1950 Mantle #6 Scorecard
 

Recently came across a 1950 Program/Scorecard between the NY Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers with Mickey Mantle #6 in Right Field. Does anyone know anything about this item ? PICS are included to decipher

I'll take a stab at it. Likely an exhibition game before the regular season started and Mantle's assignment to Joplin of the minor league Western Association. His first number in a Yanks uniform was 6, which he also wore in his initial period with the Yanks in his rookie year of 1951 before changing to #7 after a period when he was sent down to AA Kansas City.

I have a similar program though for New York rather than Brooklyn. It came with a ticket stub as well. Apparently the Yankees used up their supply of leftover 1950 programs during the 1951 preseason. The one that I have is from Mantle's first appearance in a Yankee program. I believe yours is also preseason 1951, and was likely one of the very first appearances of Mantle in a program with the Yankees.

Tom C

Edit: Also Gene Markland was not in the Yankees system in 1950...he was in the A's system that year. He was in the Yankees system in 1951.

1951 Yankee Program.
Mickey Mantle #6 1951 vs the Philadelphia Athletics - May 25-27th.
Jerry Sage

Mantle wore #6 for the first 69 games that he played for the Yankees in 1951, thru July 13, while Cliff Mapes wore #7. When Mantle next played a big league game on August 24, he was wearing #7, which was available due to Mapes being traded to the Browns at the end of July. Although Bob Cerv wore #7 for at least a portion of his time with the team that year (Aug 1 thru Aug 20).

The attached scorecards show each of them wearing #7.

July 30 - Mapes
Aug 15 - Cerv
Aug 29 - Mantle

Also, at some point, Bobby Brown, who had been wearing #9, switched to #6

PS - here is a game where #7 Mapes, replaced #6 Mantle.

That's reason enough to show it on this thread, but a better reason is that it is Mickey's first career HR.

Mantle's NY debut - Yankees\Dodgers Exhibition game 4/15/51
 

The Yankees and Dodgers did meet in an exhibition game on April 15, 1951 at Brooklyn. Mantle played and hit a home run. This page is from the April 16th Newark Star-Ledger.
(Note: this is how I bought it at an antique shop a couple of years ago.)

I would say it is almost a certainty that what you have is a program fom that game. Very nice!

http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/a...psd023d41a.jpg

That's a pretty great newspaper page!

Rea
 

Found this on an old REA site, explains it very well.

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/..._fall/937.html

That's my program!!

Tom C

Mystery solved. So an exhibition game but from '51 and not '50. Cool stuff. Didn't know that it was common for prior year programs to be used for such games and I'm glad I learned that tidbit for future collecting purposes.