“Joe DiMaggio’s First Words To Mickey Mantle Destroyed Him — Mickey’s Response Made History”

Yankees locker room, February 1951, spring training, Mickey Mantle’s first day, 19 years old, shy, scared. He approaches Joe DiMaggio. Mr. DiMaggio, it’s a great honor to meet you. DiMaggio does not even look up, reading his newspaper. No response. Mickey waits, standing there, still silence. Finally, DiMaggio raises his head, looks at Mickey, up and down, cold, distant.

 You are too young and too green. You will not survive here. You will never be like me, never. Then he returns to his newspaper, conversation over. Mickey frozen, humiliated, rejected. But 3 months later, Mickey Mantle will be in center field, Joe DiMaggio’s position, and DiMaggio will retire because Mickey gave him no other choice. St.

Petersburg, Florida. Yankees spring training facility. February 15th, 1951. Mickey Mantle arrives from Commerce, Oklahoma. And population 2,500. A town so small everyone knows everyone, where Mickey’s father works in the lead mines, where Mickey played baseball in dirt fields with rocks for bases, where the biggest building is the two-story post office.

 Now, Mickey is in Florida, paradise, palm trees swaying in warm breeze, white sand beaches, ocean stretching to the horizon. He has never been to Florida, never seen an ocean, never felt humidity like this, never stayed in a hotel this nice. The Miller Huggins Field facility has real grass, manicured, perfect. Not the patchy dirt fields Mickey grew up on.

 The locker room has individual lockers, nameplates, fresh uniforms, everything clean, everything professional, everything overwhelming. Mickey is 19 years old, looks younger, baby-faced, skinny, 5 ft 11 in and 165 lb, still growing into his body. I’m signed with the Yankees in 1949 for $1,100. His father negotiated, got an extra $100, thought he was being smart.

 Mickey spent 2 years in the minor leagues, Class C, Class D, small towns, small stadiums, small dreams. Now he has been invited to major league spring training, the New York Yankees, the most famous sports franchise in the world. Not guaranteed a roster spot, just an invitation, a chance, a tryout. Maybe he stays.

 Probably he goes back to the minors. Mickey is terrified, not of failing. He has failed before, failed plenty, but of not belonging, of being exposed as a fraud, of everyone seeing that he does not deserve to be here. He knows who plays for the Yankees, Joe DiMaggio, the greatest center fielder in baseball, maybe the greatest player ever.

 13 seasons, nine World Series championships, three MVP awards, all the Yankee Clipper, an American icon, hero to millions. Mickey has worshipped DiMaggio his entire life. Growing up, his family had a radio, one radio for the whole house. On summer nights, they would gather around it, listen to Yankees games, listen to DiMaggio.

 His father would describe every play. There goes Joe, running to the gap, he’s got it, easy. Joe makes everything look easy. Mickey would close his eyes, picture it, dream of being Joe DiMaggio someday. Now that day has come, sort of. Not as DiMaggio, but as a kid trying out for his team. And Mickey does not know what to say, does not know how to act, does not know if he even deserves to breathe the same air.

 The Yankees facility is impressive, modern, professional, everything the minor leagues were not. Mickey walks into the locker room for the first time. It is empty. A little too early. Players have not arrived yet. He finds his locker, his name on a placard, Mantle, Yankees uniform hanging inside, pinstripes, number six. Mickey touches the fabric, cannot believe this is real.

 He sits down, waits, nervous, excited, overwhelmed. Other players start arriving, veterans, experienced, confident. They ignore Mickey, do not introduce themselves, just go about their business, getting dressed, talking to each other, laughing. Mickey sits quietly, invisible. Then the door opens. Joe DiMaggio enters. The room changes. Everyone stops talking.

 Everyone watches. DiMaggio is 36 years old, still in incredible shape, tall, elegant, moving with that graceful confidence only legends possess. He walks to his locker, does not acknowledge anyone, does not say good morning, just gets dressed, slowly, methodically. Everyone gives him space. Mickey watches, starstruck.

 He wants to say something, wants to introduce himself, but he is frozen, too scared, too intimidated. DiMaggio finishes dressing, walks out to the field. Mickey has missed his chance. The next day, Mickey tries again, gets to the locker room early, waits for DiMaggio. When DiMaggio arrives, Mickey stands, walks over, heart pounding. Mr. DiMaggio.

 DiMaggio stops, looks at him, no expression. My name is Mickey Mantle. I just wanted to introduce myself. It is an honor to be on the same team as you. I have followed your career since I was a kid. You are my hero. DiMaggio stares at him. Long, uncomfortable silence, then speaks. You are the kid from Oklahoma. Yes, sir. The one who can switch hit.

Yes, sir. DiMaggio nods. You are very young. Yes, sir. Well, I am 19. Too young. Sir? You are too young to be here, too green. This is the major leagues, the Yankees. We do not have time to teach kids. You will not survive. You will be back in the minors by June. Mickey does not know what to say. DiMaggio continues.

 You will never be like me. Do not try. Do not embarrass yourself. Then he walks away. Conversation over. Mickey stands there, shocked, humiliated. His hero just destroyed him with words, told him he does not belong, told him he will fail, told him he will never measure up. The other players pretend not to have heard, but they heard. Everyone heard.

 Mickey goes to the bathroom, locks himself in a stall, fights back tears. He is 19, away from home, trying to make the team. And Joe DiMaggio just told him he is not good enough. That night, Mickey calls his father, Mutt Mantle, and tells him what happened. Mutt listens, then speaks. Joe DiMaggio is scared. What? Scared of what? Scared of you, scared that you are going to take his job.

Scared that the Yankees do not need him anymore. So he is trying to break you before you get started. Do not let him. But he is right. I am too young. I am not ready. Then prove him wrong. Show him he made a mistake. Show him you belong. Show him you are better than he thinks. Mickey hangs up, thinks about his father’s words. Maybe Mutt is right.

Maybe DiMaggio is scared. Or maybe DiMaggio is just telling the truth. Mickey does not know, but he knows one thing. He is not quitting. Spring training begins. Batting practice, fielding drills, scrimmages. Mickey is nervous, pressing, trying too hard, strikes out frequently, makes errors, and looks like exactly what DiMaggio said he was, too young, too green, not ready.

 But Casey Stengel, the Yankees manager, sees something, potential, raw talent, speed, power. He pulls Mickey aside after practice. Kid, you were swinging like you were scared. I am scared. Of what? Of failing, of being sent down, of proving DiMaggio right. Stengel spits tobacco juice. DiMaggio said something to you? Mickey hesitates, then nods.

He said I will never be like him. Stengel laughs. Of course you will not be like him. Nobody is like Joe. He is one of a kind. But you know what? You do not need to be like Joe. You need to be Mickey. And Mickey has talent Joe never had. You can hit from both sides. You have more power. You are faster.

 You are younger. So stop trying to be Joe DiMaggio. Be yourself. Mickey thinks about this. Stengel is right. He has been trying to impress DiMaggio, trying to show he belongs, trying to prove he is worthy. But that is the wrong approach. He needs to just play, just be himself. The next day, Mickey relaxes, stops thinking, stops pressing, just swings.

First pitch, home run. Second pitch, home run. Third pitch, double off the wall. The Yankees players stop and watch. This kid can hit, really hit. DiMaggio watches from the outfield, says nothing, shows no emotion, but he sees, he knows. Over the next 2 weeks, Mickey dominates spring training, hits over .

400, multiple home runs, incredible speed. Stengel makes his decision. Mickey makes the team, not as a bench player, as a starter, right field, batting fourth, behind Joe DiMaggio. Opening day, 1951, Yankee Stadium. Mickey’s first major league game. He is in the starting lineup. Night, Joe DiMaggio is in center field.

 They barely speak. In the clubhouse, DiMaggio ignores Mickey. On the field, they communicate only when necessary. I got it. Take it. Nothing more, no encouragement, no advice, no mentorship. DiMaggio treats Mickey like he does not exist. The first month is difficult. Mickey struggles, hits .260, strikes out constantly, makes errors.

The media criticizes him, fans boo him. And DiMaggio says nothing, offers no help, no support, just silence. In July, the Yankees send Mickey to AAA. He is devastated. DiMaggio was right, he was not ready. He did not belong, but Mickey goes to Kansas City, plays well, dominates, gets called back up in August.

 Different player, confident, aggressive, finishes the season strong, the Yankees make the playoffs, win the pennant, World Series against the New York Giants. In a game two, the play that changes everything. Willie Mays hits a fly ball. Mickey and DiMaggio both run for it. DiMaggio calls him off. Mickey stops. His cleat catches a drainage grate. His knee explodes.

Career-threatening injury. DiMaggio catches the ball, looks down at Mickey on the ground, does not check on him, just throws the ball back. Mickey is carried off on a stretcher, taken to the hospital, surgery. The doctors say he may never play again. But Mickey proves them wrong, returns 10 days later.

 Plays in game six of the World Series. The Yankees win the championship. After the final out, the team celebrates. Champagne everywhere. Hugging, screaming, joy. Mickey is part of it. His teammates congratulate him, hug him, tell him he is brave, he is tough, he is a Yankee. But Joe DiMaggio does not say anything, does not approach Mickey.

 You mean does not acknowledge him. Just gets dressed quietly and leaves. That is the last game Joe DiMaggio ever plays. November 1951. Press conference, Yankee Stadium. Joe DiMaggio announces his retirement. He is 36 years old, has played 13 seasons, won nine championships. He could play more, his body still works.

 He could have a few more years, but he chooses to retire. Why? The official reason, he wants to go out on top after winning another championship. The unofficial reason that everyone knows, but nobody says, Mickey Mantle. DiMaggio sees the future, sees that the Yankees do not need him anymore. They have Mickey, younger, faster, more powerful.

 And DiMaggio refuses to be pushed aside, refuses to become a backup, refuses to watch someone else take his position while he sits on the bench. So he retires on his own terms. At the press conference, reporters ask about Mickey Mantle. Joe, some people say Mickey is your replacement. How do you feel about that? DiMaggio’s face hardens.

Mickey Mantle is a talented young player, but he is not my replacement. There is no replacing me. The Yankees will move forward with different players, but they will never replace Joe DiMaggio. Do you think Mickey can handle playing center field? That is not my decision. Casey will decide where to put him.

 Have you given Mickey any advice, any guidance on how to play center field at Yankee Stadium? Long pause. No, I have not. Why not? Because he did not ask. That last answer reveals everything. The coldness, the distance, the refusal to help. DiMaggio could have mentored Mickey, could have taught him how to play center field, could have must could have shared the wisdom of 13 years of experience, but he chose not to.

 Chose to leave Mickey to figure it out alone. Spring training 1952, Mickey’s second season. Joe DiMaggio is gone, retired. Mickey is moved to center field, DiMaggio’s position. Number six is retired, Mickey gets number seven. The pressure is enormous. He is replacing a legend, playing the position DiMaggio owned for 13 years, playing in front of fans who loved DiMaggio, who worshipped DiMaggio, who will never accept anyone else.

Mickey struggles early, makes mistakes, misjudges balls, takes wrong angles, the fans boo. The media compares him to DiMaggio constantly, every game, every at bat. DiMaggio would have caught that. DiMaggio would have hit that. DiMaggio was better. Mickey hears it all, reads it all, feels the weight.

 But he keeps playing, keeps improving, as learns the position, studies the angles, watches film, works harder than anyone. Slowly, he gets better. By midseason, he is excellent, making plays DiMaggio never made, covering more ground, using his speed, his power, his athleticism. The fans start to accept him, start to cheer, start to forget DiMaggio.

June 1952. The Yankees are playing the Red Sox. Mickey hits a home run, massive shot, 450 ft. The crowd goes wild. As Mickey crosses home plate, an older fan shouts, “DiMaggio never hit them that far.” Mickey hears it, does not react, just trots to the dugout. But inside, he smiles.

 That is the moment, the moment he stops being compared to DiMaggio, the moment he becomes his own player, his own legend. The 1952 season ends. Mickey hits .311, 23 home runs, 87 RBIs. Excellent numbers for a second-year player. It’s the Yankees win another championship, Mickey’s second ring. And Joe DiMaggio watches from home, retired at 37, no longer needed, no longer the star.

 Replaced by the kid he said would never make it. Years pass. Mickey becomes one of the greatest players in baseball history. 536 home runs, .298 average, seven World Series championships, three MVP awards, Hall of Fame. Everything DiMaggio predicted would not happen, happens. And DiMaggio watches from a distance. He never contacts Mickey, never calls, never writes, never offers congratulations.

The coldness remains. In 1969, baseball celebrates its 100th anniversary. They select the greatest living players, the all-century team. Joe DiMaggio is selected. So is Mickey Mantle. The ceremony is at the World Series. Both men are invited. They will be on the field together for the first time since 1951. That Mickey arrives early, nervous.

 He has not seen DiMaggio in 18 years, does not know what to expect. DiMaggio arrives. They are introduced to the crowd, stand next to each other, wave to the fans, do not speak. After the ceremony, Mickey approaches DiMaggio, extends his hand. Joe, it is good to see you. DiMaggio shakes his hand, briefly.

 Mickey, I want to thank you. For what? For pushing me. When you said I would never be like you, it motivated me, made me work harder, made me want to prove you wrong. DiMaggio looks at him, no emotion. You did prove me wrong. You became a great player. Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. DiMaggio nods, turns to leave.

 Mickey speaks again. Joe, I always wondered, why did you never help me? Never give me advice, never mentor me? DiMaggio stops, thinks, then answers honestly. Edom, because I knew what you were. I knew you were going to take my job. I knew the Yankees would choose you over me. I knew my time was ending and yours was beginning, and I resented that, resented you.

 Not because you did anything wrong, but because you represented the end of my career. So I stayed away. I kept my distance. I gave you nothing, because if I helped you, I would be helping my own replacement, and I was not ready to do that. Mickey understands. For the first time, he understands. I am sorry you felt that way.

Do not be sorry. You earned everything you got. You deserved it. You were better than I wanted to admit. And that is the truth. They shake hands again, longer this time. Then DiMaggio walks away. That is the last real conversation they ever have. Joe DiMaggio dies in 1999, 84 years old.

 And Mickey Mantle had died four years earlier in 1995, 63 years old, liver cancer. Destroyed by decades of drinking, drinking to kill the pain, the physical pain from his ruined knees, the emotional pain from a thousand regrets. Both legends, both Yankees, both Hall of Famers, both complicated men who never quite figured out how to be happy.

 At DiMaggio’s funeral, someone asks a former Yankees player, “Did Joe and Mickey ever become friends?” The player shakes his head. “No, they respected each other, but they were never friends. Joe could not get past the fact that Mickey replaced him. And Mickey could never forget how Joe treated him when he was 19 and scared and needed help.

 Some wounds do not heal. Some distances are too far to cross. But the truth is more complex, more human, more sad. DiMaggio was not wrong to be cold. And he saw the future clearly. Saw it the first time he watched Mickey take batting practice. Saw the power, the speed, the potential. Saw that Mickey Mantle was coming to take his job, take his position, take his glory, take his place in Yankees history.

 And he was right. Mickey did all of those things. And DiMaggio could not help the man who was replacing him, could not mentor his own replacement, could not train the person who would make people forget about him. That is human. Understandable, not admirable, not kind, not what legends are supposed to do, but understandable.

 And Mickey was not wrong to resent DiMaggio’s coldness. He was 19 years old, a kid, scared out of his mind, playing for the most famous team in baseball, surrounded by legends, looking for guidance, looking for someone to tell him it would be okay, looking for a mentor, an an older brother, a father figure.

 And DiMaggio, the man he worshipped, refused, looked right through him, treated him like he did not exist, left him alone to figure it out, to sink or swim with no help. That hurt. That rejection, that coldness from his hero, that wound never fully healed. Even years later, even after Mickey became a superstar himself, he remembered.

 Remembered being 19 in that locker room. Remembered DiMaggio refusing to even look at him. Remembered feeling small, worthless, unwanted. But Mickey used it, used the rejection as fuel, used the coldness as motivation, used the words, “You will never be like me” as a challenge, a dare, a promise to himself. And he met that challenge, exceeded it, became one of the greatest to ever play the game, not in spite of DiMaggio’s coldness, because of it.

 All because he had something to prove, someone to prove wrong, a voice in his head saying, “You are not good enough” that he spent 18 years silencing with home runs and championships and MVP trophies. February 1951, Joe DiMaggio tells Mickey Mantle he will never be like him. DiMaggio is right. Mickey never becomes like DiMaggio.

He becomes better. 536 home runs to DiMaggio’s 361, three MVPs to DiMaggio’s three, seven championships to DiMaggio’s nine. Comparable, equal, different, not better or worse, just different. But in one way, Mickey does become like DiMaggio, cold, distant. When younger players come up after Mickey, he does not mentor them, either, does not help, does not guide, just like DiMaggio did not help him. The cycle continues.

 The coldness passes from one generation to the next. And maybe that is DiMaggio’s real legacy to Mickey Mantle, not how to play center field, not how to hit, not how to win, but how to protect yourself by pushing others away, how to survive by staying distant, how to handle the inevitable end by refusing to acknowledge it.

February 15th, 1951, the day Joe DiMaggio told Mickey Mantle he would never be like him, the day their relationship ended before it ever really began, the day a legend refused to pass the torch, so the next legend had to take it himself.

He had them printed at a shop in Philadelphia, and he carried them with him for years. Cheap little business cards, nine words, Marty the Tailor, father of famous Reggie Jackson. The man who printed those cards had played ball in the Negro Leagues for a few dollars a game. He raised his son alone in the rooms above that shop, and he went to prison the year that boy finished high school.

 And in the summer of 1977, when the most talked about athlete in America wanted to walk away from baseball, the tailor was the man he called.  You’ve seen the footage. Everybody has seen the footage. Fenway Park, a hot Saturday afternoon, a manager coming across a dugout at his own right fielder while two coaches throw their arms between them.

 It’s been replayed for almost 50 years.  It gets used as a punch line. Two big egos, one small dugout. That’s not what it was. What the record books never tell you is that both of those men grew up without a father in the house. One of them lost his before he could walk. The other watched his get taken away, and neither of them ever said a word about it to the other.

 Not that day, not for the rest of their lives. Here’s what I want you to understand before we go any further. Nobody in that dugout was fighting about a fly ball. To see this the way it actually happened, you have to go back to the winter before, because the war started months before either man threw a punch at anything.

 November of 1976, the Yankees had just been swept out of the World Series by Cincinnati four straight, and George Steinbrenner was humiliated. Free agency was brand new. For the first time in the history of the game, a player could finish his contract and sell himself to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder in America was a shipbuilder from Cleveland who had bought the Yankees three years earlier and had no patience left.

 There was a meeting. The general manager, Gabe Paul, wanted Bobby Grich. He said the Yankees needed a shortstop. Billy Martin sat there with his voice half gone from getting thrown out of a World Series game the night before, and he agreed on Grich. And then he said the name he really wanted, Joe Rudi. Rudi was a Billy Martin kind of ball player, quiet, good glove, right-handed bat, showed up, did the job, went home.

 Martin had just taken this team to its first pennant in 12 years, and he thought he’d earned the right to say what it needed. Steinbrenner  wrote the names down. He wasn’t really asking. On November 29th, 1976, George Steinbrenner signed Reggie Jackson,    five years, close to three million dollars, the biggest contract anybody in baseball had ever seen.

 He did not consult his manager. Now, think about what that does to a man. Not the money, the message. Your boss goes out and spends more on one player than your entire coaching staff will earn in a decade, and he doesn’t pick up the phone. You find out the way the guy pumping your gas finds out. And Billy Martin’s response was the most Billy Martin thing imaginable. He did nothing.

He said nothing. He didn’t call. Two months went by. Christmas came and went. Spring training opened in Fort Lauderdale. In all that time, the manager of the New York Yankees never once welcomed his new star to the ball club. That silence is where the whole thing lives. Reggie walked into that clubhouse and found 24 men who had gone to the World Series without him and didn’t think they’d needed the help.

Thurman Munson, the captain, the reigning most valuable player of the American League, had already gone to Steinbrenner and asked for his own deal to be reopened. Graig Nettles had led the league in home runs, and nobody outside the Bronx knew his name. And then there was the city itself. You have to remember what New York was in 1977.

The city was broke. Whole blocks of the Bronx were burning. There was a killer loose who was writing letters to the newspapers. That July the lights would go out across five boroughs and stay out for 25 hours. This was not a town that felt like a man who’d just been handed $3 million. Reggie later wrote that until he came to New York, he didn’t know what the word alone meant.

 Then, in late May, the June issue of Sport magazine hit the newsstands. The writer was Robert Ward. He’d sat with Reggie in a bar in Fort Lauderdale during spring training, and here’s the part that almost never gets told because it doesn’t fit the story America decided to tell. By Ward’s own account, Reggie wasn’t bragging when the conversation started.

 He was talking about how his teammates resented him. Ward asked him straight out whether he thought race had anything to do with it. Reggie said yes. He said they didn’t like a black man getting that kind of attention. Ward pushed further and asked whether it was also because he was intelligent. That’s when Reggie went off, and that’s when the sentence came out that followed him for the rest of his life.

 He was quoted saying the team all flowed from him, that he was the straw that stirs the drink, and that Munson could only stir it bad. Reggie has denied that quote for almost 50 years. He says the line was fed to him, and that it never happened the way it was printed. Ward stood by every word of it and never backed off it once. I’m not going to tell you which man is right because nobody alive can prove it either way, but here’s what isn’t in dispute.

Munson read it, and Munson never forgot it. 24 men stopped talking to him in a clubhouse for 162 games. Now, here’s a small thing. It’s going to seem like a footnote. Hold on to it anyway. Billy Martin was born in West Berkeley, California, on May 16th, 1928. He was born in his grandmother’s house. His grandmother had come over from Italy and never really learned English, and she’d lean over that crib saying the same word again and again, “Bello, beautiful.

” Everyone in the house started calling the baby Billy, and Billy is what he answered to. Then he went to school, and a teacher read the roll and called out a name he had never heard before in his life, Alfred Manuel Pezzano Jr. He didn’t answer. He had no idea she meant him. That was his father’s name.

 The man had walked out when Billy was 8 months old. His mother had scrubbed the name off the family so completely that her own son didn’t recognize it. Now, remember that detail because who that man was and what he wasn’t is going to matter before this story is over. Billy grew up small, poor, and angry in a neighborhood  where kids got hit for less.

 He was mocked for his size and for his nose and for the strange situation at his house. He became a street fighter.  He’d do damn near anything to win. And then baseball gave him the one thing he’d never had. His name was Casey Stengel. Stengel managed him in Oakland, brought him to New York, and treated him like a son. That’s not a figure of speech people used later. That’s what it was.

 Stengel would defend that scrappy little second baseman when nobody else would. And Billy Martin loved him for the way you love the first person who ever chooses you. In May of 1957, a group of Yankees went to the Copacabana for Billy’s birthday. There was a fight. Nobody could ever prove who threw the punch, and most people believed it wasn’t Billy.

 On June 15th, the Yankees traded him to Kansas City anyway. The next day, in his first game with his new team, Billy Martin faced the Yankees and hit a home run. He never forgave the organization, and he never forgave Casey Stengel, who he believed could have stopped it and didn’t. They stopped speaking for years. So, understand what walked into that dugout in 1977.

Not a manager, a 49-year-old man who had been left twice. Once by a father he’d never met. Once by the only father he ever had. And who was now watching a new owner spend $3 million without asking him a thing.    But that’s not the part that breaks you. Because across that same dugout stood a man whose story rhymed with his in a way neither of them ever seemed to notice.

Reggie Jackson’s parents split when he was a small boy. His mother took most of the children and went. His father stayed and took Reggie and raised him in a house in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, where the first floor was a tailor shop and the family lived above it. Theirs was one of the only black families in that town.

 Martinez Jackson had played ball with the Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues. The game had used him up and given him nothing, so he bought needles and thread and a pressing machine and built something the game had refused to give him. Reggie has said his father was a no excuses man. The deal in that house was simple.

 You make the first team or you come work the pressing machine after school. And then, in the middle of his senior year, the police came. Martinez Jackson had been running bootleg whiskey out of the basement under the tailor shop. He was arrested and he went to jail. When Reggie graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1964, his father was not in the audience.

 He was locked up. That is the man. That is the man the country would spend 1977 calling arrogant. A tailor’s son from a town where they were the only black family, whose father had been used up by segregated baseball  and then thrown into a cell, standing in Yankee Stadium being told he wanted too much. And that’s still not the worst of it.

June 18th, 1977, Fenway Park, 34,603 people. NBC has the game of the week and the whole country is watching. Boston leads 7 to 4. Bottom of the sixth. Fred Lynn singles. Jim Rice comes up and checks his swing and the ball dies in shallow right field, out toward the line. Right field at Fenway is a sun field.

 Reggie takes a step back, then sees it’s falling short. He’d say afterward that he thought Willie Randolph had it, so he held up. Rice pulls into second standing. Billy Martin walks out to take his pitcher out of the game. His name  was Mike Torrez. Remember him, too. And on his way back to the dugout, Martin tells Paul Blair to get his glove.

 Blair is a center fielder. It is the middle of an inning. In baseball, you do not do this. A man comes out mid-inning when he’s hurt, and that’s it. Everything else is a message.    Reggie sees Blair jogging out toward him, and he cannot believe what he’s looking at. He comes in, down the steps, hands spread wide.

 He asks what he did, and Billy Martin comes across that dugout at him. Two coaches get between them. One of them is Yogi Berra. The other one is Elston Howard. Think about who that second man is for a second. Elston Howard was the first black man to ever wear a Yankee uniform. He’d come up in 1955,  eight years after Jackie Robinson, and he’d spent his career being told where he could sleep and where he could eat.

 In 1963, he became the first black player to win the most valuable player  award in the American League. By 1977, he was a coach, and he would never be given a team to manage.    He is one of the men standing between them. And as they move down the dugout, he keeps himself in front of Martin, keeping him off his own right fielder, on national television, while America watches. No punch is thrown.

 That’s the thing nobody remembers. There was no fight. There was just a 49-year-old man who had been abandoned twice, screaming at a 31-year-old man whose father was a felon and a tailor, and neither one of them had any idea they were looking in a mirror. The Yankees lost that game 10 to 4.

  Nobody remembers the score now. Remember that detail I asked you to hold on to? Billy Martin learned his own name from a stranger. He had no father to call. He’d had one substitute, and that man let the Yankees sell him,  and never explained why. When Billy Martin was in trouble, there was no phone number.

 Reggie Jackson had one that summer, when he’d had enough, when the clubhouse had gone silent on him and the papers had turned him into a cartoon and he was ready to quit the game entirely. He talked to his father about walking away. Long conversations, more than once. We don’t have a transcript of what Martinez Jackson said to his son.

Nobody wrote it down, but we know what happened next. Reggie Jackson didn’t quit. October 18th, 1977, game six of the World Series, Yankee Stadium, 56,407 people. Fourth inning, first pitch, home run. Fifth inning, first pitch, home run. Eighth inning, first pitch, home run. Three swings, three pitches, three different pitchers.

 Eight to four, five runs batted in. The first man in the history of the World Series to hit five home runs in one series, and the first Yankee since Babe Ruth to hit three in a single game. 56,000 people chanting one name in a city that had spent that entire summer on fire. And the pitcher who went the distance that night, the man who threw a complete game and put the Yankees back on top of the world for the first time in 15 years, was Mike Torrez, the same pitcher Billy Martin had walked out to remove at Fenway on the afternoon everything fell apart. But

here’s what nobody saw coming, the nickname, Mr. October. That didn’t come from a broadcaster, and it didn’t come from a headline writer. It came from Thurman Munson, the captain, the man Reggie was supposed to have insulted in that magazine. Munson said it to a reporter after a loss in that same series, and he said it sarcastically.

 He meant it as a shot. It became the name Reggie Jackson carried into the Hall of Fame. Munson and Jackson made their peace. They flew together just days before Munson’s plane went down in Canton, Ohio in August of 1979. Billy Martin resigned the following July after saying of Jackson and Steinbrenner that one was a born liar and the other was convicted.

 Five days later, at Old-Timers Day, they announced he’d be back, and the crowd stood up and roared. He would manage the Yankees five separate times. He died on Christmas Day, 1989, in a truck that went into a ditch near his farmhouse in Upstate New York.  He was 61. The next day, the marquee at Yankee Stadium read, “Billy Martin, always number one.

” Martinez Jackson lived to see his son inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993. He died the following year at 89, still keeping hours at his tailor shop.  He was still handing out the cards, Marty the tailor, father of famous Reggie Jackson. Reggie wrote about Billy Martin years later, and he didn’t write what you’d expect.

 He said people think he hates Billy Martin. He said he doesn’t. He said he hates some of the things Martin did, and then he admitted something harder than hatred. He said he doesn’t understand him. I think that’s the truest sentence anybody ever wrote about the two of them, because those two men stood eight feet apart in Boston with the whole country watching, carrying the exact same wound, and neither one ever recognized it in the other.

 One of them had a father to call. That’s the whole difference. That’s the entire story. If this one got to you, do me a favor and hit the like button, because it helps other people find these stories, and subscribe if you want more of them. There’s a lot of this era we haven’t gotten to yet. In the comments, I want to know something.

 Who was the man you called when you didn’t know what to do? I read every one of those, and next time, we’re staying with this ball club, because there’s another man in that dugout nobody talks about. Thurman Munson taught himself to fly an airplane, and the reason he did it had nothing to do with money, or with baseball, or with getting away from anybody.

 It had to do with three kids in Ohio. That story is coming, and it’s going to hurt.