Mickey Mantle

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THE baseball player when I was growing up in the 60's was Mickey Mantle. He was white (hate to say it but that was a factor), an ah, shucks, country boy from Oklahoma, he played for the NY Yankees, THE baseball team that was in the Series almost every year, and he was a heckuva baseball player.

While I'm at it let me dispel one statistic. Mickey was fast for sure. It was said that he could get to first base from home plate in 3.1 seconds. Joe Posnanski has convinced me that this is an exaggeration: more like 3.6 or 3.7. What the heck?

He had a ferocious swing. He invented the tapemeasure homerun before today's enclosed stadiums ended that.

Yes, he was fast and could have been a base stealer but Yankees did not steal bases.

Mickey was idolized and though he didn't quite understand it I bet if I had met him I might have started crying. Paul Simon said where have you gone Joe DiMaggio because DiMaggio had the right number of syllables; otherwise, I bet it would have been Mickey Mantle.

There is so much that can be said about Mickey Mantle.

One personal note. At one time Mickey owned a bowling alley in Dallas. My former regional manager bowled in a league with Mickey. He said Mickey was a bad sport. He would curse and kick the ball return.

Unfortunately he did not take care of himself and died in 1995 at 63. A sad life at the end. He had 4 boys one of him predeceased him and he was estranged from his wife at the time of his death.

I remember him saying to youth, "Don't be like me. I wasted too much of my life."

But he will always be MICKEY MANTLE. Enough said.