New York Yankee great Mickey Mantle has always been highly regarded in this area, since he was born in Commerce, Okla., and played baseball games in Joplin, Carthage, and other area communities.
Eleven years after his death, Mantle, whose drinking and carousing during his baseball days was never a big secret, is once again enveloped in controversy thanks to a book scheduled to be released in March by HarperCollins.
In the book called an "inventive memoir," it appears that author Peter Golenbeck plans to totally eradicate the line between fact and fiction with what has been termed as "reality fiction."
It remains to be seen how or if the book's publication will be affected by this week's firing of its publisher Judith Regan (the same one who almost provided us with the controversial O. J. Simpson book).
Among other things, the book features a detailed sexual romp between Mantle and actress Marilyn Monroe (while she was married to his former teammate Joe DiMaggio), and it accuses Mantle's teammate Billy Martin of being a rapist. Of course, Mantle and Martin are both dead and cannot sue for libel. (And it is also being labeled as reality fiction which may offer even more protection for Golenbock.)
More information about this book is featured in the Dec. 13 Publishers Weekly, which was published just before Ms. Regan was fired.
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