What’s the obsession with Mickey Mantle?

[jchcollins]

I don't have much to add to what Matty said, but would make one other point in regards to the mystique and the whole not equaling the sum of the parts. Over everything else I think you have to consider the timing - Mickey Mantle's timing was absolutely perfect in not one, but TWO regards:

1) The culimanation of time and place for baseball was the 1950's in New York City. I would argue the popularity for baseball in the timeframe even above and beyond the Ruth / Gehrig era of the 1920's and 30's. They established the popularity of the game. 25 years later it was absolutely boiling over... Then all of the WS appearances and you had Mantle as a household name by the mid 1950's. This then continued through 1964 on and off with Mickey being a prime-time TV star at a time when the medium was also growing exponentially. You had to be under a rock to not know who Mickey Mantle was, even if you didn't care about baseball.

2) The culmination of time and player for the explosion of the card hobby in the the late 1970's and early 1980's was again...you guessed it, Mickey Mantle. When hotel shows and card shops started springing up everywhere, whose cards and whose autograph did an overwhelming majority of collectors and nostalgia hounds want first?

Bottom line, he was the most popular player of his generation and then helped to usher in the baseball card era several decades later. It's one of those things that has some novelty to it yes - and a sheen that cannot be explained by his stats or comparison to other players alone.