When Mickey Mantle returned to his home in Dallas a month ago to recuperate from a fractured foot injury, the big question in the American League was whether or not the Baltimore Orioles could fly high and fast enough to escape with the pennant before the hobbled Yankees recovered. They didn't.

In fact, the Baltimore club quickly became immersed in one of the major slumps of the year and fell to the bottom of the League. Other challengers, like the White Sox, Cleveland, and Boston, flirted with the idea of actually leading the League, but eventually gave it up as too dangerous.

Meanwhile, the Yankees, who were supposed to be lucky to win half their ball games without Mantle, quietly launched a highly successful road trip and got even better after returning to the Stadium. On July 4, with the season almost half over, the Bombers were very comfortably installed in first, four full games ahead of the current second place occupant, Minnesota.

The performance of the Yankees has been quite phenomenal. The loss of Mantle was only the climax to a series of injuries that at one time had nearly half the starting lineup on the bench. Whitey Ford suffered with a sore arm for two months, Tony Kubek missed a couple of weeks, Roger Maris was sidelined, Lois Arroyo finally had to be sent down to the minors, and Mantle himself had missed some games early in the season.

Manager Ralph Houk, however, has proven himself as a resourceful commander. For the first time since assuming the Yankee leadership he has had to work with a deflicit of talent, and he has labored skillfully. He brought Jim Bouton out of the bullben and Bouton quickly became the Yank's (and the League's) hottest hurler. Al Downing, a young fastballer who had been unimpressive in two previous Major League trials, was summoned from Richmond and pitched a two-hitter in his first game. Harry Bright, a ne'er-do-well for several clubs, transformed into a 300 hitter when Houk put Yankee pin-stripes on him.

While Houk was re-tooling the New York pitching staff into its best shape in recent years, other parts of the Yankee games developed fortuitously. Roger Maris, batting .261 when Mantle departed, began to take Mickey's place as a reliable power hitter. Maris is now hitting .299, with 17 homo runs, and has won numerous games with crucial extra-base hits.

Cletis Boyer has been having one of his best years at third, and Elston Howard has recently begun to hit violently. Tom Tresh, who replaced Mantle in center, has been good enough to make the All Star team. In addition, Joe Pepitone, the boy who showed great promise while filling in for Mantle last season, has emerged as the League's best first baseman.

For the past five or six years the Yankees have generally allowed the League at least four months of hope before ending the suspense. This season the race looks finished now. With Mantle due back in a week or so, the Yankees should have little difficulty subduing their followers. Boston removed itself from contention last weekend by losing all but one of four games in New York. Only Minnesota has a chance now, and the Twins lack the pitching to sustain a hard drive down the August stretch.