Chipper Jones and the Ghost of Mickey Mantle

Chipper Jones of the Braves won the National League batting title with an average of .364 but he failed to surpass Mickey Mantle's record for switch hitters. The Yankee great hit .365 in 1957. While Mantle hit for high average in the early part of his career, including winning the Triple Crown in 1956, he is best known for his power. Mantle, Eddie Murray and Jones stand apart among switch hitters with power with the latter expected to joint the first two with 500 plus career homers. Murray accomplished this with longevity and consistency. But Mickey remains the gold standard for sheer, unadulterated power. Many of his four-baggers were the stuff of legend. In one of his most famous, in 1963, he hit the 110 foot high facade in right field on the roof of Yankee Stadium while the ball was still rising. Were it not for the facade, the ball would still be airborne.

It is hard to watch Chipper Jones and not be reminded of Mickey Mantle - the same intimidating batting stance, even a physical resemblance, along with comparable production numbers. But there is a worrisome parallel as well - injuries. Mantle's legs were almost as famous as Betty Grable's, the World War II pinup girl. Knee injuries aged him prematurely and it was painful to watch him in the twilight of his career. In his last four seasons, he batted .255, .288, .245, and .237. In Jones' last four seasons, he has suffered a variety of injuries causing him to miss about 150 games. Chipper is such a pure hitter that it seems if he can just stand up, he can put a good swing on the ball. But the nagging injuries are troubling and he is approaching an age where recovery times will only get longer.

The Stadium

Yankee Stadium officially closed for business last night and to commemorate, there was much pomp and circumstance. The living communed one more time with Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle. However, for some, this was something of an anticlimax as the Babe's House had actually been decommissioned some three decades earlier when it was closed for a major renovation. When it reopened in 1976, we were presented with a desecrated masterpiece. The idiosyncratic dimensions of the old park, like those of Fenway and the old Polo Grounds, were part and parcel of its mystique; the famous short right field porch contrasting with the eternity of left center and center, with the latter weighing in at a tidy 461 feet. That "461" sign and the likes of Mickey Mantle and Frank Howard swatting non-juiced balls beyond it were seared in one's memory.

In the new improved Stadium, a boring symmetry was in evidence and the center field fence was moved in to a more pedestrian 417 feet; surely the Babe was rolling over in his grave. Despite a steady supply of colorful and talented players, and managers, over the next decades, the magic of the House that Ruth Built was never quite the same.