Mickey Mantle

While he watched the game he saw Mickey hit a left handed home run and a right handed home run. Tom wanted to sign Mickey right then but he couldn't because Mickey was only 16 and still in high school. Tom promised Mickey he would come back on Mickey's graduation day and sign him.
             Tom kept his promise and came and signed him to a minor league, Class D team in Kansas. Mickey played one season for the Class D team, then moved up to the Yankees Class C team in Missouri. .
             In 1951, Mickey went to spring training with the Yankees in Arizona and made two hundred fifty dollars a month. When the Yankees went back to New York to play the Brooklyn Dodgers in an exhibition game they signed Mickey to the team for a seven thousand five hundred dollar salary and it was the first time that any player had jumped from Class C directly to the pros.
             That season was good for the Yankees because they went on to play in the World Series against the New York Giants. During the second game of this series Mickey was playing right field and Joe DiMaggio was playing center field. Joe had a heel injury that was bothering him. Their coach asked Mickey to help Joe in center field because of his injury. A pop fly was hit toward the two men, Mickey's spikes hung in a drain cover when he stopped suddenly to avoid hitting Joe. Mickey hurt his right knee so badly that he had to be carried off the field on a stretcher. .
             On December 23, 1951, he married Merlyn Johnson a girl he had met a few years earlier at a football game.
             In 1952 Mutt Mantle, Mickey's father, died of Hodgkins disease at age 39.
             The Yankees moved Mickey to center field and also raised his salary to ten thousand dollars that year. He was elected to the All Star Game. .
             .
             In April of 1953 Mickeys first son was born, Mickey Mantle Jr. That year Mickey hit a 565 foot home run off of Chuck Stobbs of the Senators and he was also selected to the All Star Game.