| | Quotes on Mantle
"On two legs, Mickey Mantle would have been the greatest ball player who ever lived"
--On Mantle's retirement, Nellie Fox
"Mickey Mantle is the strongest hitter in the game. He's the only one who hits the ball so hard, he knocks the spin off it. Catching a liner from him is like catching a knuckleball. It flutters all over."
--Jim Busby, in The Sporting News, 1955
"The line I'll remember as long as I live about Mantle is the one some writer wrote: 'Mickey Mantle is a celebrity in his own clubhouse.' He was super in everything."
--Clete Boyer, quoted by Clark Nelson of the Boston Post
"What did he lead the league in? He led the league in manhood, that's what."
--Jackie Farrell, Yankee publicist on Mantle's 1962 MVP season when he didn't lead the league in homers, average or rbi's
"To Mickey, the greatest of them all. Best Always, Roger Maris"
--signed ball owned by Mantle
"Mickey loves people, he always overtips, and he's big-hearted. He's got a heart as big as Yankee Stadium."
--Billy Martin, quoted from Number 1
"Always within Mantle is the knowledge that any game he plays could be his last--one throw, one swing, one slide could write the end of his major league career. Yet Mick plays every game to the hilt, a tremendous tribute to his courage."
--Tom Meany, quoted in Sport, 1957
"Until I saw Mantle peel down for his shower in the clubhouse at Comiskey Park one afternoon, I never knew how he developed his brutal power, but his bare back looked like a barrelful of snakes."
--Dale Lancaster, quoted in Baseball Stars of 1963
"This man hit 531 homers and did everything else he did on one leg."
--Paul Richards, former White Sox and Oriole manager
"The imprint of baseball greatness is upon Mickey Mantle just as surely as the portrait of Thomas Jefferson graces the current three-cent stamp, but it may still take a while before the American sporting public becomes aware of the magnitude of Mickey's talents."
--Harold Rosenthal, quoted in the Sport
"It shows what you can accomplish if you stay up all night drinking whiskey all the time."
--Toots Shor on the Hall of Fame induction of Mantle and Whitey Ford
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ALSO SEE
Friday - SportsCentury biography of Mickey Mantle
More on the Mick
Quotes
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