NY Daily News BASEBALL INSIDER Derek Jeter and Mickey Mantle: A contrast in finales, and a contrast in eras ANDY MARTINO 26 Sep 12:11 AM ROBERT SABO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Now, men can act like this in public. Mickey Mantle’s ending came much quieter, clutching a railing in the dugout at Fenway, staggering, laboring to descend. Derek Jeter will take his last at-bat in Boston, too, but his real finish came on Thursday in the Bronx, and it was pure joy. After a night spent wobbling, nearly crying, actually wishing for no one to hit a ball his way, Jeter howled on the infield dirt to celebrate his game-winning single, hugged his best friends and family, emoted for more than 20 minutes in a news conference. Weeks of manufactured, for-profit feeling had given way to a story we will tell for the rest of our lives. There are some odd similarities between Mantle’s and Derek Jeter’s retirements, most notably that each icon played his last home game on a Sept. 25, and -- presumably, in Jeter’s case -- finished his career in Boston on a Sept. 28. But the differences are stark, and tell us how the culture has changed since 1968. We are crass now, but we are also willing to let ourselves fly open in front of strangers. Until Thursday, when the payoff was sweet and worth all the prior nonsense, Jeter’s farewell tour was a tacky commercial: The no. 2 flags and patches, the Gatorade “My Way” ad, the memorabilia. Mantle’s tour, fitting for a Mad Men-like Manhattanite who lived and died before our age of public emoting, didn’t happen at all. His career fizzled quietly, a little sad, virtually undetected. Declining health had pushed him in the direction of retirement before, but the team lured him back in ’68. “They talked Mickey into it,” says Gene Michael, the teammate who later became a legendary evaluator and architect of the Jeter dynasty, and remains a trusted advisor to Brian Cashman. “He was going to retire the year before. He had wanted to retire, but it wasn’t tough to to talk him into playing. They were paying him $100,000, which was a ton of money back then.” Because Mantle hit .237 that year, and hobbled around on a beat-up body, his finish is remembered as a particularly weak one. But the truth is more complex, and with 18 home runs and an OPS+ of 143, he was far more productive than Jeter in 2014 (74 OPS+). “He wasn’t as good a player, but he was still dangerous offensively,” Michael says of Mantle. “His legs were hurting, and he was playing first base.” Still, Mantle limped through the summer with the help of Butazolidin, a serious anti-inflammatory. Because of the potential side-effects, he was off the stuff by the final days of the season, and could barely walk. “The last two days (at Fenway) he could hardly go down the steps,” Michael recalls. “I know because I followed him one time. He was hurting...Derek is a lot more healthy than Mickey was. Derek rehabbed that leg big time, and he came back.” Marty Appel was a witness to Mantle’s final season, and didn’t catch the few subtle hints that he was watching a farewell tour. A future Yankees PR director, Appel opened Mantle’s fan mail as a young team employee. One day in August, he and Mantle sat next to one another on stools in the locker room. “He takes his spikes and tosses them like 12 feet into a garbage can, takes out a box with a new pair and says, ‘this will be my last pair,’” Appel recalls. “I didn’t know what he was saying at the time.” A pair of spikes in the trash, and a lonely limp down the Fenway steps. Those were Mantle’s ceremonies, until he quit the following spring and was granted a post-playing fete at the Stadium. “It was a different game, a different era,” says Michael. “They didn’t do things like (retirement tours). It wasn’t just Mickey that didn’t do it. No one did those things in those days. Now promotions are so much bigger.” Adds Appel: “This whole year has been evidence of baseball’s marketing machine. There couldn’t have been a Steiner Sports in 1968. There wouldn’t have been a market for it.” Until Thursday night, the old way seemed better. Jeter’s goodbye had gone on for so long that the backlash hit before his big weekend began. A man known for class and restraint was going out cheesy. But then there was all the stuff that somehow really happened. Out at shortstop, more than 48,000 people screaming his name, telling himself “don’t cry.” The impossible hit, and the release that followed. The news conference, where he tried to answer honestly, but was hit by the failure of words to convey something so deep. “I can’t....I don’t…,” Jeter said, shaking his head. His voice and eyes were raw, and he was sharing himself, more than Mantle could, probably more than most men could in 1968. There are the ads now, and there is the cash, but there is Derek Jeter and Mickey Mantle: A contrast in finales, and a contrast in eras We are crass now, but we are also willing to let ourselves fly open in front of strangers. The perfect way for Derek Jeter and Joe Girardi to handle the final home game Jeter left himself open by agreeing to participate in a goodbye that matches “Magnolia” for length and melodrama. 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Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 19:48:57 +0000