Golenbock's Mantle "novel" plumbs depths of distaste

                    

	Our last look at Mickey Mantle, and his own cautionary words, are all we really need to know about his dark side. Michael O'Neill/SI
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Saints preserve us, the lady has stones the size of Neptune (the planet, not the town in New Jersey). Publisher Judith Regan was completely unfazed by the volcanic outrage that deep-sixed her attempt to telemarket O.J. Simpson's now-aborted faux murder "confession" If I Did It. When Regan was canned last Friday by HarperCollins, she was fixin' to dance the Wall Street Shuffle with Peter Golenbock on the memory of Mickey Mantle.

Next March, Regan's personal imprint, ReganBooks, planned to publish 7: The Mickey Mantle Novel by Golenbock, the author or co-author of such sports titles as The Bronx Zoo, Sparky Lyle's hilarious diary of the Yankees' 1978 season. Regan and Golenbock were going to take the O.J. route, with the author rolling out plausible tales of the most appalling, salacious kind  -- including the Mick putting the pink torpedo to an unappreciative Marilyn Monroe behind Joe DiMaggio's back -- under the protective umbrella of the term "reality fiction."

Golenbock has claimed that he was told all kinds of saucy and unflattering yarns by Mantle's former teammates, but he can't substantiate 'em. So rather than get his posterior sued to Hades and back or let 'em go to waste, he chose to squeeze out an "inventive memoir" written in Mantle's "voice" -- the better to capture and convey the distinct, authentic, uh, flavor of the man.

The dead can't be libeled, you see, so the tag "reality fiction" is a green light for almost anything, provided it doesn't irrevocably harm the subject's reputation or surviving family. Basically anyone is fair game as long as they are currently exercising their extremely long-term lease on a vault, plot or urn. Some people are fairer game than others, particularly someone like Mantle, who openly admitted he was not a candidate for beatification by the Vatican.

My first reaction to the news of Golenbock's "novel" was white-knuckled, spittle-spewing outrage. Few icons in any human endeavor were as beloved and as shockingly flawed as Mantle. His sad descent into the ravages of alcoholism have been well documented, and Golenbock's sausage factory will likely churn out unsavory "anecdotes" that find their way into the collective memory as "fact." Isn't there such a thing as too much information? Can't we just let Mantle rest in peace and treasure the positive memories and images he left us? Why didn't I think of this idea first?

As Regan and Golenbock know, tawdry reality fiction of the cruelest kind is where you'll find, in the eloquence of Monty Python, "the smell of the rain-washed florin! The lure of the lira! The glitter and the glory of the guinea! The romance of the ruble! The feel of the franc! The heel of the deutschmark! The cold antiseptic sting of the Swiss franc! And the sunburnt splendor of the Australian dollar!"

Well, now that I know what's possible, there'll be no more $10 shoes and dry cheese sandwiches for this old card-carrying member of the pointy-headed media elite. I've heard my share of juicy tales during my time in this business and bolts of whole cloth are piled like cordwood in my work station, so I'm gonna get my plump paychecks signed by the Dark Side from now on. Herewith, my first 1,000 words of The Biggest 1: The Billy Martin Novel.

The late Martin's tumultuous existence has been well-chronicled, but there's still plenty of gray area in which to take liberties. Heck, in preview snippets from Golenbock's novel, Mantle claims that Martin sometimes did the nasty with women against their will. Well, that's tiny taters compared to what I can't substantiate about Battlin' Billy, but I sure can raise the tawny shield of legality it by calling it reality fiction.

While you read, I'll wait for Ms. Regan to land on her Manolo Blahniks and totter over to my tarpaper shack with a nice big dolly loaded with bricks of freshly-minted Benjamins.