Births on October 20

Mickey Mantle, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 1995)

Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 – August 13, 1995), nicknamed The Commerce Comet and The Mick, was an American professional baseball player. Mantle played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York Yankees as a center fielder, right fielder, and first baseman. Mantle was one of the best players and sluggers and is regarded by many as the greatest switch hitter in baseball history. Mantle was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974 and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999.

Mantle was one of the greatest offensive threats of any center fielder in baseball history. He has the second highest career OPS+ among center fielders, (behind Mike Trout) and he had the highest stolen base percentage in history at the time of his retirement. In addition, compared to the other four center fielders on the All-Century team, he had the lowest career rate of grounding into double plays, and he had the highest World Series on-base percentage and World Series slugging percentage. He also had an excellent .984 fielding percentage when playing center field. Mantle was able to hit for both average and power, especially tape measure home runs, a term that had its origin in a play-by-play caller reacting to one of Mantle's 1953 home runs. He hit 536 MLB career home runs, batted .300 or more ten times, and is the career leader (tied with Jim Thome) in walk-off home runs, with 13, 12 in the regular season and one in the postseason. He is the only player in history to hit 150 home runs from both sides of the plate.

Mantle is 16th all-time in home runs per at bats. He is 17th in on-base percentage. He was safe three out of four times he attempted to steal a base. He won the MVP Award three times, came in second three times, and came within nine votes of winning five times.

Mantle won the Triple Crown in 1956, when he led the major leagues in batting average (.353), home runs (52), and runs batted in (RBI) (130). He later wrote a book (My Favorite Summer 1956) about his best year in baseball. He was an All-Star for 16 seasons, playing in 16 of the 20 All-Star Games that were played during his career. He was an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times and a Gold Glove winner once. Mantle appeared in 12 World Series including seven championships, and he holds World Series records for the most home runs (18), RBIs (40), extra-base hits (26), runs (42), walks (43), and total bases (123).Despite his accolades on the field, Mantle's private life was plagued with tumult and tragedy, including a well-publicized bout with alcoholism that led to his death from liver cancer.