Mickey Mantle 1966: lightning back in his bat ... for 11 days. Thursday, July 7, 2011
I stumbled onto something that I long recalled: the Mick getting his old power back after he had declined.
In 1966 from June 28 through July 8, the Mick hit 11 home runs in 11 days, 14 games, raising his total to 18.
He hit his first homer in 1966 on May 9, his 21st game (four as a PH), and his 23rd and last homer on August 26. But for those 11 days Mickey Mantle had the lightning back in his bat.
He hit two home runs in one day four times, the final day a doubleheader, the others individual games. He started with four homers in Boston, two off Jose Santiago and two off former teammate Rollie Sheldon the next day. Mickey played left field in Boston, so he must have been hurting...
5 comments: ...
Unknown said...
My brother and I were at the game on 8/26/66 when he hit a walkoff against Hank Aqiurre. We told Willie Horton in left field.he was going to hit one and Horton said we were crazy. He said the Mick was washed up. On his way off the field ,he just smiled and tipped his cap. Great memory.
Friday, February 25, 2022 at 10:08:00 PM EST
__________________________
That fifth comment was recent and I sent the link for the game to a friend who noticed that Mantle hit his game winning home run to the opposite field: to right batting righty against the lefty pitcher Hank Aguirre. That got me started on the research that resulted in this post.
Click this link to see the supporting data, some of which is in this post. It was derived from the Home Run Log originally downloaded from baseball-reference.com a couple of years ago and extensively massaged in database management software. Since then Baseball Reference has used stathead.com for ad hoc queries and opposite field data can be viewed there using event finder but it takes some effort.
Direction is known for 514 of Mantle's 536 home runs: 95.9%. The percent of opposite field home runs below is adjusted to reflect that. See the numbers in the lower right below. L and R refer to how the pitcher THROWS.
| | | | | | OpF | OpF |
| Where | throws | AB | AB | HR | HR | HR | adjusted |
| home | L | 1,483 | 18.31% | 76 | 14.18% | 32 | 6.22% |
| home | R | 2,492 | 30.77% | 190 | 35.45% | 10 | 1.94% |
| road | L | 1,288 | 15.90% | 85 | 15.86% | 16 | 3.11% |
| road | R | 2,836 | 35.02% | 185 | 34.51% | 34 | 6.60% |
| Tot | | 8,099 | 100.00% | 536 | 100.00% | 92 | 17.87% |
| | | | | | | |
| home | | 3,975 | 49.08% | 266 | 49.63% | | |
| road | | 4,124 | 50.92% | 270 | 50.37% | | |
| | 8,099 | | 536 | | | |
| Where | throws | AB | AB | HR | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | 1 |
| | | | 536 | | 514 | 0.9589552239 |
| | | | | | | 0.04104477612 |
Mantle went opposite field in 92 of the 514 home runs for which direction is known: 17.87%. He hit those 92 home runs against 73 pitchers. Here are the 15 against whom he did it more than once:
| Pitcher | Throws | Num | First | Last | OpFfirst | OpFlast |
| 1 | Jim Kaat | L | 4 | 1960-05-13 | 1965-08-10 | RF | RF |
| 2 | Tom Brewer | R | 3 | 1954-07-07 | 1958-09-24 | LF | LF-CF |
| 3 | Ray Herbert | R | 3 | 1958-07-28 | 1961-06-09 | LF | LF |
| 4 | Billy Hoeft | L | 2 | 1956-06-20 | 1958-06-13 | CF-RF | RF |
| 5 | Jack Harshman | L | 2 | 1957-06-22 | 1958-07-01 (2) | RF | CF-RF |
| 6 | Frank Lary | R | 2 | 1957-08-26 | 1960-06-21 | LF-CF | LF |
| 7 | Bill Fischer | R | 2 | 1958-07-23 | 1962-08-17 | LF | LF |
| 8 | Hal Woodeshick | L | 2 | 1960-05-29 | 1961-05-16 | RF | RF |
| 9 | Frank Baumann | L | 2 | 1960-06-09 | 1964-08-12 | CF-RF | RF |
| 10 | Pete Burnside | L | 2 | 1960-07-03 (2) | 1962-05-06 (2) | RF | RF |
| 11 | Jack Kralick | L | 2 | 1960-09-20 | 1962-06-28 | CF-RF | CF-RF |
| 12 | Mudcat Grant | R | 2 | 1961-06-15 | 1967-07-04 (1) | LF | LF |
| 13 | John O'Donoghue | L | 2 | 1964-05-17 (1) | 1964-09-04 | CF-RF | RF |
| 14 | Sam McDowell | L | 2 | 1966-06-16 | 1968-05-06 | RF | RF |
| 15 | George Brunet | L | 2 | 1966-07-24 (1) | 1968-08-12 | RF | CF-RF |
10 of those 15 threw lefty, which means that Mantle was batting righty.
Mantle's total home run splits by year:
| | | | | | | | |
| throws | Left | Left | Right | Right | | | | throws |
| Home | Road | Home | Road | Tot | Home | Road | |
| Year | HR | HR | HR | HR | HR | HR | HR | Year |
| 1951 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 13 | 7 | 6 | 1951 |
| 1952 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 23 | 11 | 12 | 1952 |
| 1953 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 21 | 8 | 13 | 1953 |
| 1954 | 4 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 27 | 14 | 13 | 1954 |
| 1955 | 2 | 6 | 17 | 12 | 37 | 19 | 18 | 1955 |
| 1956 | 7 | 6 | 20 | 19 | 52 | 27 | 25 | 1956 |
| 1957 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 16 | 34 | 14 | 20 | 1957 |
| 1958 | 5 | 3 | 16 | 18 | 42 | 21 | 21 | 1958 |
| 1959 | 4 | 2 | 14 | 11 | 31 | 18 | 13 | 1959 |
| 1960 | 8 | 8 | 15 | 9 | 40 | 23 | 17 | 1960 |
| 1961 | 4 | 7 | 20 | 23 | 54 | 24 | 30 | 1961 |
| 1962 | 3 | 1 | 13 | 13 | 30 | 16 | 14 | 1962 |
| 1963 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 15 | 8 | 7 | 1963 |
| 1964 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 12 | 35 | 16 | 19 | 1964 |
| 1965 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 19 | 9 | 10 | 1965 |
| 1966 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 23 | 11 | 12 | 1966 |
| 1967 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 9 | 22 | 10 | 12 | 1967 |
| 1968 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 18 | 10 | 8 | 1968 |
| | | | | 536 | 266 | 270 | Tot |
| Home | Road | Home | Road | | Home | Road | |
| Left | Left | Right | Right | | | |
Mantle's opposite field home run splits by year:
| OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | |
| throws | Left | Left | Right | Right | | Left | Left | Right | Right | | throws |
| Home | Road | Home | Road | Tot | Home | Road | Home | Road | Tot | |
| Year | HR | HR | HR | HR | HR | % | % | % | % | % | Year |
| 1951 | | | | | | | | | | | 1951 |
| 1952 | | 1 | | | 1 | 0.00% | 12.50% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 4.35% | 1952 |
| 1953 | 1 | | | | 1 | 25.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 4.76% | 1953 |
| 1954 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 25.00% | 0.00% | 30.00% | 20.00% | 22.22% | 1954 |
| 1955 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 16.67% | 5.41% | 1955 |
| 1956 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 0.00% | 16.67% | 10.00% | 15.79% | 11.54% | 1956 |
| 1957 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 50.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 18.75% | 14.71% | 1957 |
| 1958 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 12 | 20.00% | 100.00% | 6.25% | 38.89% | 28.57% | 1958 |
| 1959 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 25.00% | 50.00% | 7.14% | 27.27% | 19.35% | 1959 |
| 1960 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 75.00% | 25.00% | 0.00% | 22.22% | 25.00% | 1960 |
| 1961 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 25.00% | 0.00% | 5.00% | 8.70% | 7.41% | 1961 |
| 1962 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 66.67% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 7.69% | 10.00% | 1962 |
| 1963 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 50.00% | 40.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 20.00% | 1963 |
| 1964 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 62.50% | 28.57% | 0.00% | 16.67% | 25.71% | 1964 |
| 1965 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 66.67% | 25.00% | 0.00% | 50.00% | 42.11% | 1965 |
| 1966 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 80.00% | 75.00% | 33.33% | 25.00% | 47.83% | 1966 |
| 1967 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 50.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 11.11% | 9.09% | 1967 |
| 1968 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 66.67% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 25.00% | 16.67% | 1968 |
| Tot | 32 | 16 | 10 | 34 | 92 | | | | | | Tot |
| Home | Road | Home | Road | | Home | Road | Home | Road | Tot | |
| Left | Left | Right | Right | | Left | Left | Right | Right | | |
| OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF | OpF |
In three seasons Mantle reached double figures in opposite field home runs: 1958, 1960, 1966. His highest percentages were mostly in his last four down seasons, partly because his totals were so low. Notice 1958: 28.57% of his league leading 42 home runs were to the opposite field.
Below are all 514 of Mantle's home runs for which the landing area is known below, along with the totals for the 30 players (only Cabrera, Ortiz, Pujols have complete data), including Mantle, through 2021 with at least 493 career home runs:
| Player | B | LF | LF-CF | CF | CF-RF | RF | Tot |
| Mickey Mantle | B | 111 | 26 | 63 | 48 | 266 | 514 |
| | 21.60% | 5.06% | 12.26% | 9.34% | 51.75% | |
| | | | | | | |
| 30 Players >=493 |
| LF | LF-CF | CF | CF-RF | RF | Tot |
| Total | | 5,080 | 1,668 | 1,703 | 1,272 | 5,390 | 15,113 |
| | 33.61% | 11.04% | 11.27% | 8.42% | 35.66% |
There will be a future post for the 30 career leaders in home run.
Mantle played in 12 World Series. Six of his record 18 WS home runs were hit to the opposite field and all six were on the road. Mantle hit only 5 WS home runs at home in Yankee Stadium. He hit 5 in Ebbets Field in Brooklyn in the four WS he played there against the Dodgers.
Here are the six to the opposite field followed by all 18 of his WS home runs. The Play Description is bold for the opposite field home runs.
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| L | 1 | Thu, Oct 6, 1960 | WS | 2 | NYY | @PIT | Fred Green | ahead 1-3 | t5 | 1-- | 1 | Home Run (Deep RF); Maris Scores |
| L | 2 | Wed, Oct 14, 1964 | WS | 6 | NYY | @STL | Curt Simmons | ahead 1-2 | t6 | --- | 1 | Home Run (Deep RF) |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| R | 1 | Mon, Oct 6, 1952 | WS | 6 | NYY | @BRO | Billy Loes | ahead 1-2 | t8 | --- | 0 | Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep LF-CF) |
| R | 2 | Sun, Oct 4, 1953 | WS | 5 | NYY | @BRO | Russ Meyer | ahead 1-2 | t3 | 123 | 2 | Home Run (Deep LF); Collins Scores/unER; Bauer Scores/unER; Berra Scores/unER; Mantle Scores/unER |
| R | 3 | Thu, Oct 2, 1958 | WS | 2 | NYY | @MLN | Lew Burdette | down 13-3 | t9 | 1-- | 0 | Home Run (Deep LF-CF); McDougald Scores |
| R | 4 | Thu, Oct 15, 1964 | WS | 7 | NYY | @STL | Bob Gibson | down 6-0 | t6 | 12- | 0 | Home Run (Deep LF-CF); Richardson Scores; Maris Scores |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| 1 | Mon, Oct 6, 1952 | WS | 6 | NYY | @BRO | Billy Loes | ahead 1-2 | t8 | --- | 0 | Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep LF-CF) |
| 2 | Tue, Oct 7, 1952 | WS | 7 | NYY | @BRO | Joe Black | tied 2-2 | t6 | --- | 1 | Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep CF-RF) |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| L | 3 | Thu, Oct 1, 1953 | WS | 2 | NYY | BRO | Preacher Roe | tied 2-2 | b8 | 1-- | 2 | Home Run (Deep LF); Bauer Scores |
| 4 | Sun, Oct 4, 1953 | WS | 5 | NYY | @BRO | Russ Meyer | ahead 1-2 | t3 | 123 | 2 | Home Run (Deep LF); Collins Scores/unER; Bauer Scores/unER; Berra Scores/unER; Mantle Scores/unER |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| L | 5 | Fri, Sep 30, 1955 | WS | 3 | NYY | @BRO | Johnny Podres | down 2-0 | t2 | --- | 0 | Home Run (Deep CF) |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| 6 | Wed, Oct 3, 1956 | WS | 1 | NYY | @BRO | Sal Maglie | tied 0-0 | t1 | 1-- | 1 | Home Run (Deep RF); Slaughter Scores |
| 7 | Sun, Oct 7, 1956 | WS | 4 | NYY | BRO | Ed Roebuck | ahead 1-3 | b6 | --- | 0 | Home Run (Deep CF-RF) |
| 8 | Mon, Oct 8, 1956 | WS | 5 | NYY | BRO | Sal Maglie | tied 0-0 | b4 | --- | 2 | Home Run (Deep RF Line) |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| 9 | Sat, Oct 5, 1957 | WS | 3 | NYY | @MLN | Gene Conley | ahead 1-5 | t4 | 1-- | 1 | Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep CF-RF); Kubek Scores |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| 10 | Thu, Oct 2, 1958 | WS | 2 | NYY | @MLN | Lew Burdette | down 8-1 | t4 | --- | 0 | Home Run (Deep CF) |
| 11 | Thu, Oct 2, 1958 | WS | 2 | NYY | @MLN | Lew Burdette | down 13-3 | t9 | 1-- | 0 | Home Run (Deep LF-CF); McDougald Scores |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| L | 12 | Thu, Oct 6, 1960 | WS | 2 | NYY | @PIT | Fred Green | ahead 1-3 | t5 | 1-- | 1 | Home Run (Deep RF); Maris Scores |
| L | 13 | Thu, Oct 6, 1960 | WS | 2 | NYY | @PIT | Joe Gibbon | ahead 1-12 | t7 | 12- | 1 | Home Run (Deep CF); Kubek Scores; DeMaestri Scores |
| L | 14 | Sat, Oct 8, 1960 | WS | 3 | NYY | PIT | Fred Green | ahead 0-6 | b4 | --3 | 2 | Home Run (Deep LF); Ford Scores |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| L | 15 | Sun, Oct 6, 1963 | WS | 4 | NYY | @LAD | Sandy Koufax | down 1-0 | t7 | --- | 1 | Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep LF-CF) |
| T | Cr# | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Play Description |
| 16 | Sat, Oct 10, 1964 | WS | 3 | NYY | STL | Barney Schultz | tied 1-1 | b9 | --- | 0 | *WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run (Deep RF) |
| L | 17 | Wed, Oct 14, 1964 | WS | 6 | NYY | @STL | Curt Simmons | ahead 1-2 | t6 | --- | 1 | Home Run (Deep RF) |
| 18 | Thu, Oct 15, 1964 | WS | 7 | NYY | @STL | Bob Gibson | down 6-0 | t6 | 12- | 0 | Home Run (Deep LF-CF); Richardson Scores; Maris Scores |
Mantle's final two WS HR were to the opposite field in elimination games ... and he switch hit them: one batting righty, one batting lefty.
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