In Search of the Commerce Comet
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"Mickey wasn't known as a baseball player when he was growin' up here."
It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in the cramped storefront office that serves as the Commerce, Oklahoma, Police Department. The sergeant on duty was a precious link to my boyhood hero's past.
"Mick was really a great football player in junior high school."
I had driven to this small, dusty town in the northeast corner of Oklahoma to just experience the place where Mickey Mantle grew up. I don't know what I expected to find, but I was quite surprised at what I didn't find.
The only business open on this lazy winter church-going Sunday was the 7-11. I was looking for anything that proclaimed this as, "Commerce, Oklahoma: Boyhood Home of Mickey Mantle!" To my shock, dismay and disappointment I could find no such treasure. In fact, except for the name "Mickey Mantle Boulevard" on State Route 69 that skirts “downtown” Commerce, there was no recognition that this was, indeed, the hometown of one of America's beloved baseball icons. I became determined to find out why.
I turned down Main Street, looking for anyone who might shed some light on this historic omission. As I drove through town I was overcome by something more than Sunday quiet and solitude. I knew from reading about Mantle's life of the nearby copper mines in which he vowed never to work and die. And now, driving past the sun bleached, sandblasted stores of Commerce, I understood why he fled.
The only thing open on Main Street was the police station and, in my quest for ANYTHING that said Commerce, OK, on it, I entered and asked for a blank sheet of letterhead. I ended up spending almost an hour talking with the desk sergeant and it was here I learned of the long-standing grudge Mickey Charles Mantle held against the city fathers of Commerce.
It's funny how something simple—a mere misunderstanding—can have Life-long implications. It seems the town of Commerce was planning to build a new Little League baseball field and the idea was to name it for Mickey Mantle. "The Mick" had other ideas; he wanted it named for his father, Mutt Mantle.
Mutt
was the reason Mickey became a ballplayer. After working the copper
mines everyday Mutt would take Mickey out after dinner and throw
grounder after grounder at the young man (Mickey actually began his
baseball career as an infielder). Mutt, like most of the Mantle men,
died relatively young of Hodgekins Disease and, according to my new
friend at the Commerce Police Department, Mickey wanted the town to
honor his dad.
It's not clear whether the powers-that-be first agreed and then reneged, or if they flat out refused. The bottom line: there was to be no Mutt Mantle Field and, when Mickey was invited back "home" for the ground breaking ceremony his reply reportedly was, "I left nothin' in Commerce, Oklahoma, and have no reason to go back there." The town fathers, in return, took down the big fundraising billboard with Mickey's name on it. Mickey, in apparent retaliation, settled across the state line in nearby Joplin, Missouri, and that was that.
After my visit to Commerce, and up until the time Mickey became fatally ill, I called my hero’s agent regularly to try and get Mantle’s side of the story. He never returned my calls and I never learned if “The Commerce Comet” made peace with his boyhood home town.
©1992 by LeeZard
It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in the cramped storefront office that serves as the Commerce, Oklahoma, Police Department. The sergeant on duty was a precious link to my boyhood hero's past.
"Mick was really a great football player in junior high school."
 |
| Mickey Mantle's boyhood home in Commerce, OK |
I had driven to this small, dusty town in the northeast corner of Oklahoma to just experience the place where Mickey Mantle grew up. I don't know what I expected to find, but I was quite surprised at what I didn't find.
The only business open on this lazy winter church-going Sunday was the 7-11. I was looking for anything that proclaimed this as, "Commerce, Oklahoma: Boyhood Home of Mickey Mantle!" To my shock, dismay and disappointment I could find no such treasure. In fact, except for the name "Mickey Mantle Boulevard" on State Route 69 that skirts “downtown” Commerce, there was no recognition that this was, indeed, the hometown of one of America's beloved baseball icons. I became determined to find out why.
I turned down Main Street, looking for anyone who might shed some light on this historic omission. As I drove through town I was overcome by something more than Sunday quiet and solitude. I knew from reading about Mantle's life of the nearby copper mines in which he vowed never to work and die. And now, driving past the sun bleached, sandblasted stores of Commerce, I understood why he fled.
The only thing open on Main Street was the police station and, in my quest for ANYTHING that said Commerce, OK, on it, I entered and asked for a blank sheet of letterhead. I ended up spending almost an hour talking with the desk sergeant and it was here I learned of the long-standing grudge Mickey Charles Mantle held against the city fathers of Commerce.
It's funny how something simple—a mere misunderstanding—can have Life-long implications. It seems the town of Commerce was planning to build a new Little League baseball field and the idea was to name it for Mickey Mantle. "The Mick" had other ideas; he wanted it named for his father, Mutt Mantle.
 |
| The Mantle Family. That's Mutt on the far left |
It's not clear whether the powers-that-be first agreed and then reneged, or if they flat out refused. The bottom line: there was to be no Mutt Mantle Field and, when Mickey was invited back "home" for the ground breaking ceremony his reply reportedly was, "I left nothin' in Commerce, Oklahoma, and have no reason to go back there." The town fathers, in return, took down the big fundraising billboard with Mickey's name on it. Mickey, in apparent retaliation, settled across the state line in nearby Joplin, Missouri, and that was that.
After my visit to Commerce, and up until the time Mickey became fatally ill, I called my hero’s agent regularly to try and get Mantle’s side of the story. He never returned my calls and I never learned if “The Commerce Comet” made peace with his boyhood home town.
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