Presented is New York Yankee great Mickey Mantle’s 1949 high school yearbook.  The 1949 “Bengal Tales Published by the Senior Class of Commerce High School, Commerce, Oklahoma” has a white leather cover with blue imprinting of the legend “1949 Bengal Tales” on the front cover with a stylized “arrow” design embossed into the cover. Blue endpapers have an illustration of the front of the high school building.  There are inscriptions and signatures from students and teachers on the interior front and back pages in pen.  Mantle’s black and white photo is on the bottom right corner of page 9 depicting “The Senior Class of 1949.”  He is in a jacket and tie.  Alongside his photo is the legend, “MICKEY MANTLE They’re great Pals, he and his baseball jacket. Football 3, 4 Basketball 1,2,3,4 Tiger Chat 4 Bengal Tales Baseball”. 

He appears again on page 34, labelled “Who’s Who in CHS.”  Mantle appears in a black and white photo at the bottom center of the page, with a young woman in front of a Coca-Cola machine and the caption “Most Popular Bonnie Smith & Mickey Mantle.”  Mantle was born on October 20, 1931, in Spavinaw, Oklahoma, the son of Lovell Mantle and lead miner Elvin Charles "Mutt" Mantle. When Mantle was four years old, his family moved to the nearby town of Commerce, Oklahoma, where his father worked in lead and zinc mines. As a teenager, Mantle rooted for the St. Louis Cardinals. In addition to his first love, baseball, Mantle was an all-around athlete at Commerce High School, playing basketball as well as football. He played halfback and was offered a football scholarship by the Oklahoma Sooners. His football playing nearly ended his athletic career. In his sophomore year, he was kicked on the left shin during a practice game, and he developed osteomyelitis—a crippling disease that was incurable just a few years earlier—in his left ankle. Mantle's parents drove him at midnight to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he was treated at the children's hospital with the newly available penicillin, which reduced the infection and saved his leg from amputation.  Mantle went on to a sterling career with the New York Yankees (1951-1968), as a center fielder and first baseman. Mantle was one of the best players and sluggers and is regarded by many as the greatest switch hitter in baseball history. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.

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