Mickey Mantle-May 13, 1955

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Robert Richardson

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MOMENT IN TIME: MAY 13, 1955

NW-MIT-MANTLE-0512
ONE-TIME USE ONLY WITH STORY SLUGGED NW-MIT-MANTLE-0512 — Here’s Yankee slugger Mickey Mantle toting lumber in both hands after literally hitting roundtrippers left and right. He drove in all the Yankee runs with three homers and a single in four trips to the plate to help the Bombers down the Detroit Tigers, 5-2, May 13, 1955. Mickey slammed the first two homers left handed and the third right handed. They came with one on in the first and with the bases empty in the fifth and eighth innings. 
Mickey Mantle was one of baseball’s great power hitters, but on this date in 1955, in a windy Friday afternoon home game against the Detroit Tigers, the New York Yankees star outdid himself, slugging three home runs, two as a switch hitter. Mantle was usually a right-handed hitter, but against Detroit starter Steve Gromek, Mantle batted left – an advantage over a right-handed pitcher, which Gromek was. First inning. Crack! A monumental shot into the remote right-centre-field bleachers, maybe 425 feet. Fifth inning. Crack! At least 420 feet, again into the right-centre-field bleachers. By the eighth inning, the Tigers had pulled Gromek in favour of left-hander Bob Miller, so Mantle hit from his usual spot as a right-hander. Advantage, Mantle; another crack! Deep, deep, a homer bigger than even the other two, with more speed and arc, 455 feet, into the same bleachers. His power hitting made a mockery of the deep outfield of Yankee Stadium’s legendary Death Valley, so named because hits that would have been home runs elsewhere usually went there to die. There were only 7,177 spectators in the Bronx when Mantle homered from both sides of the plate that day. He also singled, going 4-for-4 and driving in all five runs as New York won 5-2. – Philip King

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