Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 7, 1995 TAG: 9506070093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: DALLAS LENGTH: Medium
Mantle, 63, was admitted May 28 to Baylor University Medical Center. Denise Kile Walton, a hospital spokeswoman, said he was in stable condition.
Roy True, a Dallas attorney and longtime friend of the former New York Yankees center fielder, said in a statement that doctors have characterized Mantle's condition as progressive liver failure due to infection.
True quoted Drs. Daniel DeMarco and Kent Hamilton, specialists in gastroenterology, as saying Mantle may need a liver transplant. They said he will remain hospitalized until he has been treated and recovered sufficiently.
True did not immediately return calls to The Associated Press, although he told The Dallas Morning News for today's editions that Mantle is in good spirits and wants to know more about his condition.
``I told him it was probably good you can be a legitimate candidate for a transplant,'' True said. Reached by the Morning News in his hospital room Tuesday, Mantle said only, ``I'm not doing too good.''
Mantle's doctors have scheduled a news conference at 10 a.m. today at the hospital. Robert Goldstein, one of the hospital's liver transplant specialists, is to attend.
``He's had a liver problem for a long time,'' Hamilton told the newspaper. ``I don't know that this will get better without'' a transplant.
A timetable for a possible transplant ``depends on how he does, the waiting list and the donor organs,'' Hamilton said, adding Mantle's poor condition should increase his chances as a candidate.
Mantle and his wife, Merlyn, live in Dallas, as do their sons Danny, David and Mickey Jr.
Mantle was hospitalized in May with stomach problems. His son, David, said at the time his father was doing much better. He called his father's stomach ailment ``just one of those things.''
Mantle joked during his playing days that he would have taken better care of himself if he had known he was going to live this long. He comes from a family with a history of health problems and has had a variety of ailments in recent years, including a highly publicized bout with alcoholism. He spent a month at the Betty Ford Center in 1994.
In April 1987, he was admitted to an Irving hospital after complaining of chest pains. Tests that year revealed he suffered from exhaustion and mild pneumonia.
Yogi Berra, a Hall of Fame catcher and longtime teammate, said Tuesday night he spoke with Mantle last week when Mantle entered the hospital.
``He said he had some kind of stomach problem and was going to get a physical,'' Berra said from his home in Montclair, N.J. ``He knew he was sick then, but he didn't know what it was. Whitey Ford talked to him this afternoon, but [Mantle] was pretty heavily sedated.''
Word of Mantle's condition reached major-league owners in Minneapolis, where they are trying to sort out the sport's labor problems.
``He's one of my heroes,'' acting comissioner Bud Selig said.
Said Yankees owner George Steinbrenner: ``It's tragic.''
Added Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley: ``We'll just keep good thoughts and hope everything works out.''
In a first-person ``Sports Illustrated'' article in 1994, titled ``Time in a Bottle,'' Mantle wrote of seeing his doctor and learning the outcome of his liver tests.
``When the MRI results came back the following day, the doctor called me into his office and said, `Mickey your liver is still working, but it has healed itself so many times that before long you're just going to have one big scab for a liver. Eventually you'll need a new liver. Look, I'm not going to lie to you: The next drink you take might be your last.'''
Mantle soon asked for help.
While with the Yankees, Mantle's physical condition - numerous injuries and a lifelong battle with osteomyelitis that nearly crippled his legs - posed the greatest obstacles in a Baseball Hall of Fame career.
Even in retirement, Mantle led a life in the fast lane, never knowing whether the same disease that killed his father would catch up with him at an early age.
Mantle was the only male member of his family to live past the age of 41. His father died at 41 from Hodgkin's disease, a lymphatic cancer; his grandfather died at 40 from the same ailment.
One of Mickey Mantle's sons, Billy, died of a heart attack in 1994 after a long struggle with Hodgkin's disease. He was 36.
by CNB