56 chmps
01-05-2006, 08:11 PM
Who was the yankee scout to discover Mickey Mantle.
RuthMayBond
01-05-2006, 09:20 PM
I thought it was Tom Greenwade :confused:
56 chmps
01-06-2006, 01:20 PM
You are correct it was tom Greenwade.
hhascup
01-06-2006, 01:37 PM
Here's the story:
Johnny on spot first to discover Mick
Johnny Sturm, the Yankees' starting first baseman on their 1941 world championship team, had two claims to fame. He is the only regular on a world championship team to have played just that one season in the big leagues.
He was also the scout who alerted the Yankees to Mickey Mantle - and he was very bitter about the fact that he was never given credit for that. Sturm took over as Yankee first baseman in May of '41 and hit .239 in 124 games and .286 in the World Series against the Dodgers.
He went off to World War II the following season and when Sturm came back in 1945, Nick Etten, who'd led the AL in homers in '44 and RBI in '45, was entrenched as the Yankees' first baseman. Sturm was sent to the minors and never returned. He was managing the Yankees' farm team in Joplin, Mo. when Mantle, who had not played high school ball, came through town with a semi-pro team. After watching Mantle play two games in the Joplin ballpark, Sturm called Yankee farm director Lee MacPhail and urged him to have area scout Tom Greenwade come see the young switch-hitting shortstop.
A few weeks later, Greenwade signed Mantle and was forever given full credit for having discovered him.
56 chmps
01-06-2006, 08:05 PM
Well then i stand corrected. thank you hhascup for telling that story. That shed a lot of light on the i guess you could call it the controversy.