The Last Boy

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the end of America's Childhood (2010) by Jane Leavy. You might wonder if a book about Mickey Mantle could possibly be interesting to anyone who's not a baseball nut. I was surprised to find that this book was as good as it is. Leavy has delved deep into the life of the Mick and reveals things about him that I had never heard, including the extent of the damage his drinking did to him and his excessive womanizing (even though he was married). The most amazing thing, to me, was that Mickey Mantle, baseball hero, never really did grow up. He started playing professional baseball at a young age, and his talent was so phenomenal that no one dared to tell him to straighten up and fly right. Leavy, a former sportswriter, also shows a kind of wonky interest in the arcana of baseball, including appendixes which analyze Mantle's batting swing and a thorough exploration of the statistics to make a best guess as to just who was the best -- Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle. Grade: A