In June 2006 we began receiving purported reproductions of a correspondence between New York Yankees vice president Robert Fishel and Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle. It consisted of a form letter (linked above) sent by the club to a number of former players at the end of 1972, requesting that each recipient — in anticipation of a 1973 oldtimers game that would mark the 50th anniversary of Yankee Stadium — indicate what he considered his “outstanding event” at that ballpark. In the bottom portion of the form letter, purportedly filled out and signed by Mantle himself, the superstar outfielder described his “outstanding experience” at Yankee Stadium in rather crude terms as a particular sexual act performed “under the right field bleachers,” ironically signing his response as “The All-American Boy”:

The response attributed to the Mick is indeed a real one, as detailed by Mantle biographer Jane Leavy:

In 1973, when the Yankees celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the House That Ruth Built, the public relations department sent a questionnaire to former players.

[Yankees publicity director] Marty Appel, who crafted the questionnaire, and received and edited the infamous reply (substituting [Mantle’s ninth-inning home run that won Game 3 of the 1964 World Series for the Yankees]), gave the original document to Barry Halper, the minority team owner and memorabilia maven who would later sell his vast collection for more than $30 million. The X-rated writing sample circulated through the baseball underground for years before emerging into the LED glare of the World Wide Web. Appel was appalled. Mantle was just trying to shock the Yankees’ straitlaced PR chief, Bob Fishel, he said.

Absent Mantle’s impeccable 1930s Palmer Method penmanship, the asterisks, and the appellation, it’s just another example of locker room crude. The self-mocking touches turn it into something altogether different and far more interesting — a send-up of Yankee grandiosity and a self-knowing appraisal. Who knew he had a sense of irony?