San Francisco Giants: An Unusual Buster Posey, Mickey Mantle Comparison

Let's talk name association.

Think Mickey Mantle.  Now think Buster Posey.

Your train of thought might look something like this: Mantle, a historic ballplayer, hall-of-famer, and American icon of the 1950s and '60s.  He had great power and became one of the greatest hitters of all-time.

Posey, a young star with great potential, shown in his rookie year as he won the NL Rookie-of-the-Year award and led the Giants to a World Series championship.  He, too, has great power and a classic swing.

While it is certainly not a fair comparison to consider Mantle and Posey in the same category, given Mantle's legendary 17-year career and the fact that Posey has only played one full season in the big leagues, it's worth noting several similarities between the two.

Although separated by over half a century in time, the mention of either Mantle or Posey each seem to cause a stirring in the hearts of baseball fans.

Mantle and Posey both played for teams that won the World Series in their rookie season and both showed great leadership for their respective clubs at a very young age in spite of their inexperience at the major league level.

And, sadly, both would share a more unfortunate commonality.

He Looked "Like He Had Been Shot"

It was Game 2 of the 1951 World Series.  For the first and only time, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays played in the same game, as the New York Giants met the New York Yankees in the fall classic.

DiMaggio, in his final season and indeed, his final series, in the major leagues, had a sore heel and, according to James Hirsch in his best-seller Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend (page 149), Yankees manager Casey Stengel told rookie right fielder Mickey Mantle to try and catch anything hit to right-center to avoid further aggravation to DiMaggio's injury.

Willie Mays, also a rookie that season, hit a fly ball to the right-center field area and, as Mantle sprinted toward the ball and appeared to be on his way to making the catch, DiMaggio called him off at the last minute, causing him to come to an abrupt stop.  Tragically, the stop caused Mantle's right cleat to lodge into a rubber sprinkler head and his knee buckled, causing a bone to pop out of his leg.

Speculation has it that Mantle's injury was a torn ACL that was never properly treated because of the lack of medical technology at the time.  Some observers stated that immediately following the injury, Mantle looked "like he had been shot".

While Mantle would return to the game and go on to have a hall-of-fame career, many have wondered just how much more he would have been able to accomplish had his leg been at full-strength, which it never was again after the devastating injury in his first big league season.

Sixty years later, another rookie phenom suffered an eerily similar injury, though not as gruesome as Mantle's in 1951.

On May 25, a date Giants fans undoubtedly cannot forget even if they try, Buster Posey, the club's young sensation and unofficial captain, was rammed by on-coming baserunner, Scott Cousins of the Florida Marlins, as he tried to receive a throw from the outfield and tag out Cousins in a tie ballgame.

As he was steamrolled, Posey's left leg was caught beneath the weight of his entire body as he flew backwards into the dirt surrounding home plate.  The result was a fractured fibula and several torn ligaments around Posey's left ankle.

Television replays of the scene revealed the gut-wrenching sight of Posey's lower leg twisting unnaturally in slow motion.

What Mantle's Precedent Means for Posey

So what does Mickey Mantle's post-injury career tell us about Buster Posey's prospects?

Well, that depends on how you look at it.

The pessimistic approach to this question would result in finding that Posey will return and play well but, once all is said and done, we'll never know for sure whether he ever reached his full potential on the baseball diamond.

The flip side of that argument, however, is that when one considers what Mickey Mantle actually did accomplish during his historic career (.298 BA, 536 HR, 1,509 RBI, 2,415 hits), Posey can look at Mantle's return to baseball as a source of great hope and optimism for his future.

The answer, however, will only be revealed in due time.

For now, we can only hope and pray that Buster Posey will not only return to the game he loves, and the game we love watching him play, but that he will pick up right where he left off: thrilling us with his natural gifts and giving us baseball memories we will never forget.

Let's hope that when baseball historians reflect on the career of one Gerald "Buster" Posey, they will be able to speak of amazing potential that was fully realized on the baseball field, culminating in a spectacular life in the game despite a terrible injury in 2011.