I went to one other game with Jonathan last year—a

Yankee doubleheader. There was a group of us that time,

so my parents were not as concerned about my going

to New York unsupervised by an adult, and since we’d

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 67

lucked out with the Mets game, my parents had started to

think Jonathan was a responsible adolescent. Our friend

Phil was also coming, and since he had a well-deserved

reputation as a studious and responsible young man—

even though he was a Mets fan—we got the okay from

our parents. That day, when we went to see the Yanks, the

group consisted of Jonathan, Frankie, Phil, and me—and,

of course, my stupid jacket.

It was the first non-adult-supervised game for Frankie

and Phil, so Jonathan and I felt like big kids showing

around the little kids, but of course, ole Jonathan took

the lead. I didn’t mind one bit because I hardly knew

how to get to Yankee Stadium any other way than sitting

in the back seat of my father’s car, and getting to Yankee

Stadium by bus and subway was a little more complicated

than going to Shea. We had to take the bus to the Port

Authority Bus Terminal, but from there, we had to walk

through lots of underground tunnels to take one subway

to one street and then get another subway to another

street, and there weren’t any easy blue arrows pointing

the way like there were for Shea. But as usual, Jonathan

knew exactly where he was going, and as usual, he was

rushing ahead as if he were in a real big hurry to get some

place real important, which wasn’t so bad because we were

all excited about going to see the Mick, and none of us

had any problems about hurrying, except maybe Frankie,

who had a way of falling behind. Frankie was always

either staring at stuff, talking someone’s ear off about

something, or just generally not paying much attention

to what the heck he was doing. So I’d be walking with

Frankie and trying to keep up with Jonathan, but Frankie

would be talking a mile a minute about something, and

then we’d start lagging behind, and we’d almost have to

run to keep up with Jonathan.

Since it was a Sunday and the game was a doubleheader

with the Tigers, it was pretty crowded in the subways.

We could see that lots of people made it to the stadium

without driving, but the crowds made it hard to keep

up with Jonathan. Somehow, we made it, and when we

emerged from the subway tunnel out onto the street, I

couldn’t help but ooh and aah when I saw the walls of

the stadium. Whenever I saw it off in the distance from

the car, it looked so big and white and stately, but this

time, it just popped up right in front of us, and it was

huge and amazing. I just gazed at it for a second—but

only a second because Frankie grabbed ahold of my arm

and said, “Come on. We gotta go catch up with that

moron Jonathan.” Sure enough, I could no longer even see

Jonathan, but up ahead, Phil was motioning to us because

he at least had a glimpse of Jonathan. We took off after

Phil, who took off after Jonathan.

It was a great day. The sky was deep blue, and the

grass was sparkling green. We had upper-deck box seats

over on the first-base side. The Mick, who was playing first

base because his legs were too worn out for center field,

was having one of his all-time worst years. Some people,

including Jonathan and Frankie, were saying he was

washed up. At least Phil was content to stay nonpartial.

The Mick managed a walk in the first inning, and then

good ole Joe “the Nose” Pepitone hit a home run, and the

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 69

Yankees were in the lead to stay. Al Downing pitched a

shutout, and the Yankees won 5–0. The Mick managed

one single, so I was content, and since the game was never

in jeopardy, they took him out in the seventh so he could

rest up for the second game.

There was always so much to watch at a game. I always

liked to watch the infielders warm up before the start

of each inning. The Mick would throw each infielder a

grounder. Well, actually, the Mick would never really

throw a grounder. He would always throw each infielder a

nice, easy one-hopper. I’d never know what good catching

nice, easy one-hoppers was for the infielders, but the Mick

always threw them exactly the same way. I watched him

warming up the infielders in between innings throughout

the entire doubleheader. Never once did he throw a

practice grounder that took more than one bounce. I

guessed it was just another talent the Mick had developed,

since those days, all his other talents seemed to be fading.

I was getting a little worried about the Mick. When the

manager moved him to first base, everybody said he was

getting a new lease on life, and it would extend his career,

but last year, he had a pretty mediocre season, and this

year, he was off to a real lousy start. It made me feel bad

when people complained about how the Mick didn’t have

it anymore and said he should hang it up. I didn’t believe

it, and I sure didn’t like hearing other people blabbering

about it.

I loved doubleheaders. I couldn’t see how anybody

could want to go to anything but a doubleheader. One

game just wasn’t enough, and of course, if you didn’t go to 

a doubleheader, you didn’t get to see the groundskeepers

working on the field in between the games. Everybody

thought I was a weirdo for staying at my seat in between

games to watch the grounds crew, but what the heck?

What were they doing? Jonathan, of course, went to get a

few more hot dogs. He’d already had two, and he said he

was shooting for an even half dozen, but when he came

back, he couldn’t stop complaining about the line at the

concession stand. Frankie had to go take a wicked piss,

which he’d been moaning about since the seventh-inning

stretch.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “The line was longer

than the friggin’ line for the stupid hot dogs. And then

when you got into the friggin’ john, there was another line

at each of the gall-darn urinals. I thought I was gonna

burst. They should have it here like they used to have it at

the old Polo Grounds. My uncle Vito once took us there

to see the dumb Mets. And you should see the johns there.

No stupid urinals. Just one big, long stupid trough that

everyone gets to piss in at the same time. Just like pissing

into a friggin’ river. It was great! No stupid lines and no

stupid urinals. Just a bunch of guys shoulder to shoulder

with their weenies hanging out, doing their thing!”

Frankie went on and on about the bathrooms at the

Polo Grounds until he almost made me have to puke—

Frankie could be positively gross at times. Nobody

ever found out where Phil went in between games, but

Jonathan kept whispering to me that Phil was looking

for a vendor that sold knishes, but Jonathan informed me

that they only sold knishes at Shea Stadium.

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 71

I was content. I had already bought my peanuts

and Cracker Jack from a vendor, so I just sat there and

watched the grounds crew go about their business. They

were smoothing out the dirt around home plate with

rakes and lining the batter’s boxes with a big wooden

frame-type thing that looked like a window somebody

had thrown out during cleanup week. The best job

was driving the little cart that dragged the screen that

smoothed out the infield dirt. The driver had to drive the

cart carefully to make sure he didn’t ever miss a spot. This

driver was really good. Seriously. Around and around he

went. From the first-base side to the third-base side, he

carefully followed the cut-out part of the infield and never

once accidentally drove over the precious infield grass or

overlapped his previous work. While he was doing that,

the other workers were busy smoothing out the pitcher’s

mound, changing the bases, and chalking the foul lines.

It was really something to watch. When the cart driver

was done, all the men got together and got a big, long,

fat water hose. One guy got to water down the dirt just

a bit so there was no dust. While he aimed the hose, the

other men held the hose up so that it didn’t leave a long

dent in the grass. It was really something to watch, but

almost everybody missed it because they were out buying

hot dogs, going to the bathroom, or looking for knishes.

The second game started out really bad for the Yanks.

In the second inning, the Tigers’ pitcher, Hank Aguirre,

who some said was the worst hitter the game had ever

known, hit a triple with the bases loaded. Then the Tigers 

scored three more runs in the third inning, and it was

looking pretty darn Bleaksville for the Bronx (used to be)

Bombers. Then, in the fourth, the Mick led off and hit one

of the longest balls I had ever seen. Yet because Yankee

Stadium had such weird dimensions, all the Mick got was

a ground-rule double. He hit the ball on a direct, solid

line more than 440 feet to left-center field, where it was a

ridiculous 457 feet from home plate to the wall. The ball

took one bounce and hopped like a flash into the bleachers

for a ground-rule double. It was one of the longest doubles

in baseball history. Seriously. The Mick came around to

score, and the Yanks eventually scrambled back to trail by

one with a score of 7–6, and when the light-hitting Jake

Gibbs, of all people, hit a game-tying pinch-hit home run

in the ninth, we settled down for extra innings. What a

bargain! We got not only two games for the price of one

but extra innings to boot.

Well, the extra innings didn’t work out too well. Good

old fabulous Dooley Womack gave up a grand-slam home

run to Dick McAuliffe in the twelfth inning, and the

Yanks were losers. Losing was something they had been

doing a little too much of those days.

We were a little sad as we left the stadium, except for

Jonathan, who, being a Tigers fan, was pretty darn gleeful

and off on one of his crazy zigzags through the crowd. We

tried our best to stay with him, and we managed to make

it down to the subway platform in record time. When we

got there, I was a little pissed at Jonathan because I had

wanted to stop for a Yankee yearbook and a few souvenirs,

but ole Jonathan gave his usual line about not wanting to

miss the next bus, and of course, Frankie couldn’t help

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 73

but blurt out something dumb while we were all jammed

together in a crowd, waiting for a subway.

“I know why you’re in such a hurry, Jonathan. You

want to go see the peep shows. Yeah. Well, you can count

me in.” Frankie said it loudly enough so that everybody

around could hear him. Some guy with his two kids, who

were wearing their little Yankees caps and carrying their

little baseball gloves, which they probably figured they

could use to catch a foul ball or something—nobody

told them they had a one-in-a-million chance of catching

a stupid ball—grabbed his two kids and dragged them

away from us.

Well, of course, Jonathan wouldn’t let on to us what

his real motive was, and we all jammed into the first

subway. The subway was so crowded there was no way any

of us could manage to get a seat. We were swaying back

and forth in the subway car, and I was trying to check

my score card, while Frankie was going on complaining

about how crowded it was and how his feet hurt. Then he

whispered to me that he couldn’t wait to see a peep show

but was kind of scared about roaming around on Forty-

Second Street. I told Frankie that he was right to be scared

of Forty-Second Street and that I had never seen more

weirdos anywhere else in all my life. Frankie went on and

on about how he wanted to see the peep shows because he

wanted “to see it all,” he said. Just then, some people got

off, and a seat opened up. Frankie made a beeline for it.

“Wow. That’s better,” Frankie said, but now he was

sitting a few feet away from me, so we really couldn’t talk.

As we pulled out of that station, I tried to see what street 

it was, but I couldn’t make it out. Now that Frankie was

out of earshot, I got back to checking my score card. I was

trying to see where it had all gone wrong for my Yanks,

but before I knew it, the subway was screeching to a stop,

and I heard Jonathan calling for me.

“This is where we get off,” he said. “Come on.”

I just about panicked because I didn’t think I’d make

it to the door, and I pushed my way frantically through

to the door and jumped out just in the nick of time. As

I was breathing a sigh of relief, Phil asked me, “Where’s

Frankie?”

“What?” I said, and I realized I had forgotten about

Frankie. I turned around, and as the train began to pull

away, I saw Frankie banging on the door with a terrified

look on his face.

“Frankie!” I yelled. “Oh my God! Frankie! You stupid

idiot!” I turned to Jonathan. “Well, you really did it now,

Jonathan, you moron! You’re always in such a big hurry.”

“Now, calm down,” Phil said to me. “Look, Frankie

will be all right. Won’t he, Jonathan?”

“Sure,” Jonathan said. “If he has any intelligence and

knows the subways.”

We all looked at each other and shook our heads. He

was in big trouble.

“So, Jonathan, where in the heck are we now?” I asked.

“We’re at Fifty-Ninth Street,” he said.

“And so where is Frankie headed to?” I asked.

“Queens,” Jonathan said.

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 75

“Queens!” I yelled. I tried not to get too emotional,

but that statement really got to me. “Where in the heck

is Queens?”

“Well, that’s kinda like over where the World’s Fair

was—except the World’s Fair and Shea Stadium are over

in Flushing.” Jonathan tried to be precise.

“Oh, that’s really great,” I said. “Poor dumb Frankie is

going to be wandering around somewhere over in Queens,

which is kinda like where Flushing is and kinda like where

the World’s Fair was and Shea Stadium is. Great.”

“Well, let’s not panic,” Phil said. “Let’s just hope

Frankie will get off at the first stop and hop on the next

train going in the other direction. How does that sound?”

“That’s right. That’s all there is to it. Simple,” Jonathan

said.

“Sure. Real simple,” I said sarcastically.

We waited and waited. The subway station had pretty

much cleared out from any of the Yankee Stadium crowd.

It was very quiet until a train would come in. Then there

would be the tremendously horrible noise of the train

coming in and screeching to a stop. Some pretty ragged

people would get off, and some pretty ragged people

would get on, but there was no sign of poor old Frankie.

After we’d waited for about forty-five minutes, Jonathan

decided he was going after Frankie. It was a noble gesture,

but Phil and I wondered what the heck we’d do in the

meantime. Jonathan told us we’d have to hop on the

next A train and take it down to the Port Authority Bus 

Terminal.