\nNational Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum<\/p>\n
The black and white photograph made me believe that baseball was something\u00c2\u00a0 true and good.\u00c2\u00a0 To this day, I have no idea whether that picture was real or not.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t bothered to research its existence in any form.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entirely possible I made it up.<\/p>\n Real or illusory, the compelling photograph invited me in, but I never got anywhere with it.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Until now. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I never understood all that the picture represented.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Until now that I’ve finished reading Jane Leavy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s masterpiece, The Last Boy:\u00c2\u00a0 Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Others will bring to Leavy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biography their own set of perceptions, expectations, memories, fantasies, biases, stereotypes, and regrets.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever image of Mickey Mantle you carry in your own consciousness, I suspect that The Last Boy<\/em> will go a long way in amplifying or deflating it, while also doing his memory justice.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I care too much whether people like what I write,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Leavy confessed to Mickey Mantle in person during a weekend spent in Atlantic City in April 1983.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I found it poignant that an author would confide in a famous person so candidly, especially given the unsettling circumstances under which she met with Mickey face to face.<\/p>\n The depth of Leavy’s caring \u00e2\u20ac\u201c about what readers think, that is – \u00c2\u00a0has paid off, in my estimation, and richly so.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 In writing Mickey Mantle’s story, Jane Leavy has offered to all of us\u00c2\u00a0 a comprehensive and honest account of one American life, a disturbing yet beautiful story,\u00c2\u00a0 a truly stunning work of art.<\/p>\n In a recent interview<\/a> I asked the author\u00c2\u00a0 about her two distinguished biographies -\u00c2\u00a0 The Last Boy<\/em> and Sandy Koufax<\/em>: A Lefty\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Legacy <\/em>(2002), wondering which had been the more difficult work for her to craft, not so much emotionally but artistically.\u00c2\u00a0 She replied that The Last Boy<\/em> was by far the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153harder story to tell,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 because there simply wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153enough new to justify it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Countless Mickey stories had already been written.\u00c2\u00a0 What more could be said?<\/p>\n Leavy’s project took on an added urgency and difficulty, due to the fact that some of her sources were nearing the end of their lives. \u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The window of opportunity was closing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she offered soberly.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, several of Mickey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teammates and loved ones did in fact pass away as his story gradually took shape.<\/p>\n Almost everyone who has reviewed The Last Boy<\/em> has praised Jane Leavy for her prodigious\u00c2\u00a0 research, recognizing the over five hundred interviews that have resulted in a best-selling biography.\u00c2\u00a0 Her index alone is eighteen pages long (in microscopic font); the bibliography reads like that of a doctoral dissertation; and Appendix 1 -\u00c2\u00a0 Leavy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interview list – spans ten pages.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 (Her interview list for A Lefty’s Legacy<\/em> occupies a page and a half, though that measurement doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily imply that the pitcher’s story was any less compelling or complete).<\/p>\n There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply no substitute for scholarly rigor and personal access of this kind, and the result is incredible richness, authenticity, and depth of story.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The Last Boy<\/em> is the work of a brilliant mind, though intellectual rigor is never at odds with the plain-spoken, oakie-dokie, crude and sometimes repugnant reality of the character that Leavy has sought to define.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Her ultimate goal is truth.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really not enough to say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Leavy interviewed over 500 people\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and leave it at that.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The mere number doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really say anything about her achievement.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what she does with all these perspectives that is ultimately so impressive and so deeply moving.\u00c2\u00a0 Leavy takes the voices of human beings from all walks of life:\u00c2\u00a0 teammates, trainers, neuroscientists, kinesiologists, family memebers, orthopedic surgeons, mechanical engineers, damaged women, sabermetricians, rednecks, Catholic priests, Jewish grandmothers,\u00c2\u00a0 young boys playing ball in upper Manhattan and out on Route 66, and of course Mickey himself – reprehensible and endearing, winsome, disgusting, lonely, and sincere.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re enriched with a fascinating variety of perspectives and emotions, as Leavy packs a great deal of content into every paragraph, efficiently and unobtrusively so, synthesizing many disparate voices, intertwining them seamlessly in a narrative that never seems disjointed.<\/p>\n Open the book to virtually any page and you will find a vivid quotation from a reliable and often intriguing source.<\/p>\n The story of Mickey Mantle’s experience attains a higher level of sophistication than that of previous studies, in part because of the sophisticated language that Leavy borrows from highly intelligent people who are experts in their fields.\u00c2\u00a0 At the same time, however, she takes on the vernacular of some very inarticulate people, dignifying their discourse and making seemingly stupid individuals sound eloquent through the elegance of her own prose.<\/p>\n Leavy is being modest when describing her beautifully crafted work as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153boring Writer 101 stuff.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The blending of all these voices – as many as six or eight\u00c2\u00a0 different personalities on a page -\u00c2\u00a0 is very hard to achieve if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re aiming to create a fluid story.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The author adeptly combines her own intelligent narrative voice with those of others, all playing in counterpoint to create a compelling whole, the point of which is to get at some important truth.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been invited to a special gathering of ballplayers, all your favorite baseball guys, some of whom you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve long considered your imaginary friends.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all standing in a room having fun together, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re among them. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gathered to tell Mickey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story, roast him and praise him, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been invited to the party. You hear their voices during the course of an evening, or maybe over a\u00c2\u00a0 relaxing weekend, and eventually you leave the venue feeling as if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve\u00c2\u00a0 experienced something truly rare.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel as if you know the man for who he actually was.<\/p>\n Familiar ballplayers and baseball people form a chorus of eyewitness accounts:\u00c2\u00a0 Casey Stengel, Bob Costas, Mickey Lolich,\u00c2\u00a0 Joe DiMaggio (stating that Mickey \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is a rock head\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), Whitey Herzog, Duke Snider, Clete Boyer, Yogi Berra and Carmen too \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just to name a few; and there are hundreds more.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 There is no shortage of expletives emanating from these sources, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poetry too, some of it coming from unlikely places, like Boog Powell for example, who describes the sound of the ball coming off Mickey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bat:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a ring.\u00c2\u00a0 It was more like a musical note.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 (I doubt that Boog thought of himself as speaking poetry.)<\/p>\n Others tended toward lyricism when characterizing Mickey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance on the field:\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He bunted on me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d recalls Ed Roebuck. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I fielded the ball.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounded like a bunch of wild horses running by.”\u00c2\u00a0 Mickey Lolich captures the “buzzing” sound of the sinking fastball after it made contact with Mickey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bat:\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It’s actually the seams grabbing at the air as it goes by.”\u00c2\u00a0 (Only moments later did Lolich realize that the very same ball had just hit him forcibly in the thigh.) \u00c2\u00a0 A few of these poetic moments serve as lyrical cadences in Leavy’s chapter endings:\u00c2\u00a0 “When asked how he had pitched to Mantle, Frank Sullivan said, ‘With tears in my eyes.'”<\/p>\n Jane Leavy is the perfect biographer for Mantle.\u00c2\u00a0 Erudite and colloquial, satirical in delivering sharp one-liners,\u00c2\u00a0 tough yet compassionate, she talks the talk just as coarsely as The Mick once did.\u00c2\u00a0 She has an off-the-charts baseball IQ.\u00c2\u00a0 She is an elegant literary stylist.\u00c2\u00a0 And above all, she approaches her mission with the rigor and intensity of a first-rate investigative journalist.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Whether she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chasing medical answers or a tape-measure home run,\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 she pursues information with urgency and passion, tirelessly and passionately so.<\/p>\n Leavy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analysis of Mickey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hitting technique is nothing short of masterful. \u00c2\u00a0Most simply stated, hitting is a combination of strength and technique.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Leavy takes this basic definition and amplifies it through excellent narrative supported by fascinating appendices that feature kinesthetic drawings of Mickey batting from the right and left sides.<\/p>\n Formulaically stated, Mickey Mantle hitting a baseball = inference + stored experience + reflexes + visual motor system + DNA + Granpa Charlie out by the shed with tennis balls.<\/em> Or in the words of one specialist, hitting is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an intricate biomechanical task that requires the coordination and mobilization of virtually every muscle in the body in less than a second.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n The Last Boy<\/em> is worth purchasing for just that sentence alone.<\/p>\n So this is what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 No wonder we love baseball.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 No wonder we say we \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mickey Mantle.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re witnessing the human form in the act of achieving something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s profoundly difficult and rare, even as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re cracking peanut shells and downing warm beer.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in the presence of an action that is biologically and technically amazing, even if we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop to analyze that person’s complicated movement, even if we can’t begin to comprehend what it is we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re feeling at any given moment of live action or historical footage.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if all we seem to hear is music.<\/p>\n Leavy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s artistic vision did not\u00c2\u00a0 play out as a straight chronology of Mickey Mantle’s professional life.\u00c2\u00a0 We can access that information, including all the game summaries and stats, in countless other ways. \u00c2\u00a0 Statistics aren’t necessarily the stuff of good literature. \u00c2\u00a0 Nevertheless, the author focuses effectively on pivotal turning points in Mickey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career, beginning for example with the astonishing performance at USC that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153catapulted him to fame\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 (5 AB, 4 H, 2 HR, 1 3B, 1 1B, 7 RBI).<\/p>\n Her subsequent analysis of the knee injury that Mickey sustained upon losing his footing atop an uncovered drain in the outfield of Yankee Stadium is an amazing journey in itself, moving as it does from the re-creation of bizarre circumstances and team dynamics on the field and through the exhaustive medical research that followed.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Again, Leavy chases the truth in seeking to determine what exactly happened and why,\u00c2\u00a0 finally uncovering the precise nature of Mantle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s injury, and making the astonishing discovery that he played through unimaginable forms of pain, more agonizing than anyone ever realized.<\/p>\n Leavy acknowledges\u00c2\u00a0 that her hero’s career might have been dramatically different had physicians possessed the tools and technology that would have enabled them to diagnose and solve the problem as medical experts now do almost effortlessly with the click of a button; with MRIs clearly showing tears in the ACL, MCL, and meniscus; and with routine arthroscopic procedures.\u00c2\u00a0 While clearly regretting the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cascading episodes of instability\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that plagued Mickey’s performance on the field, Leavy downplays the useless what-ifs and might-have-beens.\u00c2\u00a0 In doing so, she rescues her subject from sentimentality and from the easy label of\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tragic hero.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tempting to see Mickey as a victim of early injury and a troubled past.\u00c2\u00a0 Some readers have formed precisely this interpretation.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The early episode of child abuse is regarded by some as the cause that explains or justifies Mickey’s lifetime of bad behavior. \u00c2\u00a0 This is not the reality that Jane Leavy has\u00c2\u00a0 chosen to emphasize as the structural or thematic heart of her story, however. \u00c2\u00a0 She describes the matter quietly, almost privately, yet without minimizing its significance.<\/p>\n Biography is not psychiatry.<\/p>\n Mantle grew to be a man who could be deeply cruel to others, often deliberately so. One could argue that The Mick caused more harm to others than was ever done to him.\u00c2\u00a0 He knowingly uttered statements that were offensive, crude, and hurtful.\u00c2\u00a0 He sometimes wrote horrible things to children when signing memorabilia.\u00c2\u00a0 Although his own boys appeared to love him, often gravitated to him, and sought to emulate him for better or worse, he was on many counts a terrible father.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Although Mantle was a lot of fun to be around, he often treated women in ways that will make readers cringe.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Incredibly, Merlyn stuck by him for most of their married years\u00c2\u00a0 (he wrote like he loved me \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I like being Mrs. Mickey Mantle\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.\u00c2\u00a0 he was married in a very small geographic area of his mind<\/em>), but her reminiscences are often heartbreaking.<\/p>\n Mickey was raised in a family that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t show up emotionally.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They seldom expressed or spoke of love, seldom spoke at all in fact, showed very little affection, and failed to connect with each other in the most basic ways.\u00c2\u00a0 It was an American household that can only be described as bleak.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Once he left Commerce, Oklahoma, with its piles of chat and vast holes underground, Mantle had little incentive to return.\u00c2\u00a0 Its depressing landscape was emblematic of a\u00c2\u00a0 deeper human problem. \u00c2\u00a0 Mickey Mantle would never know a true home.<\/p>\n Having married very young (at the insistence of his father), Mickey would eventually comment on his troubled relationship with Merlyn:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I love her.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like my sister, though.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Combine this peculiar attitude with the fact that Mickey first became sexually aware in the hands of his own half-sister, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no wonder most of his experiences \u00c2\u00a0in intimacy took place outside the home.\u00c2\u00a0 Repeated encounters with countless willing and beautiful women left him hungry for affection and human connection.<\/p>\n It’s no accident that he was a man easily prone to tears later in life.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The tears sprung from a variety of troubles,\u00c2\u00a0 untapped emotions, and melancholy what-ifs that resided deep within.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The ballpark throbbed with love,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d wrote George Vecsey on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mickey Mantle Day\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in June 1969.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a peculiar form of affection, this so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we fans feel when applauding and contemplating our heroes; with all due respect to Vecsey, one wonders if love<\/em> is the right term.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 In responding to players like Mickey Mantle, we witness kinesis and anatomy, the graceful human form in motion.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not tip-toe around the idea:\u00c2\u00a0 we embrace the maleness of the thing, the very ideal of male beauty, even as we admire the intensity and violence of an athlete’s hitting. \u00c2\u00a0 Somehow this experience gets translated into \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I love the man.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But fans don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really love the man \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at least not in the ways that this particular man truly needs and yearns to be loved.<\/p>\n We sport his number on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153authentic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d jerseys.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We covet his autograph, though that signature is likely counterfeit.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We build him up, deify and sanctify him, grab some metaphorical piece of him, measure him against the rest, perhaps settle on number two, then maybe let him go.<\/p>\n How is it possible that a man so beloved by so many \u00e2\u20ac\u201c thousands in a screaming, joyful crowd \u00e2\u20ac\u201c comes to feel that he has never known love?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 He had an entire day named after him; yet Merlyn would remember Mickey Mantle Day at Yankee Stadium as the worst afternoon of her husband\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 “I don’t get close to people,” Mantle once confessed to Bob Costas, eyes filling with tears, “I’m weird or something, I guess.”<\/p>\n The emotional rhythms of Leavy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biography are among its greatest strengths.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 She is a master of rescuing the moment from sentimentality, and she does so with exquisite timing.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Just when Mickey lets his guard down and finally says something generous and kind, the moment is swiftly deflated with a sophomoric wisecrack.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The story’s hero may utter a deeply offensive statement, and just when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready to close the book and drop it to the floor in disgust, the man redeems himself; or a friend like Jerry Coleman or Clete Boyer speaks up on Mickey’s behalf, sounding an amusing, endearing or uplifting tribute.\u00c2\u00a0 We feel it all:\u00c2\u00a0 sorrow, repugnance, compassion, disgust, delight.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe even love.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you love him more or less after writing the book?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d asked one reader last week at Politics & Prose<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The same,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Leavy softly replied.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 She went on to observe that Mickey Mantle was at once \u00e2\u20ac\u0153very flawed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153very decent,”\u00c2\u00a0 uncomfortable with attention yet wanting very much to succeed.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 There were many times when he was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153generous beyond measure.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n What emerges in the end is Mickey Mantle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s utter likeability in the midst of all his reprehensible qualities. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Leavy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book has a way of making you want to forgive him. He was fun to be around; men and women agree that this was most assuredly true. He could be shy and unassuming, quiet,\u00c2\u00a0 boyish in a good way, sweet and genuine in displaying his aw-shucks modesty.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a player who loved being among his teammates, and he treated them well.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What the f__ did you do that for?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 he asked Tom Tresh, upon learning that Tresh had named his newborn son Mickey.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 At the same time, writes his biographer, Mickey was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153quietly honored\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 by the gesture.\u00c2\u00a0 He was a man who could be deeply touched, though it seems he never knew quite what to do about such sensations.<\/p>\n Jane Leavy taps into Mantle’s essential goodness even as she watches her childhood hero fail repeatedly.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It might surprise some readers that this tough investigative journalist becomes a quiet and important presence in her own story, lending it an occasional feminine touch \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the clicking of a young girl’s party shoes,\u00c2\u00a0 for example, or a woman’s stunned refusal of an unwanted advance.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Leavy enhances the baseball chapters of her story with five very personal interludes (rendered in softer, quieter italics) during which she keeps company with a\u00c2\u00a0 ballplayer whose more private behavior demonstrates the familiar contradictions.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>
\nWhen I first saw Mickey Mantle he was standing next to a barbecue grill in the late afternoon light outside a motel room in St. Petersburg, Florida.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 He struck a relaxed and happy pose, the sleeves of his golf shirt tightly wrapping his biceps, manly spatula in hand, smiling that perfect all-American boy smile as if life was perfect, could never get better, and would always be so.\u00c2\u00a0 As soon as I saw that photo, I wanted it.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Not the picture per se<\/em>, not even the guy nor that specific way of life, but the glowing atmosphere of spring training, the expression on a young man’s face, the sense of well being and confidence and promise.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Something about that portrait spelled baseball to me.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/images1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em>Three pages into the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preface, Leavy explains that photographer Ozzie Sweet always shot Mickey Mantle and other potential sports heroes \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153from below \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 rendering his subjects larger than life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 This is precisely how I remembered the spring training shot lodged in my own imagination.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153His photos look as if they could have been taken anywhere, anytime.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The context is timelessness.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, that portrait of Mickey that I had long admired always appeared as if it had been taken just yesterday.\u00c2\u00a0 Mickey was youthful and happy; he was a good person.<\/p>\n