Latest / Smithsonian Magazine / 10.15.26

Transcript

10.15.26 · Smithsonian Magazine

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  Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
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  Speaker 1: I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine, dated September-October 2026.
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  Speaker 1: As a reminder, Radio Eye is a reading service intended
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  Speaker 1: for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
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  Speaker 1: make it difficult to read printed material. Please join me
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  Speaker 1: now for the first article, titled, Before Vegas Became Vegas,
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  Speaker 1: Hot Springs Was America's Sin City. Now the Arkansas Spa
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  Speaker 1: Town embraces its colorful and seedy history. A life-size statue
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  Speaker 1: of Al Capone greets downtown visitors, and you can stay
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  Speaker 1: in his hotel suite, the town where gangsters once vacationed
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  Speaker 1: with movie stars and athletes is still open for a getaway.
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  Speaker 1: By Richard Grant. A life-size statue of infamous Chicago gangster
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  Speaker 1: Al Capone, sitting outside a downtown bar with a cigar
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  Speaker 1: in his hand, surprises many first-time visitors to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
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  Speaker 1: Even Arkansans have largely forgotten that this attractive spa town
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  Speaker 1: was America's original Sin City, teeming with casinos and brothels
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  Speaker 1: and frequented by big-name gangsters. The mobster Bugsy Siegel may
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  Speaker 1: have even used Hot Springs as an inspiration when he
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  Speaker 1: was developing the Las Vegas Strip. The leading authority on
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  Speaker 1: the town's colorful, decadent, sinful history— it was known as the
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  Speaker 1: loose buckle in the Bible Belt— is a charismatic, white-haired,
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  Speaker 1: sharp-dressed man named Robert K. Raines. A former rock singer
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  Speaker 1: and computer salesman, he has written a book and made
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  Speaker 1: several short documentaries about vice and organized crime in Hot Springs.
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  Speaker 1: He's also the founder and director of the Gangster Museum
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  Speaker 1: of America in the heart of the historic district. I
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  Speaker 1: meet him in the lobby bar of the grand old
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  Speaker 1: Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa on Central Avenue, where Capone
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  Speaker 1: would rent out the entire fourth floor for his entourage
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  Speaker 1: and stay for weeks at a time. In 1931, Las
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  Speaker 1: Vegas had a population of around 5,000 and no resorts,
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  Speaker 1: Raines says. In 1931, Hot Springs had a population of
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  Speaker 1: around 20,000 and several high-rise hotels. It had wide-open gambling,
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  Speaker 1: which was illegal in Arkansas, wide-open prostitution, and all the
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  Speaker 1: bootleg liquor anyone would ever need. The gangsters loved coming
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  Speaker 1: down here because they could relax, have a good time,
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  Speaker 1: and not worry about getting arrested because all the cops
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  Speaker 1: were paid off, says Raines. We are joined by a
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  Speaker 1: semi-retired attorney named Q. Byram Hurst, Jr. His father, Q.
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  Speaker 1: Byram Hurst, Sr., was a Hot Springs lawyer who represented
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  Speaker 1: underworld figures like Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa. He served 22
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  Speaker 1: years as an Arkansas state senator and ran for governor,
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  Speaker 1: battling to preserve gambling in his hometown. My dad came
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  Speaker 1: from a good church family and never gambled himself, but
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  Speaker 1: he saw that gambling was an essential part of the
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  Speaker 1: economy here, and the town would suffer if it was stopped,
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  Speaker 1: Hurst says. The mayor, the judge, the city council, the
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  Speaker 1: state governor, the legislature, even the churches in Hot Springs
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  Speaker 1: were getting a cut, Raines says. Some of the most
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  Speaker 1: prominent gangsters who frequented Hot Springs were were New York
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  Speaker 1: kingpin Charles Lucky Luciano, his associate Meyer Lansky, Benjamin Bugsy Siegel,
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  Speaker 1: and Alphonse Gabriel Al Capone, the infamous head of the
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  Speaker 1: Chicago mob. The latter often stayed in the same room
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  Speaker 1: here at the Arlington, room 443, now the Al Capone suite,
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  Speaker 1: and often drank at the lobby bar where we're sitting.
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  Speaker 1: Raines has a photograph of Capone with his two brothers,
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  Speaker 1: wearing sombreros and riding donkeys, at the Happy Hollow Amusement Park,
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  Speaker 1: a short walk from the Arlington. Capone was seen all
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  Speaker 1: around town. He went to the racetrack, played golf, and
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  Speaker 1: kept a fishing cabin in the Ouachita River. Sometimes he
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  Speaker 1: would ship his green armored 1928 Cadillac on the train
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  Speaker 1: to Hot Springs so he could ride around in style.
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  Speaker 1: In 2008, Raines was thrilled to get that car on
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  Speaker 1: loan from a collection in Houston and display it in
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  Speaker 1: the Arlington lobby for two years before it was sold
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  Speaker 1: at auction. As Hurst points out, the gangsters who came
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  Speaker 1: to Hot Springs were armed, violent, dangerous men, and some
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  Speaker 1: of them belonged to criminal organizations that were warring with
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  Speaker 1: one another in the big cities. But no one ever
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  Speaker 1: got shot in Hot Springs, and that was the agreement,
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  Speaker 1: he says. The organized crime figures were welcome to keep
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  Speaker 1: coming here, so long as they didn't make any trouble.
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  Speaker 1: Frank Costello, Luciano's consigliere in the New York crime syndicate,
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  Speaker 1: was a regular visitor for 25 years. In addition to
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  Speaker 1: underworld luminaries, Hot Springs attracted entertainers, athletes, movie stars, politicians,
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  Speaker 1: and captains of industry, and they all stayed at the Arlington,
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  Speaker 1: right alongside the gangsters. It was the biggest, most luxurious
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  Speaker 1: hotel in town, with close to 500 rooms, a 15-piece
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  Speaker 1: orchestra in the ballroom every night, and a satellite New
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  Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange. The movie stars included Rudolph Valentino, Elizabeth Taylor,
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  Speaker 1: and Marilyn Monroe. Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett
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  Speaker 1: performed in the clubs. The New York Highlanders, who later
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  Speaker 1: became the Yankees, and Red Sox baseball teams came to
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  Speaker 1: Hot Springs for spring training, and Babe Ruth loved the
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  Speaker 1: town because it catered to three of his biggest enthusiasms, gambling, prostitutes,
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  Speaker 1: and whiskey. Business tycoons Andrew Carnegie and F.W. Woolworth visited
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  Speaker 1: Hot Springs, and so did Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
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  Speaker 1: There's no doubt that J. Edgar Hoover would have briefed
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  Speaker 1: any president on the mobsters and illegal activity, Raines says.
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  Speaker 1: I think the presidents just decided to rest and relax
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  Speaker 1: while they were here. Today, the historic downtown and its
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  Speaker 1: approximately 8,500-square-foot gangster museum offer a surprising portal to that
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  Speaker 1: decadent and intoxicating era. When Raines first arrived in Hot
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  Speaker 1: Springs in 2007 to help a friend establish a business downtown,
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  Speaker 1: he knew nothing of its history. He would hear little
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  Speaker 1: whispers and rumors and became intrigued. Then he started asking
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  Speaker 1: questions about gangsters, illegal gambling, and corruption, and people refused
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  Speaker 1: to talk about it. It was a secret they were
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  Speaker 1: so used to keeping, he says, so I started going
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  Speaker 1: through the old newspaper archives, and what I found there
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  Speaker 1: just astounded me. In 1807, the first permanent white settlers
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  Speaker 1: arrived in what would become Hot Springs and began to
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  Speaker 1: build a town for visitors who might want to bathe
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  Speaker 1: in the mineral-rich thermal waters emerging from the ground. After
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War, Hot Springs transformed from something of a
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  Speaker 1: backwater into a swanky resort town with grand hotels, theaters,
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  Speaker 1: fine dining restaurants, and an opera house alongside casinos, bordellos,
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  Speaker 1: and drinking clubs. A madam named Grace Goldstein operated the
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  Speaker 1: Hattery Hotel adjacent to the Arlington. It was favored by
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  Speaker 1: professional gamblers and outlaws. Madam Josephine Belmont's house, meanwhile, catered
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  Speaker 1: to baseball players during spring training, while Evelyn Anderson ran
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  Speaker 1: the Piggly Rooms and Mama Carrie built her business on
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  Speaker 1: the jazz musicians and wealthy African-American businessmen who came to
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  Speaker 1: Hot Springs. Prohibition went into effect in 1920. acting like
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  Speaker 1: an economic stimulus package. North of town was a rural,
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  Speaker 1: mountainous area known as the Possum Kingdom, where moonshiners had
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  Speaker 1: long distilled a pure and distinctive corn liquor known as
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  Speaker 1: Clear because it was colorless and made with mountain spring water.
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  Speaker 1: Now there was an exploding demand for their product in
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  Speaker 1: hot springs and farther afield. Capone, who always needed inventory
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  Speaker 1: for his bootlegging empire— may well have gone into business
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  Speaker 1: with the Possum Kingdom moonshiners, Raines says. Some sources claim
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  Speaker 1: Capone may have had a distilling operation of his own
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  Speaker 1: at the Belvedere Dairy. Patrick Layton, a local tour guide,
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  Speaker 1: says that, like many locals, his grandfather made moonshine for
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  Speaker 1: Capone and that the local police would guard the shipment
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  Speaker 1: and help load it onto the train cars. The town
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  Speaker 1: reached a spectacular level of corruption in when Mayor Leo
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  Speaker 1: McLaughlin took office in 1927. Everyone thought he was a
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  Speaker 1: lawyer because he had a law office and had practiced
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  Speaker 1: law for decades. In fact, he'd attended college for two weeks,
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  Speaker 1: and there's no record of him passing the bar in
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  Speaker 1: Arkansas or anywhere else. With the assistance of a crooked judge,
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  Speaker 1: Mayor Leo, as he was known, ran Hot Springs like
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  Speaker 1: a venal, silver-tongued dictator for the next twenty years. He
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  Speaker 1: rode around town in a buggy pulled by two bay
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  Speaker 1: horses named Scotch and Soda. McLaughlin protected the gangsters and
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  Speaker 1: built a political machine so powerful that only one candidate
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  Speaker 1: ever challenged him. The machine was fueled with amusement tax
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  Speaker 1: payments from more than 100 illegal businesses and enforced its
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  Speaker 1: will by the usual methods, greasing palms, bestowing and withdrawing favors,
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  Speaker 1: manipulating the legal system, and intimidation. If you bucked the machine,
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  Speaker 1: there was a fairly high likelihood that your business was
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  Speaker 1: going to catch on fire, Raines says. Apart from that,
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  Speaker 1: the town was very safe, with very little crime. It
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  Speaker 1: was totally corrupt, but people didn't think of it as
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  Speaker 1: being corrupt. Everyone was making money, so where's the problem?
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  Speaker 1: According to to Raines, it was common knowledge that Orville Faubus,
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  Speaker 1: the governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967, sent a
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  Speaker 1: car to Hot Springs with a drop safe in the
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  Speaker 1: trunk to collect his monthly payments. The driver would go
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  Speaker 1: to lunch in a restaurant and leave the trunk open.
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  Speaker 1: Representatives from casinos, gambling clubs, and houses of ill repute
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  Speaker 1: would drop their packages of money into the safe. After lunch,
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  Speaker 1: the driver would close the trunk and drive back to
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  Speaker 1: the governor's office in Little Rock. If he was questioned,
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  Speaker 1: he could honestly say, I never saw a payoff. Though
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  Speaker 1: Phobos denied ever receiving any payments, Phobos biographer Roy Reed
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  Speaker 1: has said, the money was picked up in hot springs
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  Speaker 1: every Saturday night by a high state official stowed in
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  Speaker 1: a black bag and delivered to Little Rock. Raines says
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  Speaker 1: when Phobos was challenged to do something about the rampant
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  Speaker 1: illegal activity in Hot Springs, he would say it was
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  Speaker 1: a local problem and should be investigated by local police.
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  Speaker 1: Savvy people in Arkansas knew that was never going to happen.
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  Speaker 1: As Raines collected this history, he gradually built trust with
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  Speaker 1: some of the old-timers in Hot Springs. He opened his
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  Speaker 1: first small museum in and they started giving him tidbits
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  Speaker 1: and then videotaped interviews. Raines would edit his short films
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  Speaker 1: to include what they'd revealed and make sure they approved
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  Speaker 1: the final product. Once, in a nursing home, he was
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  Speaker 1: interviewing an elderly man in a wheelchair. The man had
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  Speaker 1: been a dealer at the Southern Club, a premier gambling
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  Speaker 1: venue that Capone frequented to play poker. At one point
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  Speaker 1: in the interview, the man became suddenly alarmed. He said
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  Speaker 1: to Raines, Oh, my God, there's a guy in Hall C.
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  Speaker 1: If he knew I was talking to you, he'd roll
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  Speaker 1: right down here and kill me now. No matter that
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  Speaker 1: both men were in their nineties, that the political machine
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  Speaker 1: was long gone, that the big-time gangsters were dead, the
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  Speaker 1: old code, keep your mouth shut or pay with your life,
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  Speaker 1: still exerted a powerful hold over them. Raines, a tireless
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  Speaker 1: researcher driven by obsessive curiosity— has combed through thousands of
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  Speaker 1: FBI files about Hot Springs. He has interviewed and struck
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  Speaker 1: up a friendship with Capone's great-niece Deirdre Capone, who donated
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  Speaker 1: various family photographs to the museum. Raines is on similarly
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  Speaker 1: good terms with Lansky's grandson, who shared what he knew
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  Speaker 1: about his grandfather's time in Hot Springs. In 2013, Raines
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  Speaker 1: published a book of popular history called Hot Springs, From
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  Speaker 1: Capone to Costello. A few photographs from the book are
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  Speaker 1: on display at the museum. His current project is a
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  Speaker 1: biography of the underworld figure who intrigues him most of all.
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  Speaker 1: Owen Oney Madden was the only gangster who made Hot
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  Speaker 1: Springs his permanent home. People here loved him, says Raines.
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  Speaker 1: They knew him as this polite, soft-spoken Englishman who gave
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  Speaker 1: generously to charitable causes. They found it hard to believe
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  Speaker 1: that he had been a notorious gangster. Madden was born
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  Speaker 1: in 1891 to Irish parents living in Leeds, England. Around
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  Speaker 1: age 11, he moved to Hell's Kitchen in New York
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  Speaker 1: and eventually joined a street gang. At 21, he was
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  Speaker 1: the leader of the Gopher Gang and nicknamed The Killer.
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  Speaker 1: Madden was locked up in Sing Sing Prison for ordering
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  Speaker 1: a hit on a member of another gang and was
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  Speaker 1: paroled after nine years for good behavior. Then he got
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  Speaker 1: into bootlegging, racketeering, thoroughbred racetracks, managing prize fighters, laundries, and nightclubs,
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  Speaker 1: says Raines. George Raft drove beer trucks for him, and
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  Speaker 1: when Raft became an actor, he based his gangster characters
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  Speaker 1: on Oney Madden. Mae West was one of Madden's girlfriends,
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  Speaker 1: and she said he was sweet, but oh so vicious.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone was afraid of him because he had a psychotic streak,
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  Speaker 1: and he was a killer, says Raines. Madden owned the
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  Speaker 1: famous Cotton Club in Harlem. and muscled his way into
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  Speaker 1: part ownership of a variety of other nightclubs. In 1935,
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  Speaker 1: seeking a quieter way of life, he relocated to Hot Springs,
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  Speaker 1: which he'd visited a few times. Leaving his rowdy ways
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  Speaker 1: behind him, he married the postmaster's daughter and settled into
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  Speaker 1: a comfortable life. He played golf at the country club,
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  Speaker 1: went to the Buckstaff bathhouse, and the Maurice, almost every day,
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  Speaker 1: spent time with other gangsters at the southern club, and
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  Speaker 1: made sure everyone behaved themselves, Raines says. He was close
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  Speaker 1: with the mayor and helped him organize a larger and
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  Speaker 1: more discreet system of payoffs. Madden lived the last 30
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  Speaker 1: years of his life in Hot Springs, and one of
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  Speaker 1: his closest friends was his attorney, none other than State
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  Speaker 1: Senator Q. Byram Hurst Sr. They genuinely liked each other,
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  Speaker 1: says Hurst Jr. My dad gave the eulogy at Oney's funeral.
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  Speaker 1: That was in 1965. and two years later, the long
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  Speaker 1: and immensely profitable era of illegal gambling came to an end.
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  Speaker 1: A new governor, Winthrop Rockefeller, son of philanthropist John D.
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  Speaker 1: Rockefeller Jr., and brother of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller,
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  Speaker 1: took office. Though he'd reportedly promised Hearst Sr. and many
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  Speaker 1: other legislators that he would sign a bill legalizing gambling,
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  Speaker 1: he then broke his word and vetoed the bill. Soon afterward,
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  Speaker 1: the state police raided all the gambling clubs and casinos
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  Speaker 1: in Hot Springs. They went so far as to smash up, burn,
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  Speaker 1: and bury the roulette wheels and other gaming equipment, but
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  Speaker 1: made no arrests and confiscated no money from the casino
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  Speaker 1: counting rooms, which contained millions of dollars. That was the deal,
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  Speaker 1: says Raines. We're going to end this thing, but you
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  Speaker 1: get to keep your money. As Hurst Sr. had predicted,
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  Speaker 1: once illicit gambling disappeared, Hot springs fell into a steep
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  Speaker 1: decline and nearly went bust. All across the downtown, more
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  Speaker 1: and more storefronts were boarded up. All but one of
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  Speaker 1: the bathhouses went out of business. The city didn't even
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  Speaker 1: turn on all the streetlights at the same time, and
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  Speaker 1: the community began to pine for the good old days. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: in the early 2000s, a group of young reformers came
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  Speaker 1: together and made a concerted effort to save the town.
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  Speaker 1: they started by increasing the local sales tax, which enabled
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  Speaker 1: building and rebuilding projects. Progress led to more progress, and
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  Speaker 1: now Hot Springs is prospering again as a tourism and
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  Speaker 1: retirement destination. An estimated 38,000 people live there today, enjoying
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  Speaker 1: an affordable cost of living, a relaxing spa town culture,
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  Speaker 1: and an architecturally diverse downtown where a row of historic
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  Speaker 1: bathhouses is enclosed within Hot Springs National Park. At some
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  Speaker 1: of them, you can still treat yourself to an atmospheric
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  Speaker 1: soak in the thermal spring waters. The Oak Lawn Racetrack,
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  Speaker 1: which was a draw in Capone's day, now has an
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  Speaker 1: upscale resort and illegal casino. On Central Avenue, you can
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  Speaker 1: admire the old buildings, shop for clothes and souvenirs, and
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  Speaker 1: sip a cocktail at the beautifully preserved Ohio Club, which Capone, Siegel, Luciano,
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  Speaker 1: and Ruth frequented, and where Al Josen and Mae West performed.
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  Speaker 1: You can get your photograph taken with the Capone statue
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  Speaker 1: on a park bench outside the club, then stroll down
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  Speaker 1: the street to visit the Gangster Museum of America. Featuring
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  Speaker 1: eight galleries with guided tours and audiovisual displays, the museum
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  Speaker 1: tells the story of how the country's most notorious criminals
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  Speaker 1: were able to congregate peacefully in a small spa town
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  Speaker 1: in the Ouachita Mountains of central Arkansas. Rains, standing in
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  Speaker 1: the gift shop by a display of fedoras, poses a
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  Speaker 1: cheeky question. What do you call the economy of a
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  Speaker 1: town that was making millions from gambling and prostitution in
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  Speaker 1: a state where both of these activities were against the law?
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  Speaker 1: You might call it illegal or blatantly corrupt. We called
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  Speaker 1: it tourism. And with this article, did you know who
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  Speaker 1: was Al Capone? Born on January 17, 1899 in Brooklyn,
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  Speaker 1: Capone died 48 years later on Palm Island, Florida. Capone
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  Speaker 1: grew up working in the Five Points Gang in Manhattan
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  Speaker 1: and moved to Chicago in 1920, the same year Prohibition
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  Speaker 1: was enacted. From 1925 to 1929, his organization, known as
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  Speaker 1: the Chicago Outfit, became the largest organized crime group in
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  Speaker 1: the country. and Capone's bootlegging operation dominated the Midwest, including
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  Speaker 1: smuggling routes from Canada. Next, in 1952, you could buy
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  Speaker 1: a pack of baseball cards that included this Mickey Mantle
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  Speaker 1: at a corner store. Today, you would probably have to
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  Speaker 1: go to an auction house. The rookie card of the
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  Speaker 1: future Yankees legend once sold for pennies, but even with
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  Speaker 1: garish colorization, It became a treasured symbol of the golden
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  Speaker 1: age of the sport that is now valued in the millions.
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  Speaker 1: By John Lingen. He stands before a cloudless sky that's
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  Speaker 1: more teal than blue, staring off behind you into the distance.
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  Speaker 1: He's a hale American teenager outdoors in a Yankees hat,
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  Speaker 1: but that background color, like the banana yellow of the
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  Speaker 1: bat on his shoulder, feels otherworldly. Appropriately, a star-lined marquee
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  Speaker 1: surrounds his name near the bottom of the image. Mickey
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  Speaker 1: Mantle's matinee idol face glows in the Arizona sun. The
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  Speaker 1: black-and-white photo was taken during spring training in Mantle's rookie season, 1951.
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  Speaker 1: Topps Chewing Gum Company colorized and printed it the following
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  Speaker 1: year as the company sought to corner a new market.
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  Speaker 1: Early baseball cards were created in the late 19th century
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  Speaker 1: by tobacco companies, which inserted cardboard representations of baseball players
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  Speaker 1: in their cigarette and loose tobacco packs to help the
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  Speaker 1: boxes keep their shape. By the 1930s, companies were producing
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  Speaker 1: packs of stand-alone cards that cost one cent and included
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  Speaker 1: sticks of gum, to sweeten the card's appeal for children.
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  Speaker 1: As baseball's popularity grew in the post-war era, Topps saw
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  Speaker 1: a growth opportunity. The company began selling its own line
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  Speaker 1: of cards and made small innovations that turned these paper
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  Speaker 1: advertisements into something a youngster might want to collect and treasure.
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  Speaker 1: The company's cards debuted in 1952, with brighter colors and
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  Speaker 1: a larger surface area than previous cards, plus team logos
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  Speaker 1: and and players' statistics on the back. The Topps' features
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  Speaker 1: remain an industry standard to this day. This 1952 Mantle
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: card hit stores before Mantle was a household name, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: though Topps' first run of cards sold out that year,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the majority of Major League Baseball players were released in
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: other groups throughout the season. Sales dwindled and the final group,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: which included this image, wasn't a roaring success. Boxes upon
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: boxes of unsold product were returned to a Brooklyn warehouse
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: where whole sets of cards— mantle was No. 311 of 407—sat
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: untouched for nearly a decade. In 1960, the company decided
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it needed the storage space, so a Topps employee reportedly
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: took hundreds of boxes out on a barge and dumped
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: them in the Atlantic Ocean. Supposedly, the cards resulting scarcity
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: is what made No. 311 so coveted in the years
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: after Mantle became a national hero later that decade. But
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: scarcity alone doesn't explain why the 1952 card became one
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of the highest-valued pieces of sports memorabilia in history, selling
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: at auction for a then-record $ 12. 6 million in 2022. This
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Mantle card is more than a collectible. It's become a
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: stand-in for the glory years of mid-century baseball and a
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: metonym for mid-century U.S. optimism, as much as Gene Kelly's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: exuberant dancing in 1951's An American in Paris. More than 1,000
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of these cards may exist today in varying conditions. One
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: well-preserved specimen lives in the Ronald S. Korda Collection of
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Sports and Trading Cards at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: American History. And curator Eric Jentsch says that No. 311's
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: reputation is a product of cultural timing as much as
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: any innate value. Its price and popularity are a function
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: of the youngsters who created the demand. The fans of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the 1950s and 60s built the commodities market in the 80s,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Jentsch says. These kids grew up and decided to connect
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: with their childhood or their identities based around their interest
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: in sports. Mantle, a three-time MVP who helped the world's
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: most famous team win seven World Series and was named
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: to 20 All-Star Games, definitely represents that era in a
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: way that other players don't, says Gench. The 1952 Mantle
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: image speaks to nostalgists for other reasons. Gench notes that
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the 1950s was an era of massive transition. Whether by
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: watching movies on television or listening to long-playing records on
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: stereo systems, or reading novels as cheap pocketbooks, Americans marked
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the decade by bringing their interests into their homes and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: making them part of everyday life. Baseball, too, could now
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: be watched on TV, and before jerseys and hats became
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: common merchandising, Topps cards were the first widespread collectible items
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: for fans. That was really a turning point, Jench says.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: This audience of children all had this kind of shared
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: experience for the first time, as they studied statistics and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: traded for their favorite players. You no longer needed to
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: buy a ticket or see a game live to feel
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: like you were part of a community of fans. Young, handsome,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and athletic, Mickey Mantle embodied this optimistic age in other
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: ways as well. He was wildly famous and revered. But
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: he predated the intense scrutiny that athletes began to face
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: a generation later. As the decades progressed, Mantle, despite his
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: well-known excesses, came to signify a purer era in sports,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a time before corporate ownership, steroid scandals, or obsessive media
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: coverage of players every on- and off-field move. I think
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: kids really idolized athletes then, in a way that perhaps
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: we don't today. because we all see them as human,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Jench says. And Top's number 311 remains such a valuable totem,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: not least because it evokes this golden age. It depicts
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a legendary player still on the cusp of greatness. Mantle
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: played into his late 30s and abused alcohol for decades
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: before dying relatively young at age 63, but here he
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: is still the picture of youthful potential. He's colorized to
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: electric effect, like John Ford's Technicolor Westerns of the time,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: or like another contemporaneous icon, Superman. And with this article,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: fun facts, Mickey Mantle's career by numbers. Mickey Mantle retired
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: in 1969 with a lifetime batting average of. 298, having
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: collected 2,415 hits, 536 home runs, and 1,509 RBIs. one
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of the most effective playoff batters of his time, Mantle
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: set several career records for the World Series. Home runs, 18, RBIs, 40, runs, 42,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: total bases, 123, and walks, 43. Mantle is hardly disputed
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: as the greatest switch hitter in MLB history. No other
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: hitter ever had as many home runs across a career.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And finally, Ask Smithsonian. You've got questions. We've got experts.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Why do parrots live so much longer than dogs? Unlike dogs,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: which live an average of 10 to 13 years, parrots
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: can live 50 years or longer. A 2022 paper suggests
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that parrots' unique intelligence plays a role in their longer lifespans.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Scientists looked at zoo records from around the world for
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: 217 parrot species. they found a direct correlation between brain
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: size and life expectancy. In the wild, intelligence helps parrots
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: solve life-or-death problems like finding food sources. Larger brains also
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: take more time to develop, so intelligent species have evolved
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: longer lifespans. In general, a parrot's brain-to-body ratio is similar
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: to that of primates, while dogs have a lower brain-to-body ratio.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Birds also age differently from mammals. They have higher metabolic processes,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: which should degrade their cells faster. Yet birds suffer significantly
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: less cellular damage than mammals over time. This is from
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Stacey Hill, Assistant Curator of the Birdhouse, National Zoo and
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Conservation Biology Institute. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: for listening and have a great day.