Our first game was on Tuesday, April 2, and I was the

starting shortstop. Darrell was out of the hospital and

walking around, but his face looked awful. He had stitches

across his forehead, his left eye was black and blue and

swollen, and there was no telling when he’d be able to

play again. He was at the game, in the bleachers, wearing

his normal school clothes. I still felt bad about the whole

thing, and other than Jonathan and maybe Big Billy, it

didn’t seem like anybody on the team wanted to talk to

me. I wanted to apologize to Darrell, but I was kind of

scared to. Darrell always hung around with Calvin and

his buddies, and I felt like they wanted to get even with

me. Jonathan was kind of supportive of me, but I could

see he was in danger of losing the respect of the black kids

if he hung around me too much. Jonathan never admitted

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it, but I could see that he always had to balance out things

with his white friends and his black friends, especially on

the baseball team.

Jonathan hung around with a lot of us white kids,

and he did it rather naturally. His neighborhood was

integrated, and so was the grammar school he’d gone to,

so he got along pretty well with white kids. Of course,

since he was in the advanced class and most of us were

white, he kind of had to get along with us. However, he

knew just the same that if he hung around with only white

kids, the other black kids would be pissed off at him.

I once heard Darrell refer to Jonathan as a honky

lover, which was an image that Jonathan tried to avoid.

On our JV squad, Jonathan and I were the only kids in

the advanced classes, and most of the black kids were from

Roosevelt School and didn’t normally have much to do

with the white kids, so Jonathan had to walk a fine line

on the team. I thought I was his best friend on the team,

and he was mine, but Jonathan had to be careful not to

let the Roosevelt School kids know that, because he didn’t

want to have the image of a honky lover. The disaster with

Darrell had made things even worse. Battling Darrell for

the shortstop job had been tough since I knew that most

of the Roosevelt School kids were rooting for Darrell.

Even if I’d beat out Darrell fair and square, there would

have been resentment, but now that I’d put Darrell out

of the competition physically, there was more than just

resentment; there was downright hatred. Jonathan was

caught right in the middle.

Jonathan wanted to try to help me along because he

could see I was in pretty bad shape and in need of a friend,

but he knew that now it was even worse for him to be seen

hanging out with a white kid, especially when that white

kid happened to be me. But if anybody could handle such

a situation, it was Jonathan. He’d once said that a black

person could only be president if he knew how to get along

with the white folks without having his black brothers and

sisters hate him. He said that Dr. Martin Luther King

Jr. was still trying to figure out a way to get along with

white folks, but by the time Jonathan was ready to run

for president, he said getting along with white folks would

be easy. Still getting along with black folks would be the

hard part. But above all, Jonathan would say, “You’ve got

to make sure your upper lip doesn’t sweat like it did for

Richard Nixon during his televised debate with JFK.” He

said that was what had lost Nixon the election in 1960,

and Jonathan said old Richard Nixon still didn’t have a

chance in ’68 because his upper lip was still sweating.

Jonathan would walk with me down to Roosevelt

Field. We would talk about stuff that went on in our

classes, and he would kind of act as my bodyguard, but

when we got to the field, he’d warm up with Calvin. I

would warm up with Big Billy because I could see he felt a

little sorry for me. But I could also see that in a way, some

of the white kids were kind of happy I’d beaned Darrell.

Darrell wasn’t much of a favorite with anybody except his

Roosevelt School buddies, and even some of them were

friendly to Darrell more out of fear than because they

liked him. Most of the white kids downright hated ole

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 131

Darrell. A couple of them actually came up to me and

thanked me for doing what they’d been wanting to do

all along. I didn’t know what to say to that. It was nice to

be looked at as a hero, even though it wasn’t true , but I

sure would need some help if any of Darrell’s friends tried

to get even. In a way, it made me uncomfortable because

some of those white guys disliked Darrell not because he

was obnoxious but because he was black. Some of them

didn’t like Jonathan for the same reason. The only one

who was strictly nonpartial was the coach. I knew he

was upset about losing Darrell because he’d been leaning

toward Darrell as his starting shortstop. But Darrell could

be just as much of a pain to the coach as he could to

anybody else, so maybe he didn’t mind having Darrell

out of trouble, sitting in the stands.

There was one thing the coach did care about, and I

thought it was probably the only thing he cared about:

winning. To him, winning was everything. Now that

I was his starting shortstop, he was on my back even

more. It didn’t go beyond his expert observation that the

reason my throw hit Darrell in the face in the first place

was because I threw the ball sidearm. If there was ever

anybody who relished the opportunity to say, “I told you

so,” it was the coach. He didn’t even mention the fact that

I nearly had decapitated his probable starting shortstop.

All he could say was “With a good overarm throw, you

would have gotten the double play.”

I was batting seventh in the order, and of course, I

was not allowed to switch-hit. A big right-hander was

pitching for Hillsdale, and he had a big, slow curveball I 

knew would drive me crazy while batting right-handed.

Among my many shortcomings as a ballplayer was my

inability to hit a curveball. Pitchers at the JV level didn’t

have curveballs like old Sandy Koufax’s, but still, with

just the slightest break, I didn’t have a chance. I did better

when switch-hitting because I could hit a curveball better

when batting lefty, but the coach was the coach, and if I

wanted to play at all, I had to play the way he said.

I struck out my first two times up. The first time, the

pitcher threw me a pitch that I swore was heading right

for my head, so I ducked, and the umpire called it strike

three. The next time, I was determined to swing, so I

struck out swinging at a pitch in the dirt.

The score was tied going into the bottom of the sixth.

We had managed only two hits, but one of them was a

three-run homer by Big Billy. We were pretty lucky to

be holding Hillsdale to only three runs, thanks basically

to their lousy hitting and some good defense by the

outfield. Some credit also went to our pitcher, Meatball

Joe, who seemed to have improved quite a bit since last

year, when he’d earned his nickname Meatball because of

all the meatballs he’d dished out to the opposing batters,

which they’d usually deposited somewhere in the trees

out behind left-center field. Meatball Joe always prided

himself on his good control, which he was right about. He

rarely walked anybody—but that was because he always

dished out such delicious meatballs that batters rarely

even took a pitch. In fact, they usually didn’t even foul a

ball off. They just got up there and swung. It was nice out

in the field. The outfielders never had to wait around like

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 133

they did with other pitchers who had no control. Meatball

Joe was always around the plate, and the coach made sure

his outfielders were playing deep. Although Meatball had

let up ten hits in six innings, he allowed no walks and

only three runs.

Since most of the action was in the outfield, I had

a very easy day at short. I handled two grounders with

no problem and caught one liner that was hit so hard it

almost broke through my webbing. I led off the bottom

of the sixth, and I was determined not to swing at a bad

ball. The Hillsdale pitcher was getting a little wild, so

I decided to take a few pitches. Four was all I needed

because he missed with every one, and I had a walk. The

next batter laid down a perfect sacrifice, and I made it to

second. The coach sent up a pinch hitter for Meatball Joe,

a guy named Gorski, who could hit like crazy but couldn’t

field a lick. The first pitch to him was wild and skipped

by the catcher, so I took off for third. The ball must have

bounced right off the backstop to the catcher because

there was a close play at third. I could hear Jonathan, the

third-base coach, yell, “Slide!” so I went into my patented

Yogi Berra headfirst slide.

There was a cloud of dust, and my hat went flying,

and then I heard the umpire yell, “Safe!” Jonathan later

claimed I was out, but he made the safe sign just the

same in order to sway the umpire, who was umpiring

from behind home plate and therefore, because of the

distance and all the dust, could hardly see anything. Most

of the other players agreed with Jonathan, but they said 

the only reason Jonathan made the safe sign was because

 he thought he was still umpiring in an intrasquad game.

Gorski then promptly hit the next pitch for a double,

and I scored. Gorski eventually came around to score on

another hit, and we had a two-run lead going into the top

of the seventh.

The coach sent in his new pitcher, a black kid with

the last name of Puddle. His first name was Arthur, but

everybody called him Mud. Well, ole Mud didn’t exactly

have his good stuff and was dishing up pitches tastier

than Meatball’s. He faced four batters, letting in one run

and managing to get one out, before the coach yanked

him and brought in Jonathan. The score was 5–4 with

one out and runners on second and third. As Jonathan

warmed up, I could see he had his Bob Gibson fastball,

but I could also see he had no control. The coach probably

figured that with first base open, Jonathan would have a

little breathing room, and because Jonathan happened to

be his only other relief pitcher, it was either him or Puddle.

Jonathan promptly lost his breathing room with his first

pitch—his patented Bob Gibson brush-back pitch—

which hit his first batter right in the back. The bases were

loaded, and it was getting a bit tense out there. I prayed

the next batter wouldn’t hit anything my way, but I knew

that with Jonathan pitching, the batter was more likely to

get hit than hit the ball.

The second batter Jonathan faced was Hillsdale’s

number-three hitter, a guy who had been blasting the

ball all over the field against Meatball Joe. Jonathan

had one thing in his favor: the Hillsdale batters were

used to digging in with Meatball Joe’s fat pitches. They

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 135

could kind of lean over the plate and get a good look at

Meatball’s control pitches. Well, Jonathan didn’t have

any control pitches, as his first batter found out. It wasn’t

smart to dig in and crowd the plate with Jonathan on

the mound unless one was wearing a suit of armor. That

was the mistake the number-three hitter on Hillsdale’s

team made against Jonathan. He was digging in real good

and real aggressively, ready to clobber whatever Jonathan

could dish out. Well, Jonathan let go one of his all-timebest

Bob Gibson brush-back pitches, and it headed right

for the head of the Hillsdale batter. As the guy went

sprawling to get out of the way of the pitch, he put his bat

up in front of his head for protection. Well, the ball hit

his bat, which sent a nice little one-hopper right back to

Jonathan. Jonathan caught the ball and carefully flipped

it underhand to the catcher, who stepped on the plate

for the force on the runner coming from third and then

calmly tagged the Hillside number-three batter, who was

still sprawled in the batter’s box. Double play! We won!

We all went out to mob Jonathan as if it were the final

game of the World Series. All the while, most of us were

laughing our heads off. Jonathan tried to act cool about

it, but we could see that he was laughing too, even though

he claimed that was the way he had planned it all along.

Our euphoria didn’t last long. We lost our next game

on Thursday, 9–1. I managed one hit in three at bats but

made two errors. We were pretty subdued in the field

house. Jonathan hadn’t played, so he didn’t shower. I was

slowly undressing at my locker, feeling kind of depressed,

and Jonathan came up behind me and tapped me on the

shoulder. I turned around, and he had on one of those

ridiculous Groucho Marx eyeglass disguises. He gave a big

smile and held out a pencil as if it were a cigar. Seeing that

big black face with that stupid Groucho Marx mask and

that stupid smile, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

However, as I started laughing, everybody turned around

to look, and Jonathan quickly took off the mask, stuffed

it into his athletic bag, switched his demented smile to a

somber frown, and headed toward the field house door.

In the background, I heard the coach grumble, “I didn’t

think there’d be anything to laugh about when you lose

nine to one.”

I decided not to shower and just got the heck out of

there. When I got home, I went right upstairs. My mother

yelled up, “Did ya win?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, your supper’s on the stove,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be right down,” I said, but I was in

a bad mood and in no rush to eat. I turned on the radio

for some music, but there was some special news report.

Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot. Oh my God. I

couldn’t believe it. I felt sick to my stomach. I rushed

downstairs to the living room, and my father was sitting

there, watching the news on TV.

“Is it true ?” I asked. “Somebody shot Martin Luther

King?”

“Yeah, they got ’im,” my father said. “Somebody

always gets the good ones.”