Apr 27, 2007

Baseball great lives again

By Terri Schlichenmeyer / Book Reviewer

"7: The Mickey Mantle Novel"
By Peter Golenbock
The Lyons Press
$24.95, 286 pages

If you could have dinner with five people, living or dead, who would you choose?

For many baseball fans, the name at the top of that list would be Mickey Mantle. A guy who played baseball when baseball was life, Mantle would have some pretty good tales to tell.

In the novel "7: The Mickey Mantle Novel" by Peter Golenbock, Mantle is holding court from a barstool in Paradise, and he's ready to set a lot of legends straight.

According to the book, after he died in 1995, Mantle, who made his peace with friends and family on earth, went to heaven. There, God asked Mantle what made him most happy, and Mantle found himself standing in front of his locker at Yankee Stadium. That's where he spends most of eternity now - talking with the angel clubbie and signing baseballs as a favor to God.

But now Mantle is itching to tell all. He's been trying to find an honest sportswriter in heaven, but it seems there aren't any. Finally, he agrees to tell author Leonard Shecter the full story. Shecter, who died in 1974, is a good reporter: he asks hard questions and demands that Mickey answer.

The naturally gregarious Mantle bubbles forth with the story of his life: his abusive father who was stingy with approval; early days with the New York Yankees; his deep brotherly friendship with Billy Martin; teammates, rivals, and repeated, almost-uncontrollable womanizing.

When the questions get hard and Mantle doesn't want to answer, Shecter helps Mickey out. Backs to the bar, Mantle, Shecter and a small crowd watch as decades-old scenes unfold in the corner of Toots Shor's bar. Shecter, you see, isn't about to let Mantle slide.

This book is not for your little leaguer. The graphic scenes and raw language make it absolutely, positively a book for adults. The plethora of four-letter words and euphemisms for women's anatomy lend color to Mantle's heyday.

Golenbock tells a story rich with detail. The premise is delightfully surprising - kind of a "people you meet in heaven" story, mixed with Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."

There's plenty of baseball here, as well as a pretty fine story that's rough and scandalous and funny for any adult reader.

For a myriad of reasons - most of which are too lengthy to go into here - this book almost didn't see publication. That would've been too bad.

Sports fans, this novel is a whole new ballgame.