1958 Mickey Mantle Game Worn New York Yankees Jersey, SGC Superior/Superior-Excellent with Multiple Photo Matches....

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World Championship pinstripes from the two-time defending American League MVP!

1958 Mickey Mantle Game Worn New York Yankees Jersey, SGC Superior/Superior-Excellent with Multiple Photo Matches. It wasn't the hardware Mickey Mantle wanted. We see no hint of self-satisfaction in his expression as president William Harridge bestows upon him the American League Most Valuable Player Award for 1957, a successful defense of the first he'd won in 1956 with a Triple Crown season that had the storybook ending the 1957 season had failed to supply. After having suffering a painful Game Seven loss to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955, the Bronx Bombers had quickly exacted their vengeance in 1956, resuming a supremacy over Major League Baseball that had become a familiar role to the young superstar who rookied into the greatest World Championship run in history in 1951. Now, as the 1958 season began, so did the single-minded quest to once again recapture the throne, this time from the Milwaukee Braves, who were enjoying a new World Championship ring for which Mantle would have happily traded that 1957 MVP.

The award ceremony at the Yankee Stadium home opener on April 18, 1958 provides us with the first of multiple photo matches for this exceptional home pinstriped flannel from the most celebrated star of post-war Major League Baseball, a garment that finds the blue-eyed Okie at the dizzying peak of his Hall of Fame talent. While the Mick was not able to extend his Most Valuable Player streak to three in 1958, his stat line is crowded with the bold ink of American League supremacy, leading all hitters in home runs (42), total bases (307), walks (129) and runs scored (127) among them. He'd also showcase his legendary foot speed with twenty-one stolen base attempts, all but three successful.

But, most importantly of all, Mantle's brilliance would keep the American League pennant flying in the Bronx, and once again provide his Yankees with the opportunity to seek vengeance for its most recent Fall Classic failure. A few hundred miles to the west, the Aaron/Mathews/Spahn juggernaut had likewise rumbled to the National League flag in 1958, setting up a rematch for the ages. Yet again, it would require seven games to determine the World Champion, the Yankees falling to a three-games-to-one deficit before winning Games Five through Seven to return to glory for the eighteenth of twenty-seven times in franchise history to date.

While it's the ultimate statement of the obvious to assert that any jersey worn in competition by this monumental hero of Monument Park is a treasure of extraordinary value and significance, the offered specimen ranks among the very finest of that paltry surviving population. Beyond its World Championship vintage and emergence from the gilded prime of its original owner, this is one of the very few Mantle gamers to evade the widespread practice of demotion to the farm system for secondary use subsequent to its Major League service. The vast majority of existing Mantle jerseys have been stripped of their original obverse identifiers (and occasionally even the number "7" on verso) for minor league action, where they were commonly worn to the brink of destruction. This Platinum Night auction actually includes a 1964 Mantle gamer that still bears the "Fort Lauderdale" obverse text that replaced the original "New York" as worn in the Bigs.

Remarkably, the offered jersey is only a single (well-matched) button short of 100% original and unaltered condition, leading the experts at SGC to assign a Superior/Superior-Excellent (S/SE) designation which they equate to a 9.5/10 numerical grade. As we dig deeper into the ream of documentation accompanying this spectacular relic, the thrills come faster than a Stephen King novella. As every baseball uniform collector is surely well-aware by now, the pinstriped fabric used to produce a New York Yankees home jersey provides each garment with a pattern similar to a human fingerprint, with every pinstripe's intersection with a logo or number or stitching seam providing a data point that greatly amplifies the probability of locating definitive photo matches. The aforementioned match of this specimen to the 1958 Yankee Stadium home opener is just the first of many.

The jersey is accompanied by documentation linking it to no fewer than seven photographs from the 1958 season and beyond, conclusively matching it to the aforementioned Yankee Stadium Opening Day and an August 24 doubleheader vs. the Detroit Tigers. Two undated photos have also been deemed certain matches by the experts at Resolution Photomatching, who likewise supply a third "likely match." And three days after the Yanks closed out the Milwaukee Braves in Game Seven of the 1958 World Series, we see the newly-crowned World Champion donning this flannel in an American League All-Stars vs. Willie Mays' All-Stars exhibition at Yankee Stadium that brought 21,000 spectators to the Bronx to watch Mantle face off against the former New York Giants star during his very first return to the Big Apple since the team relocated to San Francisco. The jersey then makes a single appearance in an April 4, 1959 spring training photo. And, finally, it can be seen in the December 1959 taping of the television program "Home Run Derby" that brought sixteen sluggers (including ten future Hall of Famers) to Los Angeles for a slugging showcase that gave life to the competition waged annually during the All-Star Weekend. Mantle would appear in five episodes, hitting a total of forty-four home runs. We have commissioned only a single photo match to that television show, but the jersey appears in multiple episodes, as Resolution verbally confirms in its documentation. Certainly these photo matches are far from a comprehensive inventory of the jersey's service to the Mick, who hit twenty-one homers in the Bronx in 1958.

The spectacular garment exhibits appropriate wear for its extended service to its iconic owner, but none of the staining, moth holes or other damage common to flannel of this advanced vintage. The dark navy felt logo "NY" appears in its original position over the heart, and the fabled number "7" on verso is likewise native to original production. A perfect embroidered "Mantle" swatch appears at interior collar. Lower left front tail bears proper "Spalding" label with "44" size tag anchored at right edge and "58" embroidered directly into the jersey body below. Interior tail retains washing instructions label with "Set 1 1958" flap tag. As the earliest all-original pinstriped Mantle jersey we know to exist, this is an artifact of paramount significance and value, one of the most important baseball jerseys ever to appear on the hobby's auction block. LOA from SGC, Superior/Superior-Excellent (S/SE). LOA from Resolution Photomatching. LOA from Heritage Auctions.