Johnny Bench recalls being a child and watching Mickey Mantle play on television. An announcer mentioned that Mantle was from Oklahoma, Bench’s home state, and Bench immediately asked his father, “You can be from Oklahoma and play in the major leagues?”
Ken “Hawk” Harrelson remembers standing in right field at Fenway, crying, as Mantle took what would be last at-bat of his career in 1968. Tim McCarver relives Mantle’s walk-off homer in Game 3 of the 1964 World Series, saying the “glow of the people when the great Mantle homered” is something he’ll never forget, though he was catching for the Cardinals at the time.