Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 348

the Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants in seven games. Mantle fared poorly in the series, hitting .120 with five strikeouts. After the 1962 season, the Yankees gave Mantle a contract of $100,000, making him the fourth player to reach that pinnacle, after Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams. Having reached the $100,000 salary threshold, Mantle never asked for another raise.

On May 22, 1963, Mantle hit a long drive off the top of the right field facade at Yankee Stadium, the closest that anyone came to hitting a home run out of the old stadium. Some have

estimated that if the ball was not blocked it would have gone 700 feet. However, on June 5, he broke his foot while trying to prevent a home run by Brooks Robinson in Baltimore. His spikes had been caught in the center field chain link fence as he came down after leaping against it. As a result, he did not play

again until August 4, when he hit a pinch hit home run against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium. Mantle returned to the center field position on September 2 and finished the season batting .314 in 65 games. He was selected as an All-Star but, due to the foot injury, did not make the AL 25 man roster for the first time.

That year, the Yankees made the World Series and were favorites to win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, the Yankees were