Mickey Mantle was a Hall of Fame New York Yankees center fielder whose Joplin connection comes through his 1950 season with the Joplin Miners.
Known forMickey Mantle was a Hall of Fame New York Yankees center fielder whose Joplin connection comes through his 1950 season with the Joplin Miners.
Mickey Charles Mantle was born on October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, and grew up in Commerce. He became one of baseball's best-known switch-hitters and spent his entire major-league career with the New York Yankees from 1951 through 1968.
Mantle's Joplin connection comes through the Joplin Miners. In 1950, before joining the Yankees, he played for the Class C Joplin club and won the Western Association batting title with a .383 average. That season makes him part of Joplin's baseball story even though his primary hometown identity belongs to Commerce, Oklahoma.
He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. For the People directory, the article should emphasize the local chapter: Joplin as part of Mantle's path from the Tri-State mining region to national baseball fame.