Access the Mets beat like never before

Don’t miss Mike Puma’s text messages from Queens and beyond — he’s giving Sports+ subscribers the inside buzz on the Mets.

The best-case template was cast in iron in a small hotel room on Aug. 11, 1951. A man named Elven Mantle — “Mutt” to everybody — drove the 163 miles from Commerce, Okla., to Kansas City, Mo., to join his son, Mickey, for Father-Son Day at Municipal Stadium. But it wasn’t exactly a happy occasion.

Mantle — whom Casey Stengel had called “the best ballplayer I’ve ever seen,” and Stengel had been around pro ballplayers since 1910 — had started hot his rookie season with the Yankees, but by July he’d fallen into an irreversible funk. Stengel sent him down to Triple-A.

At first, Mantle’s slump became even worse: he started 3-for-18. Even as he caught fire on a three-week road trip, when the Blues returned home, Mickey was deeply depressed.

He told his father he wanted to quit.