This is no ordinary February for those who revere Mickey Mantle.

It was 60 years ago this winter that “The Mick” first went to spring training with the Yankees.  In 1951 he was 19, Godly gifted and already being crowned a “wonder boy.”

It was also the last year of Mantle’s life when he would be healthy.  The Oklahoma son of a miner raised to switch hit, Mantle was destined to be a great baseball player from the time of his birth when he was named Mickey after hall of fame catcher Mickey Cochran.

By the time the Yankees were barnstorming in late March of 1951, the Mantle legend had begun.  Playing against the USC Trojans in Los Angeles, Mantle hit two towering home runs, including one that may have travelled over 600 feet.  USC coach Rod Dedeaux and other onlookers were amazed as they watched Mantle’s power during a perfect 4-for-4 day at bat.

“The greatest show in history,” Dedeaux said in Jane Leavy’s extraordinary book, The Last Boy, Mickey Mantle.

Mantle started the season with the Yankees but by summer had been sent to the minors to polish his batting.  He earned his way back to the Yankees later in the season and played in his first World Series in October of 1951 against the New York Giants.  In one of the most famous and tragic plays in baseball history, Mantle tripped on an outfield drain pipe cover and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher.

Mantle’s badly injured right knee would never be the same, nor would his potential.  Decades ago medical procedures were archaic compared with today and he played his 18 year big league career victimized by physical problems, at times almost playing on one leg and at least once with blood drenching his uniform.

I don’t remember the early years of Mantle’s career but by the late 1950s he mesmerized me and millions more.  He was blond, handsome and had forearms to be envied by a blacksmith.  No player ever filled out a uniform more perfectly than Mantle.

Switch hitting was a phenomenon that swept across the ball fields of America in the 1950s and 1960s. I learned to be a switch hitter because of Mantle.  It didn’t motivate me that it was an advantage when hitting against both left-handed and right-handed pitching.  You batted on both sides of the plate because that’s the way Mantle did it.

He was that cool.  So cool that Emmy Award winning broadcaster Bob Costas carried a Mantle baseball trading card in his wallet.  So special that Billy Crystal said he spoke in an Oklahoma drawl at his bar mitzvah.  So extraordinary that Mantle’s 1952 Topps Baseball Card has for years been the most valuable of all post-World War II trading cards.

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The opportunity to see Mantle was never to be missed, even on TV.  Close your eyes and you can still see No. 7 coming to the plate in Yankee Stadium.  In his wonderful baritone voice, legendary public announcer Bob Sheppard says, “No. 7 Mickey Mantle. No.7.”   It is the voice of God introducing a superhero.

By the 1960’s, when major league baseball was first being played here, you weren’t sure if Mantle’s afflictions would keep him from playing against the Twins at Metropolitan Stadium.  The stands were packed when the Yankees were in town and there was reverence when Mantle came to the plate.

Mantle was often booed early in his career but by 1961 he was a hero to most baseball fans throughout the country.  Critics went after Mantle in the early years because he didn’t measure up to their expectations.  Hyped as potentially the greatest player of all time meant that a .300 season and 40 home runs weren’t good enough.

Mantle hushed a lot of the boos in 1956, his best season.  Not yet 25, he won baseball’s revered Triple Crown hitting .353, with 52 home runs and 130 RBI.  Back then Mantle could run better than in his later years and he had yet to injure his right throwing arm that was among the strongest in baseball.

Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog was a big league player during much of Mantle’s era including 1956.  He followed a center fielder and base runner who could run and throw with baseball’s best, and a batter that flirted with a .400 average, hit home runs more frequently than anybody playing, and sometimes slugged balls so far nobody was sure where they landed.

“Nobody could play baseball better than Mickey Mantle played in it in 1956,” Herzog said in Jane Leavy’s book.

But even that year didn’t win over the more irrational Mantle critics.  When he hit .365 in 1957 and “only” 34 home runs, there were fans who wanted more.  And there were people who never accepted the Army draft board verdict that Mantle was exempted from military service because of his osteomyelitis.  “If he can play baseball, why can’t he be in the Army,” they growled.

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The truth was that Mantle’s physical demons did give him a huge burden to carry and at times put him in the hospital.  It was 50 years ago, during the 1961 season, that a hip injury stopped Mantle short in his pursuit of Babe Ruth’s 60 home run season record.

Mantle missed some games in September of 1961 and finished with 54 home runs.     Teammate Roger Maris broke the home run record with 61.  He played in more games and had the huge advantage of hitting in front of Mantle in the lineup.

The summer of 1961 captivated the country as the “M&M boys” pursued the Babe’s place in history.  Mantle, Maris and the great world championship Yankee team of 1961 later inspired a Billy Crystal directed movie, 61*.

That season also transformed Mantle into more of a hero than ever before.  As he approached his 30^th birthday, Mantle’s physical tribulations had been sufficiently documented to the point he was admired for achieving what he could.  And Maris, a lesser talent than Mantle, was seen as not worthy of pursuing the great Babe Ruth’s record.  If anyone deserved to be Ruthian in post-World War II America, it was Mantle.

Mantle would never have another season like 1961, although he did win his third American League MVP award in 1962.  In his last season, 1968, he fittingly hit a late September home run off Jim Lonborg of Boston.

Although he never played baseball again, he continued to be one of America’s greatest idols.  He would return to old-timers games in Yankee Stadium and hear thunderous applause.  He had a national youth baseball program named after him, and fans travelled to Monument Park in Yankee Stadium where a plaque honored him and a handful of other Yankee greats.

Mantle died at age 63 from cancer.  He was an alcoholic, reportedly convinced he needed to party because of the young ages when death claimed his male relatives.  Age 63 was apparently a bonus for “The “Mick.”  Born on October 20, 1931, he would have been 80 this fall.

The Twins open spring training later this month.  Fans will watch to see how slugger Justin Morneau is recovering from his concussion.  And each time Joe Mauer comes to the plate, wearing No. 7, fans know they’re watching a great ballplayer.

Baseball moves on but in the winter of 2011 there’s no forgetting “The Mick.”

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