Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 359

transplant. Mantle received the transplant at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas on June 8, 1995.

In July, Mantle had recovered enough to deliver a press conference at Baylor, and addressed fans. Mantle returned to the hospital in late July, and the cancer was found to have spread throughout his body. Doctors observed that it was among the most aggressive cancers that they had ever treated and felt that the antirejection drugs administered to Mantle for his liver transplant had helped the cancer spread so quickly.

Mantle died at 2:10 AM on August 13, 1995, at Baylor University Medical Center with his wife Merlyn and son David at his side, five months after his mother had died at age 91. He was 63 years old.

The Yankees played the Indians that day and honored him with a

tribute. The team played the rest of the season with black mourning bands topped by a number 7 on their left sleeves. At Mantle's funeral, Eddie Layton played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the Hammond organ because Mickey had once told him that it was his favorite song. Roy Clark sang and played "Yesterday, When I Was Young."

In eulogizing Mantle at the funeral service, sportscaster Bob Costas described him as "a fragile hero to whom we had an