Can We Have Our Ball Back, Please?

On this day, 56 years ago, Mickey Mantle, the then 21-year-old centerfielder for the New York Yankees, hit a two-run home run out of Griffith Stadium, home of the Washington Senators, into the backyard of a neighboring row house, located at 434 Oakdale Street, 565 feet away. Batting right-handed, the switch-hitting Mantle drove Chuck Stobbs’ first pitch toward left center, where, according to various reports, it cleared the 50-foot- high bleachers wall 391 feet from home plate and bounced off the top of a attached 69-foot long scoreboard, disappearing into the surrounding working-class neighborhood.

Before Mantle had finished rounding the bases, Arthur Patterson, a Yankees PR man, fled the stadium in hot pursuit of Mantle’s prodigious blast. Outside, Patterson ran into Donald Dunaway, the young kid who had seen the ball land down the street. After showing Patterson exactly where he picked it up, Dunaway handed over to Patterson the scuffed-up ball and, in return, received an undisclosed sum of money and, eventually, a new ball autographed by Mantle.