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A Look at Youth Baseball Bats
When selecting youth baseball bats it is important to consider the bat's length, weight, barrel width, and league requirements. While wood bats are available, most people select aluminum or cutting-edge alloy bats for youth baseball. A general rule...
Are You A Side-Line Coach
With spring in the air, flower’s and baseball are in full bloom. As the father of a nine-year old son, each day is spent perfecting the art of baseball. This includes making that perfect pitch to first base, snagging those ground balls and...
Baseball Gifts to Award The Men in Your Life
How about an MVP commemorative baseball gift for a keepsake? Or a Stay Cool Sports Towel? What about a Louisville Tpx Youth Equipment Bag? Or for the enthusiastic amateur consider an instructional video such as “A Parent's Guide to Baseball”? There...
Softball: Olympic Sport No Longer?
Softball has been around since a man named George Hancock first
invented the game in 1887 in Chicago. It took over 100 years,
but women's fast pitch softball became an Olympic event in 1996.
Fast pitch is different from the looping, relaxed...
The Jack LaLanne Principle
A couple of weeks ago a number of football players from the
football team the Minnesota Vikings were revealed to have been
part of a cruise on Lake Minnetonka where great quantities of
alcohol were consumed and some of the players had sex...
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Meeting Mickey Mantle
Meeting Mickey Mantle
Meeting Mickey Mantle would be a dream comes true. A dream realized for Dan on his 38th birthday, when his wife honored him with a week long stay at the Yankee Fantasy Camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Dan played with some of the Yankee legends: Bobby Murcer, Mickey Rivers, Ron Guidry, Moose Skowron and Catfish Hunter. The games were great and being on the same field with some of the players he had watched on TV or at Yankee Stadium was mesmerizing.
But what made the week particularly special was the friendship he nurtured with his hero. The Mick even gave Dan a nickname - “Nails” for the scrappy, Lenny Dykstra-way that Dan played. While Mickey didn’t play in these games, he did spend a lot of time with all the campers. Dan took this time to get to know Mickey. He loved his down to earth quality. He loved his honesty. He loved being around him.
“Getting to know Mickey Mantle was as much fun as playing with the pros,” Dan told me later.
In one of the games that Mickey was umpiring, Dan strolled to the plate with the bases loaded. His big
chance was here and he didn’t miss the opportunity as he walloped a long double into the gap. He hit a rope, and as he glided into second base Mickey yelled to him, “You hit the sh*^ out of that ball, Nails!”
This was like a call from God. Hearing his idol tell him how well he hit the ball was more fulfilling than Dan could ever have imagined.
What could be better than meeting and then hanging out with Mickey Mantle? How about being recognized as a ballplayer by your childhood hero?
It doesn’t get any better than that.
This story was contributed by Dan Markim. A long time Yankee fan.
Written by Aron Wallad
About the Author
Aron Wallad has been a baseball lover for over 40 years. Writing about his favorite subject, baseball, has been a blessing. You will enjoy the tender stories, the unusual statistics and inspiring quotes. But mostly you will love the heartwarming stories that hit a home run to your heart.
Go here for inspiring baseball stories :
BaseballsPrideAndJoy.com
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