Tony Castro's America

When Mickey Tried to Console Jackie O.

BASEBALL LEGEND MICKEY MANTLE, who lived in fear of dying young of the Hodgkins disease that killed several members of his family, tried to reach out to comfort former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the early 1990s when he learned she had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Mickey’s longtime friend Pat Summerall, the former New York Giants football player and sports analyst, told Mantle biographer Tony Castro that he tried to connect the legendary slugger with the widow of President John F. Kennedy.

“But I think that by the time Mickey and the rest of the world were aware Mrs. Kennedy’s was sick that her condition had worsened and she was only seeing family,” Summerall told Castro, whose new book Mantle: The Best That Ever Was will be released April 12 by Rowman & Littlefield.

Book Preview: Mick's True Love, Holly Brooke

"Above Grand Central Station, there used to be this incredibly fabulously opulent apartment that looked like a palace that the original architect built as part of the original design, and in 1951 I knew someone — I knew a lot of people even then — who arranged for me, for us, to stay there one night that summer. And so Mickey and I spent one of the greatest nights of our lives there. It was a romantic, magical evening. We made love all night. We were both young and in love, and he wanted to marry me and spend the rest of our lives together.”

                                                          — Holly Brooke

MICKEY MANTLE FANS, memorize the name Holly Brooke.

In his book Maris & Mantle, author Tony Castro reveals that the Yankees’ switch-hitting icon proposed to New York actress Holly Brooke during his 1951 rookie season and that they carried on a torrid love affair for years even after he married his high school sweetheart just to please his dying father.

Holly’s existence had been known since the 1950s and for decades, sportswriters and authors tried unsuccessfully to interview Brooke – but were never even able to track her down.