Mantle Opinion

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by David Atkatz

On August 28, 1966 Mickey signed this baseball for me outside the Stadium. As we often did, my friend Howie and I walked to Yankee Stadium to get some autographs. My uncle had given me a brand new OAL (Cronin) ball, and I had it with me. We arrived at the Stadium about the sixth inning, and there was absolutely no one outside the player's entrance. Howie and I sat down on the iron pipe fencing on either side of the entrance--he on one side of the door, me on the other--with our backs to the door, facing the chain-link fence entrance to the player's parking lot directly across the street.
After fifteen minutes or so, someone left the building. As he passed me, walking directly away from the Stadium towards the parking lot, I realized that the red-polo-shirted blond with the widest neck I had ever seen was my baseball idol. I ran after him, imploring him to stop and sign: "Mickey, Mickey, please... I'll never have this chance again... Please... " I got to him just as he entered the parking lot. Without turning around he slammed the chain-link door in my face. So I ran down the block to where the cars exited and entered the lot. I was standing at the gate, clutching the ball and a pen in my fifteen-year-old hands, when Mickey stopped his car (a Chrysler Imperial with Texas plates), rolled down his window, took the pen and the ball, signed it, handed it back, and drove on. He never said a word.

GREAT STORY David, thanks for sharing it!