Mike,
Granted, I'm no mantle expert, so take this reply with a grain of salt.
I think one of the reasons he's as revered and noted with baseball fans (and to a big extent, collectors) has a lot to do with where he played. If he had been in Milwaukee or Pittsburgh, I think it's fair to say that he would have still been considered a great player, but not to the extent that any star player in New York would be. I think that no matter how you slice it, New York was really one of the main centers of media in that era. So, combining that with the fact that he was in the World Series with the Yankees almost every year, especially during a period in which so few regular season games were actually televised to national audiences, it's just a recipe for his super-stardom. And I know that so many people have written about this that it seems pretty cliche and trite by now, but the whole country bumpkin thing, as well as those boyish good-looks, really did a lot for him. Bob Costas (as well as many others) always said that central casting couldn't have come up with a better baseball player.
As the years went on, and his idolators grew up, I think that love-affair only grew with Mickey's post-baseball career mishaps. I guess there was something incredibly appealing to have a hero who was so faulted, someone with the same 'regular' problems that 'normal' people had. And of course, none of those faults were malicious by any means, but more of a sign of human weakness more than anything.
I think that as Americans, there is also just something very appealing to us regarding the 'what if?' question. The fact that this kid would have been one of the best ballplayers to have ever breathed is always the common thought surrounding the man. And when it's combined with the notion of where he came from, his family's history with Hodgkins, the death of his father, the knee injuries and how that all steamrolled into a life that was lived with that sense of an inherited death sentence, well, you just get something magical to a lot of people. Or at least, that's what I think.
It was actually through Leavy's book that made me like the man even more. And though he was my father's favorite player (he grew up watching him, too), his name just never had the same kind of sex appeal as someone like Gehrig's. But now, I feel like I can really see what the big deal is...
Just my two cents!
Graig
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