The Mick. Number 7. A country boy with a big smile and an easygoing manner, and a taste for the good life. He was also perhaps the most talented baseball player ever. His combination of speed and power was breathtaking, as he could hit a ball 500 feet, then outrun a fly in Yankee Stadium's spacious outfield for an incredible catch. But Mantle inherited bad knees, a problem made worse when he twisted his knee on an outfield drain during his rookie year.
Given different circumstances, and a greater drive to play the game, he might have been the greatest of them all. As it was, injuries, and (rumor has it) too much alcohol, kept him a bit behind the greatest of them all. But, he was one of the great "peak" players and had a run of some 10 years when he could have been the AL MVP every year. To break up the monotony, the voters picked a number of others as well, but the Mick was the best in the league from 1954-63, year in and year out. He was an amazing World Series performer as well, in an era when the Yankees went to the Series almost every year.
Mantle earned 271.51 rating points.
Mantle's stats: .298 average, 536 homers, 1733 walks, 1677 runs, 1509 RBI, 153 SB, 18 World Series HRs. posted by Shawn Weaver at 10:41 AM