A Terrible Beauty
- By: Charles Leerhsen
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote.
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Two Cobb Books, One Review of a Maligned Legacy
- By Jonathan Love on 05-17-16
By: Charles Leerhsen
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The Cloudbuster Nine
- The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II
- By: Anne R. Keene, Claudia Williams - foreword
- Narrated by: Anne R. Keene
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1943, while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and meeting in that year's World Series, one of the nation's strongest baseball teams practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Sain were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Great book about the little known history of baseball.
- By Hays Collins on 05-26-24
By: Anne R. Keene, and others
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Stan Musial
- An American Life
- By: George Vecsey
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didn’t make the cut. This glaring omission—later rectified by a panel of experts—raised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time?
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Vecsey is great... narrator, not so much
- By Daniel Stromme on 04-11-13
By: George Vecsey
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Steinbrenner
- The Last Lion of Baseball
- By: Bill Madden
- Narrated by: Kerin McCue
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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No owner has changed the landscape of sports more than New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. From the moment he bought the team in 1973 for $10 million, Steinbrenner's monomaniacal pursuit was to restore the most fabled franchise in baseball history to its former glory. Today the New York Yankees are worth more than $1 billion and are once again world champions.
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Great insight into how The Boss kept hiring Billy!
- By Wiley on 12-10-18
By: Bill Madden
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Joe DiMaggio
- The Hero's Life
- By: Richard Ben Cramer
- Narrated by: Richard Ben Cramer
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Abridged
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In this groundbreaking biography, Richard Ben Cramer presents a stunning, often shocking portrait of the hero nobody knew. It is a story that sweeps through the 20th century, bringing light to America's national game, movie stars, mobsters, as well as the birth - and the price - of national celebrity.
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Joe DiMaggio
- By Patrick on 08-22-03
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The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told
- Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond
- By: Jeff Silverman
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain, Hillary Huber
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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At a 1931 barnstorming exhibition game in Tennessee, a 17-year-old pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back. Her name was Jackie Mitchell - "organized baseball's first girl pitcher." In July 1970, a stripper rushed onto the field at Riverfront Stadium to kiss Johnny Bench, temporarily disrupting a game attended by President Nixon and his family. These are just some of the great, quirky, and comic moments in the annals of baseball recorded in The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told.
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Not what I was expecting... at all
- By keith on 04-16-17
By: Jeff Silverman
What listeners say about The Last Boy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-18-23
Great Book-The story of the real Mick
Great honest storytelling and the performances were good as well. I personally liked how it would go from author to a different narrator for historical accounts. Highly recommend!
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- John McCallum
- 08-17-18
Reality bites
An American story well told. Hard to hear disturbing details of a childhood hero, but in some ways I appreciate the Mick even more. The book evokes sympathy, laughter, and a tear or two. I feel like I understand him better. Great combination of baseball and life. Baseball fans will enjoy it, and students of human nature and family dynamics will gain from it too.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kenny
- 01-09-19
What a life. Drop the drawl.
A fascinating, unflinching biography. Jane Leavy takes on the life story of a childhood hero (hers and millions of others) and does him the honor of telling the truth. Paradoxically, by demystifying The Mick, she succeeds in bringing us closer to him, by helping us understand his frailties and humanity. This is a great biography -- the Mick's story for grown ups.
The two voices in the Audible version -- hers for an introduction and the recounting of a weekend-long interview, his for chapters recounting Mantle's life -- works well. My only complaint is John Bedford Lloyd's choosing to speak all of the quotations attributed to Mantle in a faux country drawl. So what if Mantle spoke with a drawl. The insistence of calling attention to it persistently comes off as patronizing, almost ridiculing. Is Mantle the only person quoted in this whole book who spoke with an accent? The voice attributed to Mantle is a major distraction and, for me, a significant flaw in this Audible version.
Still, Jane Leavy's thorough research and excellent writing make this book well worth listening to, even with the drawl.
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4 people found this helpful
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- dan doyle
- 06-11-19
Mickey fan
long listen but worth it if you are a fan of baseball or the mick
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1 person found this helpful
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- S. Rullo
- 06-07-23
Love Mickey Mantle and his history
Very detailed and classy read. Not blown up nothing but reality and real people e certs
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- Ralph J. Kerrigan
- 04-10-17
Yankee Greatness is Complicated
As a 67 year old Bronx Boy who left a long time ago; 1968 (coincidentally Mick's #'s and the year he retired) this audiobook allowed me to both laugh n shed a tear or two.
While the telling of Mick's story brought me back to my childhood worship of #7. Hearing words of friends, family, and foes filled my heart simultaneously with joy and pain for those who thought they knew him and those who did.
I strongly recommend this book to those already on Mick's Team and for those who just want to know how Hero Worship and Greatness can be complicated.
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- John
- 09-10-21
So Depressing
Like many others of my generation, I remember Mickey Mantle as one of the best baseball players of my youth. I think that most of us later realized generally that Mantle (and others with the Yankees of that period) had a problem with alcohol and led a pretty hard and fast life, but this book demonstrates we did not know the half of it.
If you are looking for an uplifting story of "The Boys of Summer," this is not for you. One gets the impression that Leavy intended to write an honest, but "warts and all," story of one of her childhood heroes. As she dug into Mickey's life, however, it seems that she found many more warts than even she anticipated (and as a sports writer, she probably knew a lot more than the rest of us already).
Although the book demonstrates that Mantle was a singular talent, one can only wonder what he would have done if he had not been severely injured in his rookie season, or if he had lived only a moderately hard life. Given the way he lived, what he achieved is just a little short of miraculous.
Assuming Leavy's research is accurate (and it appears to be), Mantle is hardly a hero. He treated many people (including Leavy) very badly. He probably treated his wife and kids the worst. There are excuses that can be offered, but they ring pretty hollow.
This book is honest, but depressing. It is strangely organized around a series of vignettes from Mantle's life. This odd way of approaching the subject does not help anything.
There have been some criticisms of the narration, but I thought it was pretty decent.
Would I have spent seventeen hours listening to this if I had known about it in advance? As Mick would probably have said, "Nah ..." (or something more colorful).
If you are interested in the morbid details of a somewhat depressing life, this is for you. If not, I would skip it.
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- Matthew Tsien
- 04-28-18
Mantle's Painful Life.
Would you consider the audio edition of The Last Boy to be better than the print version?
Yes, the narration adds special quality to the early deterioration of Mick's New Yankee baseball skills and painful retirement years due to alcoholism
What did you like best about this story?
How his father's early death and the pressures of being the greatest Yankee of his generation drove him to lifelong alcoholism and many covert years in Alcoholic Anonymous.
Which character – as performed by Jane Leavy and John Bedford Lloyd – was your favorite?
Mantle is a belived, gentle and deeply sad Peter Pan prototype with a huge national following of devoted fans. In his decline, Mantle cried after lost games in the clubhouse if he thought he failed team. Roger Maris cried with him when he confessed his addiction.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Mantle's blaming his father for his demons while in AA.
Any additional comments?
So sad how Mick died similar to Babe Ruth's self induced demise.
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- Eman
- 11-14-19
I didn't realize what a legend Mickey Mantle was.
For someone who didn't grow up in Mantle's baseball era I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I learned so much about how the game was played back then and about Mantle himself. thank you for writing this book. I was sad when it ended.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Michael
- 02-24-14
It's the Mick
I grew up a Mickey Mantle fan, this book didn't take any of the Mick's lore away from me and in the end probably added to it. You see the flawed human, true enough but you see what could have been without an outfield drain cover and lifetime of drinking. What he accomplished in spite of those issues makes him all the more remarkable as an athlete.
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