Researching a Photo of Mickey Mantle: A Lot More Information Makes a Lot More Desirable

In their Spring 2020 Premium Auction, Goldin Auctions offers this composite photograph as Lot #1430:



The photo comes with this description:

Offered here is a composite 8 x 10 photograph of the great Mickey Mantle. This black and white photograph shows Mantle in his home white Yankees’ uniform in two poses – the first image on top is of Mantle loading up his right-handed swing and the bottom image is of Mantle and his swing right at impact. The image can be dated to 1951, the season he wore number “6”, which is clearly evident from the bottom photo. The back has “M. Mantle” and the number “1168870” handwritten in pencil with the “International News Photo” stamp in faded red ink on the bottom. This composite photograph has been encapsulated and authenticated by PSA (84188301) and classified as Type III.

While the description is correct when it states that “the image can be dated to 1951,” the folks at Goldin Auctions missed a rather important fact about these pictures that would probably be of interest to potential bidders and certainly would be advantageous to both the seller and auction house. With a little research, the exact date of the pictures can be determined, and given this more detailed information the photo undoubtedly becomes far more desirable and valuable.

Here’s the step-by-step research:

Who’s at bat?

That’s an easy one. It’s clearly Mickey Mantle.

Not only does the batter look like Mantle, but he is wearing a Yankees cap and Yankees pinstripes, the uniform number 6 is on his back, and his left sleeve is adorned with a 1951 American League Golden Anniversary patch.


Yankees Bobby Brown and Billy Martin wearing jerseys with the American League Golden Anniversary patch, 1951

Only two Yankee players wore number 6 in 1951: Bobby Brown and Mickey Mantle. Not only does the batter not look like Bobby Brown, but Brown batted exclusively left-handed. Our right-handed batter is most certainly Mickey Mantle.

Of course, Mantle is best known for wearing number 7. After all, that is the number the Yankees retired on June 8, 1969, to honor the beloved Yankees slugger.


Mickey Mantle in the Yankee Stadium clubhouse on the day his uniform number was retired, June 8, 1969.

But when Mantle first made the big league club, famed clubhouse manager Pete Sheehy gave the 19-year-old the number 6, the number previously that had been worn by third baseman Bobby Brown since 1948. On July 15, the struggling Mantle was optioned to the American Association Kansas City Blues and Brown regained number 6.

Brown flourished wearing his old number. During Mantle’s nearly six-week stint in the minors, Brown boosted his average from .244 on July 15 to .280 on August 25, the day that Mantle rejoined the Yanks. Understandably, Brown kept his good luck number 6, so Sheehy gave Mantle number 7. The rest is history.

As far as the photo goes, we have thus far established that:

• the year is 1951, because he is wearing the American League 50th Anniversary patch;
• the location is Yankee Stadium, because the batter is wearing home pinstripes;
• the batter is Mickey Mantle, because he is wearing uniform number 6 and bats right-handed.

Who is the opposition and when did they visit Yankee Stadium?

Turning our attention to the catcher, we see that his stockings are dark with a pair of broad, white stripes. This particular style was worn by just one major league club in 1951: the Boston Red Sox


The 1951 Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park

A quick look at the schedule of games played at Yankee Stadium reveals that during Mantle’s stint wearing number 6 (from the beginning of the season through July 13), the Boston Red Sox played at Yankee Stadium just five times: April 17, April 18, June 29, June 30, and July 1. And of these games, Mantle participated in just three: April 17, April 18, and June 30. But we can additionally eliminate the date of April 18, as the Red Sox pitchers that day were Harry Taylor and Ellis Kinder, both right-handers. As such, the switch-hitting Mantle would have batted lefty the entire day, not righty as seen in the photograph.

Thus the pictures of Mantle batting must have been taken on one of two dates: April 17 or June 30, 1951. The former was Opening Day at Yankee Stadium and marked the major league debut of the highly touted rookie. The latter was a run-of-the-mill contest in which Mantle pinch-hit for starting pitcher Bob Kuzava in the eighth inning, grounding out to second base for the first out.

What is the date?

So which date is it: April 17 or June 30?

One might hope that identifying the catcher would help out. After all, the Red Sox used no fewer than seven different catchers during the 1951 season. But for both the April 17 and June 30 games, the catching duties were exclusively performed by former Yankees backstop Buddy Rosar, playing in the last of his 13 big league seasons.


Red Sox catcher, Buddy Rosar

To determine which date was correct, it was necessary to scour contemporary newspapers in hopes of finding these pictures of Mantle in print. It turns out that on April 20, 1951, the Des Moines (IA) Register (as well as a number of other newspapers) ran these very Mantle pictures, as well as a third in which Mantle is seen completing his follow through, the number 6 prominently shown. This effectively eliminates June 30 as a possibility, clinching the date as April 17, 1951.


Des Moines (IA) Register, April 20, 1951

In fact, the Register’s caption reads: “Here’s a three-picture sequence of the highly publicized rookie getting his first big league hit.” Assuming the caption is indeed correct, we are seeing Mantle hitting a sixth-inning single.


Scorecard from Opening Day Game at Yankee Stadium, April 17, 1951

The Conclusion

Any photograph showing Mickey Mantle during his rookie season is likely to be of great interest to a baseball fan, let alone a collector. And as far as Goldin Auctions notes in its lot description, that is what you’d be getting with this composite photograph. But by digging a bit deeper, the story behind the pictures becomes far more engaging, for we now know that the photograph offered shows one of the greatest baseball players of all time in his major league debut.

Some Baseball Cards and the Photographs Upon Which They Were Based

Many baseball cards of the first half of the 20th century featured illustrations of ballplayers that were based upon actual photographs. Here are just a few.

White Border (T206) Hal Chase (Holding Trophy)

This card of Hal Chase was based upon an image shot by legendary baseball photographer Charles Conlon. The picture of the talented first baseman was captured at New York’s Hilltop Park on May 3, 1909. For more about this Chase card (pun intended) and the silver “loving cup” he is holding, refer to my blog posting of November 2009.

Turkey Red (T3) Jordan and Herzog

This card issued in 1910 shows Brooklyn’s Tim Jordan and Giants base runner Buck Herzog in a play at first base. The card’s beautiful artwork was based upon a photograph of the two ballplayers taken at New York’s Polo Grounds in 1908.

Cracker Jack (E145) Butch Schmidt

Boston Braves first baseman Charles “Butch” Schmidt is seen leaping high for a catch on this baseball card produced in 1914. The photograph the card was based on was taken during spring training at Atlanta’s Ponce De Leon Park, in either 1913 or 1914.

Goudey (R319) Babe Ruth

The 1933 Goudey (R319) set features four cards of Babe Ruth. Three of these cards, including the card seen here (number 144), were based on a 1927 photograph taken by Charles Conlon at Yankee Stadium.

Goudey (R319) Lou Gehrig

Perhaps the same day that Conlon captured the above image of Ruth, the photographer also took the picture of Lou Gehrig that was used as the basis of both of his two 1933 Goudey (R319) cards, numbers 92 (seen here) and 160.

Play Ball (R336) Ted Williams

This 1941 baseball card of Ted Williams features a portrait of the Red Sox star that was based on a picture taken by another great of the baseball photography world: George Brace. The Brace photo, shot in 1939 (note the barely visible edge of the “Baseball Centennial” patch on Ted’s left sleeve), was also the basis of his 1940 “Play Ball” (R335) card.

Bowman 1951 Mickey Mantle

This baseball card of rookie Mickey Mantle features wonderful artwork that was based on a photograph of the future Yankees star taken at Phoenix’s Municipal Stadium during spring training of 1951. The story behind this photo is detailed in my blog post of February of 2016.

A Portrait of Mickey Mantle in Decline

You’ve probably seen this iconic photo of Mickey Mantle before:



According to “Twilight of the Idol: A Portrait of Mickey Mantle in Decline,” a 2014 article by LIFE.com’s Ben Cosgrove:

The John Dominis picture ... remains not just one of the best photos of Mickey Mantle, and not just one of the finest baseball pictures to run in LIFE magazine, but one of the most powerful photographs ever made of a sports hero in decline. Shot during a meaningless game at Yankee Stadium during the team’s abysmal 1965 season—the Yankees finished below .500 for the first time in 40 years—Dominis’s picture of Mantle tossing his helmet in disgust after a lousy at-bat distills in a single frame the wounded pride of the inexorably fading athlete.

But exactly when was the photo taken? And was it actually “shot during a meaningless game?” I recently conducted research to answer both of these questions.

The photo, taken by longtime photojournalist John Dominis, was first published in the July 30, 1965, issue of LIFE magazine. Not only did the exterior of the magazine feature a beautiful shot of Mantle, but the cover story, written by John McDermott and titled “Last Innings of Greatness,” featured a dozen photos of Mantle, each taken by Dominis.



There’s no doubt that Dominis shot the photo of Mantle tossing his helmet in 1965 and specifically for the LIFE Magazine story, but most sources fail to give an exact date.

In a September 16, 2014, New York Post article about a lawsuit between Dominis’s ex-wife and his longtime mistress, reporter Julia Marsh stated that,

besides the July 30, 1965 Mantle shot, other notable Dominis photographs include the historic image of athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists to protest racism at the 1968 Olympics and the 1966 LIFE feature “The Great Cats of Africa.”

But here Marsh confuses the date that the Mantle photo was taken with the publication date of the LIFE Magazine in which it appeared.

And the Getty Image web site, where one can purchase the Mantle helmet-tossing photo, states that the picture was taken on June 25, 1965. A quick check reveals that the Yankees hosted the Angels at Yankee Stadium that day, but Mantle did not play in the game and the contest took place at night, while the photo clearly shows daytime action. Clearly June 25th, 1965, is also incorrect.

To determine the exact date the photo was taken, I jotted down four straight-forward clues:

1) The photograph had to have been taken in 1965 before the LIFE Magazine publication date of July 30.
2) The photograph was clearly shot during a day game.
3) The venue was most certainly Yankee Stadium.
4) Mickey Mantle participated in the game.

These four clues, as simple and obvious as they may seem, quickly winnowed the number of possible games in which the photo was taken from 104 (the number of games played by the Yankees from Opening Day through July 30, 1965) to just 26.

I discovered a critical fifth clue by closely examining an uncropped version of the photo:



Note that a large portion of the left-hand side of the photo was cropped when it ran in the LIFE magazine article. That portion shows that the on-deck batter wore uniform number 6. This was the number assigned to Yankees third baseman Clete Boyer from 1961 to 1966. Mantle is nearing the dugout when he tosses his helmet and yet Boyer is in the on-deck circle with two bats in hand. This means that Boyer’s spot in the lineup came after the batter who followed Mantle. For example, if Mantle batted third in the lineup, Boyer must have batted fifth; or, if Mantle batted fourth in the lineup, Boyer batted sixth; etc.

As it turns out, this Mantle-Boyer batting-order scenario was quite rare, as Mantle generally batted fourth and Boyer usually batted seventh or eighth. Nevertheless, I checked each of the 26 games that I had isolated from clues one through four to assess which featured the correct Mantle-Boyer positions in the lineup. This left me with just five possible games:

• April 22 vs. Twins (Mantle bats fourth, Boyer sixth)
• April 25 vs. Angels (Mantle bats fourth, Boyer sixth) (first game of doubleheader)
• June 5 vs. White Sox (Mantle bats fourth, Boyer sixth)
• June 19 vs. Twins (Mantle bats fifth, Boyer seventh)
• June 20 vs. Twins (Mantle bats fifth, Boyer seventh) (first game of doubleheader)

(For those unconvinced that the photo reveals that Mantle and Boyer had a batter in between them in the lineup, I also checked to see if Boyer ever immediately followed Mantle in the lineup in those 26 games: It never happened.)

Finally, a sixth clue comes from the caption that accompanied the helmet-tossing photo as published in the LIFE Magazine article:

Frustration and bitterness are Mantle’s regular companions this season—and he displays them with passion. Before 72,000 fans in Yankee Stadium, he erupts after grounding out and striking out.

Yes, there were 72,000 fans at Yankee Stadium! Indeed, the photo shows that the grandstand behind Mantle is completely packed.

In 1965, there was just one date at Yankee Stadium that had an attendance anywhere near that mark: a June 20th doubleheader which drew 72,244 fans (71,245 paid). Indeed, from 1960 through 1965, Yankee Stadium had cracked the 60,000 attendance mark just four times, each date being a doubleheader:

• July 24, 1960
• July 4, 1961
• June 17, 1962
• June 20, 1965

So, with these six clues, I was able to isolate the date of the photo to just one possibility: the first game of a doubleheader played on June 20, 1965. In the first game of the doubleheader, Mantle had four plate appearances:

• In the bottom of the first, with no outs, Mantle grounds into a fielder choice and reaches first base safely. After Joe Pepitone makes the second out, Clete Boyer hits a grounder to force Mantle at second base to end the inning.
• In the bottom of the fourth, Mantle leads off and grounds out to the pitcher on an attempted bunt hit.
• In the bottom of the sixth, Mantle leads off with a strikeout.
• In the bottom of the seventh, Mantle singles to third base and is removed for a pinch-runner.

The first-inning scenario doesn’t match the photo, as Boyer would not have been in the on-deck circle when Mantle returned to the dugout and tossed his helmet. However, the other three at bats are possible matches, with Mantle returning to the dugout after making an out in the fourth and sixth, and Mantle leaving the game after singling in the seventh.

While the exact moment that Dominis took the photo remains a mystery, we now know that Dominis captured the frustrated Mantle in the first game of a doubleheader against the Twins on June 20, 1965.

Was it true that the photo had been “shot during a meaningless game?” Not at all. As reported in the New York Times on June 20:

For today’s double-header a crowd of more than 50,000 is expected. It will be “Bat Day.” Every child under 14 who is accompanied by an adult will get a Little League bat.

And here’s an ad from the same paper:



Indeed, June 20, 1965, was the first-ever “Bat Day” at Yankee Stadium.

On June 21, the New York Times published the following photo with a caption that read: “Young fans holding aloft bats they were given by the Yankees yesterday at the Stadium.”



Was this game meaningless for the many thousands of delighted kids who received free bats? Was this game meaningless for the many thousands of fathers who took their child(ren) to the park that day, which just happened to be Father’s Day? Was this game meaningless for many of the over 72,000 fans who are now able to say that they were at Yankee Stadium the very day that photographer John Dominis took one of the most celebrated photos in modern baseball history? I think not.

Jackie and Mickey

Recently, my friend Marty Appel shared a wonderful photo on Facebook. Take a look:



That's Brooklyn's Jackie Robinson (#42) playing first base and the Yankees' Mickey Mantle (#7) right by his side. The iconic numbers, the idyllic setting, the casual poses. It all makes for a simply beautiful shot.

I got to wondering: What can I learn about this image? So I set to work.

A few key clues were quickly apparent. The palm trees in the background made it quite clear that the Dodgers and Yankees were playing one another during a spring training game. Since Jackie preceded Mickey to the big leagues by four years, the earliest the photo could have been taken was Mickey's first spring training with New York: 1951. But in that year (and that year alone), the Yankees held spring training in Phoenix, Arizona. In fact, there's a famous image of Mickey taken at Phoenix's Municipal Stadium in 1951. It's his Bowman rookie bubble gum card:



Compare this card to this shot of Mickey at spring training in Phoenix.



And here's an overlay of the card on the photograph:



Sure, the Bowman artist took some liberties with the photo, manipulating the background trees and poles, and slightly shortening Mantle's bat, but the card was obviously based on the photograph.

By the way, careful observers will notice that while almost all of Mantle's uniform number is not visible, he most certainly is not wearing a "7." That's because the highly touted rookie was originally given uniform number 6, which is indeed the numeral he is wearing in both the photo and bubble gum card.

Additionally, take a close look at the end of Mickey's bat and you'll see that he's not holding a Mantle model. (Did one even exist in at that time?) Instead, he grabbed the bat of teammate Joe Collins:



Returning our attention to the photo of Jackie and Mickey ... With the Yankees over 2,000 miles away from Brooklyn's training facilities in Vero Beach, Florida, we can safely eliminate 1951 as a possible year that the photo was taken. Furthermore, since Jackie retired following the 1956 season, we can now feel confident that the photo was taken in spring training sometime between 1952 and 1956.

Now take a look at another photograph, this one found at randombaseball.tumblr.com:



Clearly this photo was taken within a few moments of the first picture, but here we see a bit more of the park and, most importantly, a Dodgers pitcher wearing uniform number 49. For our known time frame of 1952 through 1956, only one African-American pitcher for Brooklyn wore that number: Joe Black. And since Black was traded to the Reds in the middle of the 1955 season, we can eliminate 1956 as a possibility for the date of our photo.

One other clue jumps out from both of these photographs. The Yankees are wearing their home pinstripes and the Dodgers their road grays. Thus, New York was the home team for the contest.

Though spring training home games are sometimes played at neutral locations, a reasonable first guess is that the photo was taken at the Yankees facilities at St. Petersburg, Florida, where they trained every spring from 1924 to 1961 (except for the war years of 1943-1945 and, as noted above, 1951).

Now compare both of these photos of Jackie and Mickey to this old postcard of the Yankees' home field in St. Petersburg, Al Lang Field:



While the postcard shows the ballpark without light standards, the bleachers down the left field line and the palm trees in the background match up quite well. There is little doubt that the photographs were taken at St. Petersburg's Al Lang Field.

The next step in attempting to learn more about the photograph is to determine on which dates the Yankees and Dodgers met at Al Lang Field during spring training of 1952, 1953, 1954, and 1955. A check through old spring training schedules provided the answers:

• April 2, 1952
• March 29 and March 31, 1953
• March 26, 1954
• March 25, 1955

For these five games, only one featured Jackie Robinson playing first base, Mickey Mantle participating in the game, and Joe Black pitching: March 29, 1953. That's our game.

On that date, a record crowd of 8,809 fans packed Al Lang Field to see a rematch of the two pennant-winners that met in the previous season's World Series. The game was an exciting contest, with the Dodgers holding a slim 1-0 lead entering the bottom the ninth. Here's how sportswriter Louis Effrat described that final frame in the following day's New York Times:

Then came the ninth and [Yankees manager Casey] Stengel had three pinch-hitters ready.

[Joe] Black, only one run ahead, was called upon to face Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Johnny Mize. One could do it and a combination could win it. When Mantle walked on four pitches the crowd, already thrilled, did not budge.

Berra slammed the ball over the right-field fence, but it was a foul homer. Then Yogi bounced to the mound. Black turned and threw to second. It was a low, wide toss, but Pee Wee Reese made an excellent grab, stepped on the base and relayed to Robinson, who was the first baseman in this game, for the double play. Mize then popped foul to Bobby Morgan and the Dodgers were home free.

Another note in the Times explained Jackie's unusual position for the game:

"There will be a place in the line-up for Robinson every day," [manager Chuck] Dressen said. "Only an injury will keep Jackie out." Putting two and two together, this means that Robby will be shuttling between first and third.

As it turned out, in 1951 Jackie shuttled between left field (75 games) and third base (44 games), handling the duties at first base in just six games all season long.

Finally, a quick check of the box score in the Times fills in the final piece of the puzzle.



Here we see that the first base umpire, who appears in both photographs, was Bill Jackowski. Jackowski, who ultimately fashioned a fine, 17-year career as a National League umpire, may be best remembered as the home plate umpire for Game Seven of the 1960 World Series. Of course, that's the classic game in which Pittsburgh's Bill Mazeroski hit his Championship-winning, walk-off home run to top the Yankees.

In summary, the photo shows Dodgers first baseman Jackie Robinson and Yankees base-runner Mickey Mantle at first base as umpire Bill Jackowski looks on. There are no outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of this spring training game played at St. Petersburg's Al Lang Field on March 29, 1953.