“When he ran, he made everyone else look like they were standing still.”<\/p>\n
— Ralph Houk on Mickey Mantle<\/p>\n
(I’m watching the fabulous HBO special on Mantle right now. I AM IN HEAVEN.)<\/p>\n
Billy Crystal: “If you were going to build a baseball player from scratch, all you’d have to do would be say: Him. Give me him.”<\/p>\n
One of his teammates from the 50s: “You knew you could never be as good as him. But let me tell you: you broke your fanny trying. Trying to live up to him, and be as good as him. He brought the team together.”<\/p>\n
Talking about how built his body was, one of his teammates said: “He didn’t need steroids. As a matter of fact, we didn’t even know how to spell it back then.”<\/p>\n
“Why do they love me so much? I just play fucking baseball.” – Mickey Mantle<\/p>\n
A sportswriter said: “I learned how to do long division so I could keep up with his batting average.”<\/p>\n
“There was always a sadness about him. A wistfulness about him.” – Bob Costas<\/p>\n
“I often wondered how a man who knew he was going to die could stand here on this field and say he felt like the luckiest man on earth. But now I think I know how Lou Gehrig felt.” — Mickey Mantle’s retirement speech<\/p>\n
Richard Lewis : “I’m just glad his name wasn’t Cy Schwartzstein.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“When he ran, he made everyone else look like they were standing still.” — Ralph Houk on Mickey Mantle (I’m watching the fabulous HBO special on Mantle right now. I AM IN HEAVEN.) Billy Crystal: “If you were going to … Continue reading