Mickey Mantle's Tape Measure Home Run

“A swing and a drive. It’s back, way back there, going, going, I don’t believe it! That ball is outta here!” Mickey Mantle is known as the father of baseball’s “Tape measure Home Run,” meaning the ball was hit so far, they needed a tape measure to figure out how far the ball actually went. Ending his career with 536 homers, many of them flew out of the ballparks helped him earn his many respects as one of the best players baseball has ever seen. Growing up, Mantle was born in an extremely poor household in poverty. This was due in part to his birth on October 20th, 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression. Born in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, jobs were scarce and after his dad lost his the family needed to move to Commerce when Mickey was about four …show more content…
As soon as he could grip a bat and throw the ball, he began to play baseball each and every day with his dad. For a few hours after school when his dad returned from work they would go outside and his dad pitched righty while Mickey batted lefty, then his grandpa would pitch lefty while he batter righty. This taught him how to switch hit. Being a tri-sport athlete Mickey kept busy and in good shape; he played basketball and football, along with baseball. While playing on a semi-pro team at the age of 16, a Yankees scout came to watch his game to see their third basemen play. By being in the right place at the right time Mickey was lucky enough to impress the scout with three monster home runs so he later returned in 1949 to sign him. He would then go on to win numerous awards throughout his career and become the best switch hitter to ever live as this source points out, “In his 18-year career he set (and broke) numerous records and, as he himself has said, if he had taken better care of himself -- most of his home runs were hit while he was injured -- he would have broken every record in the book,” ("Biography"). Mickey Mantle is an