Quotes from Jane Leavy

For Mantle, the Yankees' locker room was a sanctuary, a safe haven where he was understood, accepted and, when necessary, exonerated.

Cape Cod baseball dates back to the time of the Civil War. A poster at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown touts a round-trip train ride from Hyannis to Sandwich on July 4, 1885 - the occasion of the 14th annual baseball game between Sandwich and Barnstable.

In the spring of 1957, Mickey Mantle was the king of New York. He had the Triple Crown to prove it, having become only the 12th player in history to earn baseball's gaudiest jewel. In 1956, he had finally fulfilled the promise of his promise, batting .353, with 52 homers and 130 RBIs. Everybody loved Mickey.

Indianapolis proved to be the perfect Super Bowl city, accommodating in the truest sense of the word.

Some scholars attribute the decline in nicknaming to the evolutionary process that turned folk heroes into entrepreneurs. The truth is: George Herman Ruth, the namely-est guy ever, exhausted our supply of hyperbole.

Claire Hodgson, born Clara Mae Merritt, was the daughter of a prominent Georgia attorney who had once represented Ty Cobb. She was still a teenager when she married Frank Hodgson, a gentleman caller nearly twice her age.

There is nothing incompatible about laughter and demons, nor about athletic achievement and depression. Mike Flanagan made me laugh, too. But mostly, he made me brave.

Mantle didn't want to stick out, but he did. He didn't wish to be treated as special, but he was. He was uncomfortable being the center of attention, but he was the centerfielder for the most famous franchise in sports.

In Naples, Fla., I met a self-made man, a multimillionaire, whose round penthouse apartment is home to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Henry Moore, and Mickey Mantle. He had purchased the most coveted items auctioned by the Mantle family at Madison Square Garden in December 2003.

Babe Ruth didn't become her father until 18 months after he married her mother, Claire, on April 17, 1929, Opening Day of the baseball season. Julia was 12 years old.

Trauma is not the sole province of victims. If that were true, soldiers returning from Afghanistan wouldn't suffer from PTSD.