I am a huge Yankee fan and I always like to learn about old time players like Mantle and Dimaggio. I have read both players biography books and I enjoyed both of them, but Dimaggio is my favorite. He has so many legendary stories about him like 56 game hit streak, relationship with Marylin MENROE, and the Myth that he replaced his brother Vince Dimaggio on his 1st pro team. There are also alot of debates of wich outfielder was better Mickey or Joe. My opinion is that Joe is better then Mickey because Joe was a far better fielder and a beter contact hitter. Joe was also one of the most underated baserunners the game has ever seen. Joe rarly ever had a baserunning blunder. Mickey had far more power then Joe and more speed but was always injured because of his knees.Dimaggio struck out 369 times compared to 1710 times that Mickey struck out. Joe was robbed of 2 things in his career. HE lost 3 of his prime seasons due to military services and he was robbed of alot of his homeruns because the left field wall 457 feet from home plate, and for a rightn handed hitter like Dimaggio it was critical for his power numbers. Experts say that he must have lost about 150 to 200 of his homeruns because they were either caught or they were turned into doubles or triples.Mickey Mantle had 8102 official at bats, 1733 walks, 47 sacrifice flies, and was hit by a pitch 13 times, which results in 9895 plate appearances. He hit 536 home runs, which means that Mickey hit a home run every 18.46 plate appearances.Joe DiMaggio had 6821 official at bats, 790 walks, 0 sacrifice flies (different rule), and was hit 46 times, which results in 7657 plate appearances. He hit 361 home runs or one home run every 21.21 plate appearances. If DiMaggio had the same number of plate appearances as Mickey, his projected career home run total would be 467, which points out the significance of Joe’s three years in the army.Courtesy to suit101.com
Now my question to you is: In your opinion who do you think was a better baseball player Joe Dimaggio, or Mickey Mantle?
