Mickey Mantle

I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but it is going to be interesting to find out.

When Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were active, the majority of fans rated Mays ahead of Mantle, often with the disclaimer that if Mickey had Mays’ health, it might have been different.

Now that we have “experts” such as Bill James and his ilk, a bevy of measurements exist that have led to the conclusion that Mickey was better than we thought.  The primary reason is that his peak years were better than Willie’s.

In honor of the year Robinson Cano is having (.368 Batting Average, 13 Home Runs, 47 RBI), it got me thinking that if Cano keeps this pace up, where will it rank amongst the greatest Yankee seasons of all-time?

We still got a long ways to go, and there's still a lot of baseball to be played, so I will re-address that question towards the end of the season.

The Yankees have had some of the greatest players in Major League Baseball history. This list ranks the top 10 of those legends who wore the pinstripes very proudly during their stay in the Bronx.

To rank the players I used their individual stats while with the Yankees and their success in the postseason. I also took into consideration military service and career-threatening injuries.

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Mickey Mantle had a terrible season in 1959. He batted .285, with 31 home runs, 75 RBI, and a.517 slugging average.

Most players would not consider that too bad, but Mantle was not most players.

Yankees general manager George Weiss wanted to slash Mantle's $75,000 salary by $15,000.

From his home in Dallas, Mantle agreed that his 1959 season "wasn't so good," but he felt the New York Yankees "cut my salary too much."

The New York Yankees accomplished a rare feature in their 4-2 loss against the Oakland Athletics on Thursday afternoon. Pitcher CC Sabathia was pitching very well, but did not get enough run support to top the A's.

Sabathia pitched to Kurt Suzuki. The ball was chopped to Alex Rodriguez, who rushed to third and stepped on the bag to get Daric Barton out.

Rodriguez then beamed the ball nicely to Robinson Cano awaiting at second base to force Ryan Sweeney out.

The New York Yankees.  Lord of their realm, with fans who let you know it.

Talking to a Yankee fan is generally an exercise in futility, since they are programmed to utter two basic phrases:

Phrase one: “Twenty-seven rings, baby”, or a something along that vein.

"The biggest game I ever played in was probably Don Larsen's perfect game."

Those were the words of Mickey Mantle, who played in many big games. On Oct. 8, 1956, Mickey Mantle had one of the best games of his great career.

Jo Bydin was a young baseball fan when the Yankees 18-game winning streak was broken by the St. Louis Browns on June 16, 1953.

Jo rooted for the New York Giants, and any day that the Yankees lost was a good day for Jo Bydin.

The St. Louis Browns

The New York Yankees had high hopes of becoming contenders in 1966 after their disastrous sixth place finish the previous season.

Victor Mohn, despite being a Boston Red Sox fan, admired Mickey Mantle, but he felt that injuries were part of the game.

Victor wasn't surprised to learn that New York Yankees' general manager Ralph Houk talked Mickey out of retiring after the disastrous 1965 season.

Mickey Mantle revealed the truth. At the age of 34, the second greatest center fielder in New York Yankees' history no longer could run or throw well, and was no longer an effective hitter from the left side of the plate.

Howard Jackson was an avid New York Giants fan.

Willie Mays is his favorite player, and Howard is easily upset when it is claimed that Mickey Mantle was better than Willie.

He merely refers to the great year of 1954.