Aug. 12, 1964 - Mickey Mantle took two mighty cuts, one lefthanded and one righthanded, and changed the whole axis of the Yankees’ little world. His two homers in today’s 7-3 victory over the White Sox at Yankee Stadium acted like a large penicillin shot to the “sick” defending American League champions.
“Doctor” Mel Stottlemyre (left) was in attendance.
Mick crashed one of Ray Herbert’s pitches over the black backdrop in center field to tie the game at 2-2 in the fourth inning, then poked reliever Frank Baumann’s second pitch into the right-field seats for a 6-3 lead in leading off the eighth.
“They felt good,” said Tom Tresh, who followed the homers with his first two hits of the Chicago series, a solid single to right and a leg double down the left-field line.
Tresh would not say that Mantle’s clouts inspired his own hitting but, in the other dressing room, Chicago third baseman Pete Ward spoke up.
“That Mantle,” Ward said, “can carry that ballclub with his bat alone. When he’s on, it seems that the rest of them are on. His first homer? It hurt, but at least now I can say I saw one hit that far.”
After stadium manager Bruce Henry’s “surveyors” got through measuring the space between bleacher rows and figuring the angle of flight, it was announced that the ball had traveled 501 feet. The word was that it went into the 15th row of Section 49, compared to the ninth row he reached right-handed in 1955.
Mantle laughed in the clubhouse when the calculations were relayed to him. “I don’t care if they scrape the back of the fence coming down,” he said, “as long as they’re over.”
Mantle was very cheerful walking around in his Dallas Cowboys T-shirt with the hand-painted sign on the left sleeve. He got the shirt from a friend in Dallas. Mickey added the sign himself, claiming the title of “Okla. Skeet Champ” because he won a skeet-shooting contest in his hometown of Commerce, Okla., last winter.
“I feel good,” he said. “Better than I’ve felt at this time of the season for the past four or five years. Nothing’s bothering me.”
Mantle happily patted a red-faced Stottlemyre on the back for photographers. Stottlemyre is a 22-year-old righthander who was just brought up from the Richmond farm. He had a seven-hitter which was a three-hitter until the heat got to him in the final three innings.
“He did a job, the kid,” said manager Yogi Berra. “He probably got tired near the end because they pitch at night down there [Richmond], you know.”
Stottlemyre was thankful for the chance to finish. “A couple of those balls would have been moon shots in Richmond,” he said. He was referring to Pete Ward’s triple to left center and double off the auxiliary scoreboard in right center.
“He keeps the ball down on you,” Ward said afterward. “He was good enough to get this victory. And I suspect he’ll be good enough to get a few more before the year’s out.”
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