David Levy ✡️❤️

"When Mickey Mantle Sr. was a boy, his father took him to Cardinal games in St. Louis, 300 miles away. "We’d go to the Fairgrounds Hotel by Sportsmen’s Park where Musial and Slaughter ate breakfast," he said. "We’d just sit there and look at ’em. He never let me go over and get an autograph. Just to sit and look at ’em was unbelievable." When he got to the Yankees, years later, George Weiss, the general manager, took him aside and said, if anyone asks: "Just act like Joe DiMaggio is your hero and the Yankees are your favorite team, okay?" Sure, Mantle said. He played 18 years, hit 18 home runs in 12 World Series, a record he still holds. He says he should have quit in 1965. But he always wanted to play longer than he could, longer than he did. Every time he is introduced at a banquet and the speaker says: "He had a lifetime .298 average," Mantle thinks, "you sonofabitch, quit saying it." You remember the painful tableaus; Mantle collapsed in the base line; Mantle catching his spike in the cyclone fence in Baltimore; Mantle playing in the 1961 World Series with blood seeping through his uniform. "I didn’t hurt as bad as everybody thought I did," he said. "I still ran down to first base faster than anyone." "The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood." Jane Leavy.

"I'm very pleased and very proud of my accomplishments, but I'm most proud of hitting 400 home runs and 3000 hits. Not Ted Williams, not Lou Gehrig, not Joe DiMaggio did that. They were Cadillac's and I'm a Chevrolet." Carl Yastrzemski. September 12, 1979.

"Ted Simmons used to drive me crazy when he was a young catcher. One day he called time and came out to ask if I was giving him a hard time. I said: "I’m trying to win the ballgame. I don’t have the luxury of giving you a hard time." Simmons was a bright guy and he learned. It took him a while, but he caught on. As a 19 year old rookie, all he thought about was hitting line drives, which he did very well. You can forgive a catcher for a lot of sins when he clears the bases with a double." Bob Gibson. "That was the greatest thrill of my life, catching a no-hitter. Man, Bob Gibson was throwing fire." Ted Simmons. On Aug. 14, 1971 at Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium, Ted Simmons caught Bob Gibson's only career no-hitter, in an 11-0 rout of the Pirates, and became the only catcher in Cardinals history to collect four hits while catching a no-hitter. Ted Simmons was behind the plate in 1,769 games; 1,578 were complete games! Simmons caught 122 shutouts, was an eight-time All-Star, batted above .300 seven times, hit twenty-or-more home runs six times, and drove in 90+ RBI nine times. Despite his incredible offensive numbers, only 5% of the "Baseball Writers' Association of America" voted for him on the 1994 Hall of Fame ballot, making him ineligible. In 2019, the Modern Baseball Era Committee elected Ted Simmons to the National Baseball Hall of Fame! "There are things about some professional athletes that I cannot stand, the pretense, the egos, the pomposity, the greed." Ted Simmons. Retired with more RBI than Johnny Bench, more runs scored than Gary Carter, more hits than Carlton Fisk, higher batting average than Yogi Berra. Drove in more RBI than all catchers except Yogi Berra. Ted Simmons rebelled against baseball’s reserve clause, refused to sign a $25,000 contract, feeling he deserved bigger raise. An anti-war activist, heavily criticized the Nixon administration, and wore his hair so long that he was nicknamed “Simba.” Legend!!! Simmons and Gibson!