Mickey Mantle was a legendary baseball player who played for the New York Yankees from 1951 to 1968. Mickey was one of two ball players mentioned in Billy Joels most publicly acclaimed song “We Didnt Start The Fire.” He was known for his incredible talent and athleticism, which made him one of the greatest players of all time. Mantle's career statistics are beyond impressive, with a career batting average of .298, 536 home runs, and a WHOPPING seven World Series championships. I’m only 22 years old and Mickey Mantle is one of MY most notable players to this day.
Despite his success on the field, Mantle struggled with personal demons off the field. He battled alcoholism throughout his life and suffered from injuries that affected his performance
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Accessed 24 May 2023.
“Billy Joel - We Didn’t Start the Fire (Official Video).” YouTube, 2 Oct. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g&ab_channel=billyjoelVEVO.
Taylor, Tom. “A Journey through History with Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’” Far Out Magazine, 23 Mar. 2023, faroutmagazine.co.uk/billy-joel-we-didnt-start-the-fire-every-event-referenced-history-jfk-bob-dylan/.
This was interesting to think about, from a birds eye view it seems like most of what billy joel mentioned in this song had more of a negative connotation. Aside from mentioning sugar ray and joe dimmagio there were no other athletes listed. The fact that two of them were teammates for the yankees tells me how much of an impact baseball had on the world(I think), especially compared to how it does now. If an artist were to attempt to recreate a modern day version of this song I dont think you’d be hearing about baseball players. Plane crash, mafia, fidel castro, ect. I guess i just dont understand why mantle, dimaggio, and sugar ray are involved. Maybe despite all of these awful things going on around us we still had people like Mickey Mantle, Bob Dylan, Joe Dimaggio, Elvis? For entertainment