Me And The Mick

23 February 1987

Back when I used to wear ties on a regular basis, I met former Yankee great Mickey Mantle in Chicago at the Photo Marketing Association's annual conference & exhibition. He was shilling for Fuji Film, Inc., who set up the Yankee Stadium backdrop and armed a handful of sales reps with point-and-shoots and gobs of film to snap shots like this for several hours one day. Fuji had a color minilab on hand and the prints were made available within the hour.

I was a kindasorta a Yankee fan early on as a kid as the Toledo Mud Hens were the Yankees farm club at that time; when the Tigers and Yankees swapped farm teams, I changed loyalties.

As a Tiger fan, I too often watched Mantle step to the plate in the ninth inning of a and deliver a game-winning (or some other crucial) hit against the Tigers, but one of the greatest stories about Mantle that I've heard involves the Tigers' Denny McLain feeding his boyhood idle a home run pitch late in the 1968 season (the Tigers' won the World Series that year as well); late in Mantle's career (he retired in 1969).

From ESPN's Outside the Lines: Orchestrating a Record...

The Tigers' pitcher decided to help Mickey Mantle climb add to his home run total during the final series of Mantle's career.

Detroit led by five runs in the ninth when McLain shared his plan with Tiger's catcher Jim Price.

Denny McLain, 1968 AL MVP - I said I want you to tell Mantle to be ready. He said, what do you mean be ready? I said, you know, just let him hit the ball, but let him know that something is going on. He said, you mean cheat?

And I threw the first pitch literally on an arc, the ball came in on an arc. Strike one, Mantle takes it. He doesn't know what the hell is going on.

I throw the next pitch, Mantle takes it again for strike two. And I said, where the hell do you want the pitch. And he put his hand out about belt-high, in the middle inside part of the plate. I threw the ball there and he hit the home run.

I still believe that Mickey Mantle was the greatest baseball player ever. In the brief moment I shared with him, I managed to tell him that I had enjoyed reading his book, The Mick. He thanked me, shook my hand, grinned his big Mick grin, and then held his hand out for the next person in line.

He would die about eight years later.