I didn’t grow up a Mickey Mantle fan. Not only was his career after my time, but other than some mentions on Seinfeld, he wasn’t present, or even mentioned, in the popular culture I consumed. As I dove deeper into baseball history, I never got the Mantle bug, so to speak. I accrued a cursory understanding of who he was, how great he was, and why he mattered to the game. I didn’t really need to or want to know more than that. Unfortunately for Rob Weir, the author of 7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle – Legend and Victim of American Culture, my opinion on that matter hasn’t changed.
It’s very shallow to have the meat of one’s review come down to “this wasn’t made for me.” However, sometimes shallow is all that one can offer when that critique fits the book. 7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle – Legend and Victim of American Culture isn’t a bad book; it’s not a great book; it’s a perfectly fine baseball book. However, a book about Mickey Mantle isn’t a book for me. A Mantle aficionado, a larger fan of his era, or even a New York Yankees fan will get plenty out of this book. I’m none of those things, and if you don’t check any of the aforementioned boxes, I don’t think you’ll find this book compelling either.
7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle – Legend and Victim of American Culture is a well-researched book, when it wants to be. If there was one bit of legitimate criticism I’d levy against this book, it’s that Weir is always quick to eschew research when it doesn’t fit the narrative he has in his head for Mantle. He realizes this is a possibility and even argues he’s not doing it, but he, in fact, does at various points throughout the novel. Mantle fans likely won’t care, but for others who want to gauge Mantle against other players, the selective usage of research will be quite evident.
At the end of the day, 7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle – Legend and Victim of American Culture is a decent baseball book that just so happens to not be written for me. However, as I stated above, if you are a Yankees, Mantle, or 1950s-1960s Major League Baseball fan, you’ll likely get more out of this book than I did. 7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle – Legend and Victim of American Culture is for those baseball fans, but not for everyone.
Lead image courtesy of Unknown – Summer Game Books
