Mickey Mantle: The Definitive Story (MLB Baseball Sports Documentary)

nelle didn't hide anything you could see Mantle's whole life on his face the fair-haired kid playing baseball for the most storied franchise in the history of sports he was perfect for that time period he was the perfect fit he wasn't larger than life he was life but yet he still had this or about it he was just like one of us on the ball field there was something very dignified and heroic about the way he carried himself but Mickey's life overall was not always a study in dignity a lot of sadness was a lot of regret and there's a lot of tragedy involved he was a stronger bigger man when he knew he was dying and he ever was in life bad boy sometimes but when he was good he was very very good there was something dramatic about him coming out of the on-deck circle and walking toward home plate there he was oh gosh no matter what you were doing you gotta mana to your eyes or write to him hear this Rumble through the stadium and then the fury he put his soul into every swing all the muscles under straining in his neck he said I put everything into my swing including my teeth one of the things about Miki Azores that potential you know you never quite knew something great was about to happen it just exploded off of that Wow it was going up holy cow up get out of here and up get out of here it looked like somebody had taken a gun and you shot a bullet right at the facade look what he hit the damn ball I could close my eyes and see the arrows showing the projectory 374 118 how high it was where appeared and how far it would have gone if they would bring in these scientists rocket scientists and say well if it would have cleared the stadium that ball could have gone 700 feet maybe hit an alien on Mars and you did have some cartoon some young extraterrestrial where does it come from here there was something about Madeleine screamed out the natural he's a God made ball clay stirs the imagination you could make a case that no one in the history of sport ever fit a team a town and a time more perfectly than Mickey Mantle from the early 1950s and into the 60s the mick was the quintessential American athlete the center fielder and centerpiece of the most dominant and visible team in sport the New York Yankees that car would be due today Alex David when we won the game how did you well I got free here it's you're not know one dimension of one of them was a home run number 41 it was humble and often shy attention made him uncomfortable but he could not escape it for a generation of adoring fans everything Mickey Mantle did mattered the way he smiled the way he ran out his 536 home runs the way he played 18 big league season through crippling injuries and late night carousing and even when his playing days passed and his three MVP awards and seven World Series championships had been committed to memory those same people embraced the mixed private struggles their childhood hero proved just as flawed and human as they were to them Mickey Mantle always mattered he was a true American icon fair-haired innocent indestructible but up close he was blemished and vulnerable an almost mythical character raised in the Dust Bowl at the height of the Great Depression as far from the big city as one could get there's Elsie's cafe that's where we ate dinner in down Main Street in commerce with highway 66 we go down sit on that real much these people go by going I guess it's California in New York when stopping in commerce the vast majority of the people around here somewhere or another were attached to the mines my work most of the time underground he was what we all call ground boss they dubbed shafts they may be 200 feet deep they may be 450 feet deep it was dangerous there were lots of people killed and most of the deaths were from huge slabs falling upon people it was into that dark world of danger and death and the zinc mines of his hard-working father that Mickey Charles mantle was born on October 20th 1931 he was the oldest child of Mutt and Louisville mantle of Commerce Oklahoma a likable and mischievous kid from the start he's a great kid everybody wouldn't be around maybe because he had good ideas about things to do he'd come up with all these games it was fun for him but not sure everybody else in the game was having that much fun a lot of time Sifu he'd take us out of the chat piles and I had to be begun he'd line us up count to ten and we had to be certain business way here we get it held it pretty good I was a majorette in the band he and his friends came to the football game I thought Mick was the most handsome guy ever so I had a crew-cut and he had the Commerce High but ball jacket on they called him the Commerce comic he was fast and fearless no matter which sport he played but Mickey Mantle was born into baseball he was named after his father's favorite player Mickey Cochrane a Hall of Fame catcher from the Detroit Tigers and with baseball in their blood father and son formed an uncommon bond with the game and each other the biggest thing in his life was when his dad took him to st. Louis to see the Cardinals my dad didn't drive it probably 35 mile-an-hour 300 miles to sainthood took us more than a day to get there Vicki would always stay dad I can run faster than you're going he say okay get out he certainly didn't want his children following in his footsteps he wanted Mickey to have a better life and he had a great love for baseball but was very serious about his train and Mickey dad golf work at 4 o'clock Mickey had to be here everyday he'd always be right here as soon as he's dad got home it was trouble victim he wasn't here on that they had a little plate he'd stand up the plate they practiced the tea good and city he would pitch right-handed and my granddad would pitch left-handed too he was teaching Mickey how to switch it he got where he could hit a lot home right get him alone what and we did get chase ball around on the other side of the house you never seen without a baseball bat they've played for hours and hours they were obsessed mutt was pretty hard on him Mick told me I could do really really good in the ball game and dad never said you did well he said you can do better that really made me try even harder to please him it had done anything world for his father soon after high school mantle signed a contract with the New York Yankees in the minors he was an erratic shortstop but he could hit in his second year at Joplin Missouri mantle led the Class C Western Association batting 383 with 26 homers and 136 runs batted in he was proving to be quite a bargain Ron Greenwood was really the only scout he talked with said I'll give you a Yankee contract an $1,100 and for what may he go for signing live 100 Mickey Mantle came to the Yankees in 51 Casey Stengel the manager of the Yankees promoted him talked about him endlessly through that first spring training there was a tremendous dynamism about mantle he was like a runaway Mustang Nikki could do it all we're fine oh boy could he run they said what's this kid he could run like a deer one morning they were gonna see how fast everybody was they lined up all the outfielders from here and it looked like the other guys were standing still we found out he could run like a deer where did this guy come from man we'll look like the kids that deliver your paper a high noon son the hayseed from Oklahoma literally carrying seven dollar suitcase he's the caricature of the bumpkin looking up at the sky scrapers in the head keeps going up and up we see at the concourse Plaza Hotel and there we got to be very good friends I was 19 years old he was 18 years old we addressed codes and mik you'd buy some lousy ties we ate a lot of hot dogs and cheeseburgers or pizza we didn't know what the hell it do it wasn't just off the field that mantle had trouble after a dazzling spring in a hot start to the 51 season Mickey struggled maybe the Yanks had made a mistake in sowing the number six to his uniform a not so subtle hint that he was expected to follow in the mythic footsteps of numbers three through five the last of whom was entering his final season he never had time to settle in the moment he set foot in Yankee Stadium the first day he was the heir the successor to Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio boy that's a load to put on a 19 year old kid from commerce Oklahoma there were fans that booed him every time he came to the plate wait a second he's supposed to be the next great one but he doesn't play that way he makes mistakes he strikes out too much and watching him kick his glove and break his helmet and show temper and pout things they never saw from the great DiMaggio was a very very hard transition for Yankee fans you're striking out and people calling you a bum go back to Oklahoma and Joe really never was friendly with Mick you know he never really tried to make him welcome to the team Mickey came with the Yankees in 51 Joe DiMaggio didn't talk to him for his season having the fans and the media put on him the burden of the great Yankee icon just overwhelmed him on July 15th manager casey stengel told a still struggling mantle it was being sent to the miners in Kansas City there Mickey's hitting troubles continued but by fate he was just a short drive from Oklahoma and his father month he was down in the dumps his dad decided he should go to Kansas City and visit with him and did and when he got there Mick told him he said I think I may as well quit I think I may as well give up the game give him a real good tongue lashing that's all the guts you have then get your stuff together we'll go home I'll put you to work in the mines you knew that to rest your life just like I'm dead he wanted his dad to sympathize with him and he did not they talked most of the night I was hoping he wouldn't peg his bags he said well they don't want to stay here and I want to try to make the go of it all right you stay here he said I want you to quit acting like a baby and get out there and play ball like you Ken that bristled him up and while you went back in and I made he start hitting that ball it wasn't long after he returned to the team in August 1951 with the less daunting number seven on his back that New York's love affair with Mickey Mantle began in his first 14 seasons the Yanks went to 12 World Series winning seven a powerful switch hitter with blinding speed mantle was at his best in the mid-50s in 1956 he won the first of his consecutive MVP awards as well as the Triple Crown at a time when television brought baseball into the living room Mantle was a star of stars the Magnificent Mickey the 20 years old as a liner around Mexico Yankee Stadium Madison Avenue Main Street the mick was popular everywhere women loved him men admired him and every kid wanted to grow up to be just like if you're gonna build a baseball player from scratch you'd go just to forget the plants him just make it him he could do everything he was so fast the power was amazing and your little kid you want oh my god was a comment with a hat on there was a fury it was an explosiveness that was very very appealing mandal brought an energy and just bought a wildness to the plate Mantle's advanced well explosions and there it goes Clark Bedford Avenue and a parking lot and what was sort of ironic is that occasionally he would lay down a bunt mainly speed was part of what mantle was I mean he was extraordinary getting down to first base getting around the vases you discount sometimes I would feel really was Mickey outraged the ball he was upset this year I'd rather date the Layton runs bad in home run and hitting and that's my goal for this year he was such a leader and picked you up as a team you know you can never be on his level but buddy i'ma tell you anything you try you broke your Fanny trying to equal him he was one of those players who wasn't as good made you feel good to just watch him there's talent but then there's just his raw presence first of all he looked like he was from central casting he was dashing he was handsome and he was graceful he had a voice look about him all the time and a great smile and he smiled along you saw make him Al and you liked him the aw shucks part of his personality was very endearing when I come up to the big leagues I was a shuttle Minh grinning and Duggan country boy the charming jaw that country boy us was great you know and he was absolutely ripped he stretched those pinstripes to their limits in his upper body and no steroids he didn't need Stewart in fact we didn't know how to spell it back then he was the first person that you saw in your life who was bigger than life Matalin ladies there's Philippine hey white he'd be on everything he'd be here he'd be there get on our way he was so big he actually didn't had four cigarettes yeah and also for not smelly she did one for smoking I want for not smoking must have been a couple hundred bucks here or there I'll do it now tough words from perhaps the finest baseball player of the world has ever known Mickey Mantle's I bought my faithful I want my maple Mickey caught me up a couple of weeks after commercial was running George what a pain here social matter wherever I go that kids are yelling up here while I make well I won't be babe I work with people everybody wanted to be connected to him to be a part of it it was absolute myopic hero-worship he was the most important thing in our lives kids were painting number seven on their t-shirts everybody had his righty and Lefty batting stance down pat we all tried to run like Mickey it looked like he was a piston his arms went up and down said this way we limped like Mickey limped I used to fake knee injuries when I was a kid I learned how long divided so I could know his batting average cuz I want to know what he was anyone I went to bed I wrote a poem about him and I was like 10 or 11 or something from a pinstripe shirt his arms do come like massive stone they appear to some for these are arms that compared with few when a normal man wanted make to any kind of well even when he'd be out at first base the way he would reach behind his helmet and scoop off his batting helmet from the rear and toss it to the bad boy so elegant nobody could do it like the mick even the name Mickey meant just float when people said that name over and over again Mickey Mantle Mickey Mantle Ricky mantle Mickey man Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse fake email Nicky mail let's go watch Mickey Mantle I'm just glad his name wasn't sighs Schwarz teen when you say Mickey Mantle you say Facebook he just was like Superman but the truth is he was just a regular guy he just did the little things all the time and he just said this little smirk on his face we were getting ready to go out and Mickey just combed his hair and he looked at the mirrors oh your heads you know cuz he knew I walked in the room and it was gonna get a laugh from me he had a tremendous sense of humor I was the first got to be hair dryer in the clubhouse he put powder in it one day I turned it on I turned white you know that was metal he didn't want to be a hero he's just fun to be Mickey and one of the guys try as he might it was impossible for Mickey Mantle to be just one of anything let alone one of the guys his god-given ability and almost accidental charm set him apart he was a baseball star who eventually became as comfortable and dynamic off the field as he was on it his eyes were so big and so wide-open he quickly learned that there was a lot of fun to be had in New York City the other Yankee players took his gee-whiz attitude and he said alright kid we're going to show you the big town and they took him to the nightclubs in New York to the Copacabana to the Latin Quarter and he became a regular at took Shaw's restaurant they go out and hang out it to shore with Sinatra they felt like they were special like they own that town watch a movie from the fifties the star the show's got a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other it was cool to drink they drink they chase women we always had something to do about 11 o'clock I say I'm going home that I have to catch the boy you guys do what you want go wait till you talk to whitey it tastes stupid they've all been told a hundred times and I have nothing new to add to it here was in the clubhouse bottles of beer all over the place so even have two or three just to replenish his fluid so he's already got a buzz on he survived was drunk before I left the ballpark then I go out and have a couple of drinks and dinner now I'm really plastered they wanted me to stabilize him well there wasn't much I could do with him we knew they were nice that he was out he'd walk in the clubhouse and Hank Bauer and I say Oh God if we could check his eyes that we probably had a bad night which some pus did the old days one night we were in New Jersey with Yogi Berra and his wife mitt was really having fun and as we drove out of the parking lot yogi screams Merlin I wouldn't ride with him and about two blocks down the street Mick hits a telephone pole and I had a concussion because I hit the windshield I could have been killed along the way it got out of control yeah and of course Mike had a lot of time to spend in New York by himself because I wasn't there Merlin Johnson and Mickey Mantle were childhood sweethearts who married soon after Mickey's rookie season of 1951 two years later when Mickey jr. was born the family bought a home in Dallas Merlyn settled there while Mickey spent most of his time in New York as the years passed and the family grew Mickey continued to drift away leaving Merlin with the responsibility of raising their four young sons mantle was a distant father the baseball star who never grew up of course the Yankees clubhouse of that era was just like Neverland with Billy Martin as its Peter Pan one of the teammates had a real beautiful girl in Cleveland dead and Mickey got home from the clubs and so they had enough liquid courage in him they decide they're gonna climb around and peek in their teammates window to see this beautiful girl there's about a two-foot ledge around the building I believe they're on the seventh or eighth floor they decide to climb out the window Mickey's leading the way they end up having to go all the way around the corner luck has it the shades are drawn come on Billie's let's go back says the neck and my father tells Miki that he can't there's no way he's going to be able to turn her out and go back the other way and they have to continue to walk all the way around the hotel to climb back in their window where Mickey was introverted my father was extroverted when they were just so close who become my brothers Mickey got a great kick out of Billy's pugnacious personality and what you did when you a friend that Billy Martin will go out drink and raise hell hmm when I was a kid I didn't really know what to make of it I just thought it was funny they would have fights at the cope with a banner and they would be partying and then the next day they went 17 nothing we were staying in the st. Moritz we're watching the honey Moors right in the middle of the program he turned to me hey Blanche you ever think about Diane I said are you really concerned about that he should you Mantle's fears were far from unfounded early death was in his blood when he was 13 he watched his grandfather die from Hodgkin's disease two of his uncle's were also taken young each before the age of 35 again from Hodgkin's Mickey was convinced he would meet the same fate especially when he watched firsthand his father began to succumb to that same horrible disease during a bittersweet World Series visit he came to the World Series the first time he ever saw me play baseball in New York he came to the series in 1951 and that's when I hurt my knee DiMaggio was playing centerfield and Mickey was in right and it was a fly ball hit between the two of them the way a second Joe Howard I got it and Mickey slipped on that drainage that thing out and right centerfield you just absolutely stopped flat like this I turned right at my god he's dead well he was taking me to the hospital the next morning when I got out of the cab I couldn't walk and I was laying on him and he just keeled over and that's the first time I had known he was sick mantou watched the rest of his first World Series in a hospital room out with torn cartilage in his knee in the bed next to him was his dad who over the next six months deteriorated at the hands of the mantle family curse his dad could not lay down he could not sit down said scruciating pain it was said he didn't last too long after that he passed away the next May after that world Syria when my dad died he said well might be little rough but we'll make it I don't know what we would have done if it hadn't been for Mickey after Dad died because there was us four kids still at home but we got to check every time he got paid Micke lived that I mean he was terrified of getting a Hodgkin's disease it just never was the same for Mac cuz he needed him so much I've lived without a dad since I'm 15 Micky was 18 so I know that feeling I know that loss when you do something great you want to pick up the phone and say hey you wanted look in the stands and see him go when you don't have it it's a big hole and you either come to grips with it and value the good times or your remain this hurt little kid and do stuff to make it try to disappear and that's what he tried to do this young kid inherits fear he inherits um next he inherits a death sentence I'm gonna die before I'm 40 that fear drove him to despair he drove him to the bottle it drove him to who I'm a dead man Mickey Mantle lived the rest of his life with emotional and physical pain it was difficult to tell which took more of a toll although it's hard to imagine how he played it all with 15 bone fractures over the course of his career he played with every kind of imaginable injury a turn athlete could possibly have he's playing centerfield he couldn't raise up his arm but nobody knew it except a trainer and a ball person if you know mantle is going to play if you could walk on one leg and I don't know how he could do it but he was hurt all the time despite his injuries in the early 1960s Mickey Mantle was still a great player on a great team the Yanks were in the World Series each year from 1960 to 1964 and won in 1961 and 62 in 61 he challenged Babe Ruth's single-season home run record and in 62 he won his third MVP award in a 64 World Series mantle hit three homers raising his total to a World Series record 18 including the winner in Game three it was his last great October moment as decades of Yankee dominance came to a sudden end do you enjoy baseball anymore now than when you first broke in I enjoy it just as much I get a bigger kick out of hitting home runs now and seem like we'd win a lot more and when we win a game now it's a lot of fun after averaging 37 home runs a year his previous ten seasons Mickey Mantle never topped 23 after 1964 and once a locked about 300 the make was a 250 hitter his final years in pinstripes it was as painful to watch as it had become for him to play he used to wrap himself every day you know both legs all the way up to the thigh down to the ankle with these big thick cushion wraps you take that big swing go down on one knee like that and you just feel the pain you know it was tough it went into third base until I'd sorta tiptoe so cuz he couldn't come to a sudden stop what's he doing at first boys we've won the win so bad I've seen him go over for we lose by one run and he go down stop crying yeah anyways my idol down here crying and it was sad you could feel that he was going down it's never depicted more precisely than Mother's Day 67 when he hits the 500 home run on what is a dank early spring day watch him go around the bases that day Vicki how long do you think you'll be playing well I hope I can play another 2 or 3 years I'd like to hit 600 home runs and I need about 85 more so I slowed it would take a long time mantle never did come anywhere near hitting that 600 homerun during spring training in 1969 he announced his retirement simply saying I can't play anymore I have to quit he tumbled at 2:37 in this final-season he lost his lifetime 300 average that year that was his great regret was hitting 298 lifetime he says I was a 300 hitter this is one of the proudest moments I've ever had I miss Hallam baseball ground the Magnificent Yankee the great number seven Mickey Mantle I've often wondered how a man who knew he was going to die but stand here and say that he was luckiest man in the world but now I think I know how Luke very well I'll never forget it god bless you all and thank you very much Nikki was a lost child without baseball and he had nightmares in one he was always trying to leg out an infield hit and he never got it never made the other dream he had was he was late getting to the ballpark and his name being called he couldn't find a gate to miss open and he could see Billy and yogi whitey and he was trying to crawl through this fence he got caught at the hips and couldn't get through then he wake up he always felt he didn't do well enough the nimac of his father just looking down saying you screwed up kid is screwed up he never could be what his father wanted for him or expected of him it just wasn't good enough there was always a sadness I thought about him a wistfulness about him any knowledgeable person who saw mantle at his best would tell you that Mickey Mantle was one of the 10 best non pitchers who ever breathed but no matter how great he was he felt he did not achieve all he should have achieved he thought he truly had a chance to come close to being with Babe Ruth had been he just felt like he had dissipated so much just off the field like a sleeve too much browsing now he's as much to blame for that as fate maybe but there was that might have been quality to me what might have been what could I have been when we got out of baseball we were broke people would say what are you going to do now that you're retired I said go look for a job Mickey the same thing he didn't have any money I'm not a mental heavyweight you know and I was a little bit worried of how I was gonna make money he had several businesses he tried to run a restaurant he was in an employment business with Joe Namath but none of them were satisfying emotionally and none of them were businesses where he made a great deal of money after his career ended ball is when it really started getting bad because I mean a lot of his jobs you know after he retired were cocktail parties banquets people always expected he may have a drink you know have a drink that's how he dealt with the people he was a shy person few drinks and he was live for the party buddy if we'd had a great tasting beer that was less filling in the old days can you imagine where we'd be now yeah the beer drink is Hall of Fame overtime mantle used the bottle to grow closer to the kids he once neglected it was a desperate attempt to make up for lost time he and the boys who were now grown had become drinking buddies the alcohol actually helped us build a relationship that we'd never really had because that's how we got together he said that he felt it was kind of like having whitey and Billy with him it did build our relationship and so we loved it it was all fun and glory hey where can we go next what can we drink next how much can we drink next looking back on it that was not a way to get to know somebody especially your father we just felt like that's the only way we could get close to him I never felt but we did have that connection as children he couldn't come to our games because people would bother him he would have to sit in the car and watch the game sometimes we wouldn't even know he was there one time he took us to the Harlem Globetrotters we were there five or ten minutes and people just started hounding him and stuff and we just had to get up and leave when dad was home we would have backyard football games you could see in my dad that he enjoyed it but he didn't really know how to express himself as a father and a lot of it was he was gone we didn't know this guy that was this huge personality it was a hard childhood because her mom raised us I spent most of my life alone they never had the company of their dad they did not have the discipline it got pretty difficult when they all began to be teenagers I took my first drink at 13 or something we did so much partying it's not even funny now I was doing drugs then doing cocaine drinking and I was pretty out of it we put ourselves in some very stupid and dangerous idiotic situations I was living with five active alcoholics I was one crazy lady I had four kids and Mick he never felt at home anywhere never felt comfortable anywhere after baseball because he was never in his element he always felt like me or no strings attached he treated himself like a free agent out there doing whatever he wanted to do by the early 1980s Mantle's life had become a mess his family and marriage washed out in a drunken haze professionally he was going nowhere in 1983 he was briefly banned from baseball for taking a job with a casino in Atlantic City he had no choice he needed the money Billy Martin did you get that crap shot but he would soon find a new and profitable way to capitalize on his fame don't fail me but this incredible memorabilia era began in which people would pay money for a Mickey Mantle shirt for an autograph ball he said boy if I had known that I would have saved all my dirty jocks but he did make a great deal of money which really changed his life I thought he's one of the funniest people I'd ever met and I think that was one of the things that really attracted me to Mickey was a sense of humor and providing funds to young researchers as well as the more established the deafness Research Foundation what here is going down one good thing about being deaf you don't have to listen I'd run during the memorabilia craze Mickey hired Greer Johnson a business manager who helped organize his resurgent career Mantle's autograph had become the most sought-after in the industry Johnson also became the new woman in his life a life which had now become increasingly like his old one once again Mickey Mantle found himself on center stage dealing with the spotlight in his playing days mantle could be difficult with his fans in the media it was uncomfortable with the attention and struggled to understand as a middle-aged Expo player with no heroics left to provide his incomprehension turned to resentment we'd see people come up for an autograph and I'm talking about 40 45 year old men oh my god that's Mickey Braun men would cry literally tears would come down their cheek when they would meet Mickey I mean it was almost like a revelation it was almost like a religious experience to these people and make you just you know II just didn't understand laughs he never really understood why he was beloved why an adult male like me I'd walk into a room and if he were there I sweat and I follow him like I'm 6 he didn't aspire to that he didn't pretend to be anything but a kid from commerce Oklahoma why did they love me so much I just played bleep in baseball he tried everything in his power to undo that goddamn I don't give a about the hair let's get this over with alright her hair it may have been the liquor talking but the hero his fans still worshipped had become a broken and bitter man I walked up to Mickey male and introduced myself I'm probably one of the first kids in this country named after you born in 1953 Mickey Mantle was so drunk he looked at me and he said you know what kid how many kids in this country are named after Mickey Mouse he said go away don't bother me no not he was an unattractive drunk and you winced when he acted boorish Lee or worse to other people you wanted to climb onto the table after four decades of abuse mantle realized he had hit bottom in 1994 he finally reached out for help after admiring the courage of a close friend and a member of his family I'd been drinking 17 years at this point and so I took the initiative and check myself in the Betty Ford's I didn't even tell anybody in my family but I was going he was scared to death he didn't want to admit he was an alcoholic nobody does after I got back to Betty Ford Center he started asking me questions about what it was like and I knew eventually he's going to say to me you get me in and that ultimately is what he said could see melas whole life on his face mantle left the Betty Ford Clinic with a vow to stay sober but his will was promptly tested when his son Billy would battled both Hodgkin's and drug abuse died of a heart attack at 36 soon after mantle went public with his guilt his shame and his lost opportunity because he was a public figure in a different way than the kind of cheap celebrity that's everywhere he perceived some responsibility to tell his story I had to ride my dad he's been dead since 1951 I had to write him a letter things that I did do for him I wasn't there for my kids like my dad was for me you talk about something that's hard to do that's really hard but I need to tell my love it's tough to face what do you have in life ultimately your family he said once he wrote that letter to his dad it made it easier for him to express himself to us when he got to Betty Ford Clinic you received more letters than anyone who's ever been I really didn't realize until I started getting those letters what I did mean to some people let's hope you got a lot of years left to continue to write chapters in your life what do you hope for it I hope the people at the end will say he turned out all right I'm proud that I named my son Nicky that would be nice that was beginning of his life really after his public acknowledgement Mickey Mantle was at peace for perhaps the first time in his life over the next 18 months he embraced sobriety and became a better happier man and he'd ever been he proved he could overcome drinking but in the end not the abuse on his body the drinking had caused Mickey was sick in need of a new liver and after just two days of waiting one was found his liver tests were getting worse and if he hadn't gotten transplanted when he did he would have lasted another week Mickey Mantle went into surgery about 4:30 this morning local time the liver transplant operation is expected to last four to six hours once the surgery was over the whole question that we had anticipated did you pass other patients to do him why did he get one so quickly there are a lot of people out there who absolutely believe to this day no matter what facts they hear they believe that Mickey Mantle got preferential treatment but I am here to tell you that I was there and I know that he didn't the donors information was input into the computer blood group body size that sort of thing and when the list popped out Mickey Mantle's name was first as soon as he was physically able Mickey Mantle was moved to make a public plea as memorable as any of his manic homeruns there is a sense of tragedy a beat up Wayne Mickey Mantle what he wanted to send a message I would like to say to the kids out there to take a good he talked about a role model this is a role model don't be like me you know I mean God gave me a body ability to play baseball that's what I wanted to do it was just wasted I was given so much I'm good the famous line that he always used I always had half truth in it started out as a joke but he said Peter no and he was gonna live that long and taking better care of himself he said I did things wrong and he says I made mistakes don't live like I did he wanted people to know that he woke up and saw the mistake he made and that wasn't any way to live your life as a son it was just very uplifting I want to start giving something back it seems to me like all I've done is just take he had the heart of a lion he was so brave that it just made you thrilled to just know him I think that took more courage than anything it was a great message to the kids in my mind he's a strong in a batter's box and a sturdy of leg as he's ever been in his life and he faced it with more strength and more courage than he may have even thought they had himself it was his greatest hour his greatest message because that had some effect on people it's mantle you know it's the Mick and you know he's on TV telling millions of people I help myself too little too late but what he did do is help thousands if not millions of other people think twice about letting no lives get out of control intent on making amends for a life he felt he'd thrown away mantle started a foundation to raise awareness of the importance of organ donation its impact was immediate as donations increased across the country man to look forward to witnessing the creation of a new legacy a heroism he could understand saving lies but it wasn't to be during his liver transplant doctors had found cancer at first they believed it was treatable but within a month they realized they faced an unusually aggressive strain hi this is Nick about two weeks ago the doctors found a couple of spots of cancer in my lungs I'm hoping to get back to feeling as good as I did when I first left here about six weeks ago I'd like to again thank everyone for all your thoughts and prayers you've been great and if you'd like to do something really great be a donor I told him that this was a problem that didn't have a cure for now lord they basically said you know there's no hope I wrote him a letter and told him pretty much how I felt and what he meant to me all those years he knew that I loved him you know I wanted everything to be okay with us before he died a lot of people don't get that chance to tell someone a love that they love after the mantle family's tearful goodbye Mickey Suns reached out to their fathers baseball family the friends who Mickey loved with respect meant so much his old Yankee teammates on the eve of his death August 13 1995 they rushed to Dallas to say goodbye to their friend Mickey Mantle a great teammate who mattered to them as much as he did to an entire generation you we hugged each other we grabbed our hands and and he says I love you guys I love you both and he said we love you too today is a sad day day for the Yankee family family and the Yankee fans everywhere today we have lost one of our own Mauro one of the greatest ballplayers in the history of baseball baseball please join now in a few moments of silent prayer as we all remember Mickey Mantle every boy builds a shrine to some baseball hero and before that shrine a candle always burns for a huge portion of my generation Mickey Mantle was that baseball hero I felt that my childhood had finally ended and I was in my forties it's been said that the truth is never pure and rarely simple he was that humble kid that dealt with struggles and then in the end took another one deep died a hero the emotional truths of childhood have a power the transcend objective fact they stay with us through all the years they say you never forget your first love there's a part of him that you carry with you your whole life that doesn't ever go away none of us micki included would want to be held to account for every moment of our lives but how many of us can say that our best moments were as magnificent as his his ass teak and his are up the legacy they'll never die and it'll go on forever never never I just hope God has a place for him where he can run again and smile that boyish smile God knows no one's perfect God knows something special about heroes this has been a presentation of HBO Sports

Channel: Baseball Doc

Views: 1,273,316

Rating: 4.7726884 out of 5

Keywords: mickey mantle, ty cobb, cy young, baseball, sports, sport, history, documentary, incredible, athlete, career, world record, base, home run, hitter, yankees, giants, new york, team, teams, league, shocking, truth, performance, drugs, lance armstrong, greatest, best, ever, wins, playoffs, championship, treatment, hosting, lawyer, attorney, pennant, world series, all time, mortgage, loans, loan, credit, claim, donate, rehab, degree, classes, educational, rodriguez, jeter, babe ruth

Id: whCvNBa90vs

Length: 58min 29sec (3509 seconds)

Published: Wed May 28 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/down_south_jukin]

TIL Mickey Mantle’s nickname was the Commerce Comet.

[u/gdzornes]

Hey thank you for posting this. I watched it and realized I didn't know as much about Mickey as I thought. Very interesting. Thanks again

[u/Adam1394]

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