My Mickey Mantle pilgrimage

[Okla-homey]

Okay, Friday, I was up in Miami at the Ottawa County Court House. Opposing counsel was from Commerce. After we took care of our bidness with the court, I asked the guy if Commerce features any Mickey Mantle stuff, you know, other than a sign coming into town stating "Home of the Yankee Clipper."

See, your correspondent is a Yankees fan, entirely because of Mickey Mantle, and Mickey, despite his flaws, was a boyhood hero of mine.

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/165/mickeymantle.jpg

Well folks, as it happens, some Mantle fan bought the house MM grew up in and where his pop conducted batting practice most evenings after arriving home from the mines.

The little two-room wide shotgun house is more or less restored, and while not open to the public, you can drive up, get out of your car, and walk around. I drove the four miles from Miami to Commerce to check it out before heading back to Tulsa.

There is a marker on the front porch. See the pic below. Sorry for the quality, I took it with my phone. The cool part is, the garage little Mickey and his Dad used for a backstop was saved too. It's visible in the background of the second pic.

All that said, it was very cool to walk around the property, and to run my hand over the corregated tin siding on the garage and to feel the baseball-sized dents made by MM's dad's pitches that little Mickey missed.

This is the place where one of the greatest hitters of all time learned to hit.

Waaaaaay cool. srsly. Rather like a pilgrimage.

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/3803/mantle1photo.jpg

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/6025/mantlephoto.jpg
View of the house with the garage batting "backstop" in the background

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/683/mantle2.jpg
View from the garage "backstop" at the house MM hit toward

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/2905/mantle3photo.jpg
View thru the window of the front room

[BoomerJack]

"I asked the guy if Commerce features any Mickey Mantle stuff, you know, other than a sign coming into town stating "Home of the Yankee Clipper."

I thought "Yankee Clipper" was Joe DiMaggio's nickname? The only sort of nickname that I ever heard for Mantle was "The Mick".

[NMSooner'80]

"I asked the guy if Commerce features any Mickey Mantle stuff, you know, other than a sign coming into town stating "Home of the Yankee Clipper."

I thought "Yankee Clipper" was Joe DiMaggio's nickname? The only sort of nickname that I ever heard for Mantle was "The Mick".

Not trying to be a pain, but I also was confused by the "Yankee Clipper" reference to Mantle. Joe Di was definitely the Yankee Clipper. I assume that nickname came from his being from the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco, where "Clipper" ships would pass by quite a bit back in his day.

[Okla-homey]

my bad. I was still pretty excited. Joe D was the Yankee Clipper

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

Good Pilgrimage. Thanks for the pics.

[walkoffsooner]

thanks

[IronHorseSooner]

Thanks for the post. I am from Miami, and I can't count the amount of times that I have been to that house. My Grandpa grew up with and was friends with The Mick, and my Dad's American Legion Coach was his uncle. The Mick gave my Dad a signed rookie card of him (which if you are a collector, you know that it is worth a lot of coin), but it was destroyed in a fire when my Dad was a kid...Generally, Mickey Mantle is known as either "The Mick" or "The Commerce Comet." ...The Mick was also a huge OU fan. Just to tell you the caliber of athlete OU had back then, The Mick wanted to try out for Bud's team, but he told him that he was too slow! If you know anything about baseball, The Mick was the most physically gifted baseball player of his era. He could steal bases, hit for power and average from both sides, and could run down anything in center field.