61*2001

Mickey Mantle:
[Talking at the bar with Roger] You know, when I first came up, Casey and everybody gave me so much pressure, saying I was going to be the next Joe DiMaggio, so they gave me the number 6, right? Ruth was 3, Gehrig was 4, DiMaggio was 5, and me, number 6. I hated that. And the press, they was all over me, calling me a hillbilly. I was, I mean, I came in with a $4 suitcase and a $8 dollar suit. My hometown's got 2,000 people, Yankee Stadium's got 40 times that. 19 years old and everyone's expecting me to hit a home run every time I get up to the plate. It was killing me. Couldn't hit the ball. So they sent me down to the minors. Couldn't hit there, neither. So I called my dad and I said,"I'm giving up. Can't play no more." So he asked me where I'm at. Kansas City was where I was, and he drove up and grabbed all my sh*t and put it in a suitcase, and he said, "I'm taking you home, then. You're going to work the mines with me the rest of your life." I started crying, and he just let me have it, boy. He said, "I thought I raised a man. You ain't nothing but a coward. Be a man." Truth was, I was lonesome... scared. Anyways, I started hitting after that, and they called me back up and gave me the number 7. I was glad of that, I hated that number 6.