re: Mickey Mantle hit a ball 565 feet

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And Bob Beamon's record stood for 25 years before it was broken (by 2 measly inches)...and Jesse Owens own long-jump record stood for 25 years before it was broken.

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Bob Beamon's Olympic record still stands 50 years later & despite the birth of many superhumans since then only Powell eclipsed him in 1991.


Owens ran on a slow cinder / dirt track without a starting block( 3 point stance).

Like this???

Kind of seems like he did hit 500 from both sides.

It is a estimate just as all home runs are. He hit the façade of Yankee Stadium.

I mean the biggest HR I ever saw was the Canseco homer in Toronto during 89 playoffs, that hit the next to last seat and it was called less than what Judge did last night. They said it only went 480.

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So how do we get 734 feet? In the example above, we assumed that the ball was at its apex when it struck the façade. However, observers were unanimous in their opinion that the ball was still rising when it hit the façade. How do we determine how high the ballMickey Mantle of the New York Yankees crushes a left-handed home run at Yankee Stadium in New York. would have gone? In fact, we cannot. From this point forward all numbers become guesses, estimates of how high we think the ball might have gone. A conservative estimate would be 20 feet. Those 20 feet make a major difference. They cause our calculation to go up almost 100 feet, to the 734 foot number listed above. Is 20 feet a fair estimate? Those present when the ball was hit feel that it would have gone at least that much higher, and many feel that the 20 foot number is far too low. It is all just a guess

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As I said it is an estimate.

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I think these are fun discussions to have, but I find it hard to believe that Mantle actually hit a HR 565 feet. Sorry. Sportswriters of that era and before were great storytellers. Making baseball stars (the biggest pro sport in the US at that time) seem like mythological greek gods.

A lot of the accounts of these titanic blast were from sportwriters with no actual video evidence to back up the claims. Watching Judge crush balls last night and not really even come close to 565 makes you think those claims about Mantle are more hyperbole than fact.

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just a couple of things about Mantle's HR, -

-it hit a beer sign as it left the stadium, 460 feet from the plate, and 60 feet vertically

-the ball was found in someone's yard which was 565 feet from home plate, it could have rolled some, but the yard did have a fence

-there were 20 mph winds that day, with gusts has high as 40 mph

-those who have studied the trajectory have believe that ball traveled at least 535 feet in the air

Here is a video of a homerun derby head to head contest between Harmon Killebrew and Mickey Mantle in 1959:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAMbwIiV80

Anybody who thinks these guys can crush them out of the ballpark 52 feet further than Aaron Judge's furthest homerun last night is smoking crack.

No shite it's an estimate. But it's an estimate that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire website.

You brought evidence to the table of 500ft HRs from both sides of the plate, from a website that claims Mantle hit a 734ft HR. Alarm bells should be ringing.

I don't think you should be calling out anyone's evidence.

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Kind of seems like he did hit 500 from both sides.

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That website...

Devastating? No just pointing out when the show was made.