O.J. publisher's latest trash invents talks with Yank legend
The woman who crassly championed O.J. Simpson's kill-and-tell book is now pushing another blasphemous tale - and this time Judith Regan is taking on one of New York's sacred heroes.
The memory of Mickey Mantle will be sullied by ReganBooks in a "biographical novel" that has the Mick recounting an imagined past replete with pornographic passages and foul jokes.
Author Peter Golenbock admits that much of "7: The Mickey Mantle Novel" - including a steamy scene where Mantle beds Marilyn Monroe behind Joe DiMaggio's back - are based on "not documentable" stories.
But Mantle's family is outraged and has denounced the novel, which is being published on March 1 by ReganBooks - an imprint of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
"The Mantle family had no participation in this book and insists that any suggestion that they did ... is ludicrous and offensive," family spokesman Marty Appel said.
The publisher gives this description of the novel's premise: "Mickey finds himself in heaven - much to his surprise - and realizes he's carrying a huge burden around with him. He needs to tell someone all the horrible things he did."
So Golenbock does it for Mantle in 286 lurid pages, some of which read like they were ripped from the pages of Penthouse Forum.
Golenbock, who co-wrote Johnny Damon's autobiography and "The Bronx Zoo" with former Yankee reliever Sparky Lyle, makes his reasons for writing this book clear in the prologue, where he imagines himself talking with Mantle.
"Maybe this is the book that will make me rich," he writes. "I'll publish the raunchiest book about you, and my guess is it'll be a smash because no one has ever written a book like this before."
In galleys of the book obtained by the Daily News, Golenbock describes Mantle succumbing to Monroe's charms, even as she "just lies there staring at him with cold, accusing eyes" while they are having sex.
Mantle expresses no remorse in cuckolding DiMaggio. "What had he ever done for me?" he says.
In a scene that is bound to pain relatives of former Yankees skipper Billy Martin, Mantle states, "I don't believe in having sex with women against their will the way Billy sometimes did.
"Billy and I didn't just want a woman every night - we needed to have a different woman every night," Mantle says.
Golenbock didn't return calls for comment. But he told Publishers Weekly the book was based on Mantle stories he heard from other ex-Yankees.
"My choice then became to write a biography and leave these stories out - but that wouldn't be Mickey Mantle," he said. "It really didn't leave me any other choice."
Former Yankee pitching star Whitey Ford said the idea that Mantle would seduce Monroe "is the stupidest thing I ever heard."
"We met her once at a ballpark in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Joe was with her," Ford told The News. "Mickey was too bashful to say hello to her."
Another former Yankee pitcher, Jim Bouton, whose memoir "Ball Four" sent shock waves through Major League Baseball with its depictions of Mantle and other carousing Yankees, said he saw "early chapters" of Golenbock's book. "I told him that he had Mickey's voice down pretty well," he said.
One of the most beloved and talented baseball players of all time, Mantle died of cancer in 1995. In a moving eulogy, NBC sportscaster Bob Costas summed up the feelings of all Yankee fans when he said, "He was our guy."
Bob Thompson, a Syracuse University professor and pop culture expert, said what Golenbock has done "has a long literary tradition."
"I've read novels with Ronald Reagan as a major character," he said. "What makes this different is No. 1, it's Mickey Mantle, and No. 2, it's Judith Regan."
True Yankee fans said they won't buy the book.
"I think it's a bunch of lies and mistruths," said Walter Hines, 42, as he nursed a beer at Mickey Mantle's Restaurant on 59th St. "I don't appreciate somebody profiting off of him, especially now that he's passed away. Why tarnish someone who's looked up to?"
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