The Mick was one of the greatest offensive threats of any center fielder in baseball history. He has the highest career OPS+ of any center fielder, and he had the highest stolen base percentage in history at the time of his retirement. In addition, compared to the other four center fielders on the All-Century team, he had the lowest career rate of grounding into double plays, and he had the highest World Series on-base percentage and World Series slugging percentage. 

Mantle was raised in Commerce Oklahoma, where he later earned the nickname, “The Commerce Comet”.  He was scouted to play professionally right out of high school and in 1950 won the Western Association Batting title with a .383 batting average.  He was promoted to the New York Yankees in 1951 and in his first three years in baseball quickly became a Three-time World Series Champion. 

In the 1950’s, amidst the New York Yankees success, Look magazine was the second most popular circulation issue behind only Life and ahead of The Saturday Evening Post.  From 1946-70 Look was responsible for publishing the College All American Football Team and awarded those in professional Baseball with All-American status as well as providing its recipients with a 14K gold SEMA watch.  Some recipients of this award were the game All-time greats such as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, and Mickey Mantle.  

This 14k Gold SEMA watch was awarded to Mantle in 1953 when he played his third season in professional baseball as a 21-year-old.  The watch was given to a close friend, who lived just a few houses down from Mickey on Maple Street in Commerce Oklahoma.  Mantle references this friend a few times as Hardrock in his book “The Mick”.  The watch was passed down the family for the past seven decades and the details are accounted in the notarized provenance that accompanies the historical time piece.   The 14k reverse of the watch is engraved “Mickey Mantle 1953 Look All Star Team” and comes off with ease as the original owner wished to keep it in its entirely original condition.  There is wear on the front of the watch as well as the band which is also all original to when Mantle received this in 1953.  Very rarely do Mickey Mantle’s personal professional baseball awards come to market, particularly of this magnitude, however this rare opportunity provides a chance for a new owner of this historical baseball award from the early years of Mickey Mantle’s career.

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