This Auction is for an original complete APRIL 5, 1951 NEW YORK YANKEES MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM v SAN ANTONIO MISSIONS TEXAS LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM scorecard style baseball game PROGRAM & 2 TICKET STUBS. ALTHOUGH NOT MENTIONED IN THE PROGRAM MICKEY MANTLE WAS WITH THE YANKEES DURING THIS GAME. Please see images as their is a photo of DiMaggio and Mantle from this game (NOT INCLUDED!) The rookie Mantle was also the teams leading hitter the spring of 1951. My thought is the programs were printed prior to Spring Training and the San Antonio Missions were not given a roster including the teenage Mantle. THE PROGRAM HAS A 3 INCH TEARV AT UPPER RIGHT AREA. A great and unique early piece of Mantle Memorabilia! The day before this game Mantle got some bad news as he was to report back to Oklahoma for a physical for the draft board. please view scans as per actual condition.

When Spring Training began, Stengel knew of Mantle's success at Joplin in 1950 (.383, MVP), and was generally aware of Mantle's reputation. He didn't, however, come into camp with the idea that Mantle might replace DiMaggio or, for that matter, even make the team. In fact there were several other newcomers for whom he had bigger plans.

One was Jackie Jensen. Stengel is noted as a pioneer in the use of platoons, but he was also unusual in his willingness to shuffle players in and out of positions. He often won pennants with no set infield and would unhesitatingly move players to unfamiliar posts if it meant an advantage somewhere else. After two weeks of inspecting his 1951 crop of rookies, he decided on two important changes. One was moving Mantle to the outfield (Stengel briefly considered putting Mantle at third, and would have if not for the presence of McDougald); and the other was making Jensen a pitcher.

It was Jensen who was first tabbed heir to DiMaggio, but after hitting .171 in 45 games in 1950, Stengel didn't think Jensen could hit in the big leagues. But he liked the way the kid threw, so when Jensen arrived in Phoenix, he was told to start warming up his arm.

Mantle was placed under the tutelage of Henrich, in his first year as coach after years as an All-Star outfielder with the Yankees. Henrich's tough first assignment was to turn a shortstop who had committed 55 errors in the Class C Western League in 1950 into an outfielder able to patrol Yankee Stadium in 1951. Because Mantle was having trouble with balls hit right at him, Stengel felt more comfortable with the kid in right field than center. But with DiMaggio hobbling at the start of Spring Training, Mantle opened the exhibition season in center field.

The Yankees first exhibition game was in Tucson March 10 against the Indians and Mantle had three hits in a losing cause. Jensen, on the mound, was hit hard. If Mantle was feeling good about passing his first Major League test, he returned to earth with a thud the next day.

Starting in center again, Mantle was hitless in the game when Ray Boone's long drive conked Mantle on the head while he struggled to get his sunglasses in place, resulting in his immediate departure from the game. The next day he overran Dale Mitchell's fly in the ninth, allowing the tying run to score. After that, Mantle and Henrich went back to work. On March 13, the Jensen pitching experiment came to an end. With four hits, including two homers and four runs, Jensen rejoined the competition to succeed DiMaggio in the outfield.

The California swing opened in Hollywood where the Yankees game was a sellout; across town the Browns and White Sox, each with training camps in the Los Angeles area, played before 235 fans. The Yankees tour passed through Los Angeles, Glendale, Sacramento, San Francisco and Oakland. Mantle kept hitting, rewarding the reporters who, for three weeks, had been trumpeting his batting exploits. The last date on the trip was a game versus Southern Cal in L.A. on March 26. Mantle drove in seven runs. By the time the club headed back to Arizona, Mantle had blasted five home runs and was batting over .400.

DiMaggio, on the other hand, was limping. The knee that had been bothering him for years had flared up again and the Clipper wasn't hitting. With so many fans anxious to see the legend during his much-heralded homecoming, DiMaggio played but he finished the tour below .200. "The old geezer's about done," DiMaggio told friends in San Francisco.

Everything the Yankees did created repercussions and their jaunt through California was no exception. The Pacific Coast League clubs that hosted the Yanks had a bonanza at the box office, as the Bombers "wheeled their money wagon" up the coast. Conversely, Major League clubs, particularly the Browns, resented the fact that "they were denied even one spoonful of Yankee gravy," though the Yanks did play one of their 12 California games against the White Sox. Most importantly, the trip prompted baseball officials for the first time to seriously consider locating big league teams out west.

Years later, what Mantle remembered most about that trip was how Stengel had favored the California-bred players in making out the lineup. "I didn't start," Mantle recalled. "I was from Oklahoma."

The club settled back in at Phoenix for one last week, with Mantle redoubling his work with Henrich in the outfield as the rest of the club tried to mend the various ailments earned in 12 games in 11 days on the road. Stengel fretted over a pitching dilemma unearthed by the coast swing. Reynolds was sore armed, and replacing Ford seemed harder than ever. "The desert broods and the desert knows," Casey mused when asked about finding five starters. "I just wish I knew, too."

On April 3, Stengel took his club east, playing every day at stops such as San Antonio, Austin, Beaumont, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City and Louisville. On April 4, before a game in El Paso, Mantle got some disturbing news. He had been called for another draft physical, and was to report to his draft board in Miami, Okla., on April 11. The Yankees denied it, but word leaked that the club, hoping to quiet the now steady chorus of denunciation concerning the phenom's 4-F classification, had asked the board to reexamine Mantle. Both Mantle and the club were getting hate mail, and fans at the ballparks were giving the kid more invective than he was used to. Now, perhaps, the army would change its mind and instead of the Bronx, Mantle would be heading to Panmunjom. He responded by hitting his sixth homer of the spring that day, along with a double and single.

Mantle rejoined the club in New York for a three-game set against the Dodgers. In the final game of the exhibition season he had four hits, finishing the spring with a .402 average, nine homers and 31 RBIs. Stengel still wasn't sure he had made the team, though the draft board reaffirmed his status as unqualified for induction. The Yankees total attendance for the spring, 278,880, was a new record.

Big League Debut

The club headed to Washington for opening day, but Mantle didn't know if he was along as a Yankee, or if he was on his way to Kansas City where the minor league season would start several days later. General manager George Weiss wanted to send Mantle down for a year but Stengel wanted Mantle to start in his outfield. Discussions with Yankee owners Dan Topping and Webb determined that the 19-year-old phenom would stick with the club, as would McDougald and Jensen.

It rained three days in Washington, costing President Harry Truman a first-pitch appearance. The club returned to Yankee Stadium to open the season against the Red Sox. Jensen was leading off and playing left field with Mantle in right, hitting third, and DiMaggio batting cleanup. Ford, in military uniform, threw out the first pitch.

Though Mantle had performed sensationally in Spring Training, the 1951 season would not be an easy one for the teenaged slugger. Big league pitching was far superior to the minor league variety seen in most exhibition games. Mantle drove Stengel crazy with his wild swings; one day in Boston he struck out five times on the same pitch out of the strike zone.

His temper began to show. After he took a poor at-bat into the field with him and blew an outfield play behind Lopat, the veteran pitcher threatened him. The Yankees weren't amused by his attacks on water coolers. The furor over his draft status had not been defused by the second exam and Mantle became a target of abuse. In Chicago, fans threw firecrackers at him, leading Stengel to threaten to pull the Yankees from the field.

Still, in early July, Mantle was leading the club with 45 RBIs and had slugged seven homers. However, his .260 batting average was in steady decline. Stengel reluctantly admitted a mistake and shipped him out to Kansas City. Jensen had won the regular job in left, and Hank Bauer was healthy and playing right field regularly. DiMaggio was still in center. Mantle finished the season with Kansas City and returned to the Yankees in September. By the time the 1951 World Series began, he was starting in right field. It was in Game Two that he tore knee ligaments when he stepped in an outfield drainage hole, the first of the debilitating injuries that blighted his career.

The Yankees won the World Championship in '51, as they did in eight of Mantle's first 12 years, six of those under Stengel. The Yankees returned to California in 1962 to play the relocated Giants in the World Series, but there have been no further Spring Training visits. Jensen was dealt to the Senators in '52 and ended up leading the AL in RBIs three times for the Red Sox. And Mickey Mantle became, for the Yankees and an entire generation of baseball fans, the next DiMaggio.

©1998 Spring Training Inc.

This article first appeared in the 1998 issue of Spring Training.