One More Autograph
(Excerpted from the award-winning DVD, Mickey Mantle: The American Dream Comes To Life^®- The Lost Stories Special Edition. Click Here to learn more about it. Click Here to see an outline of the contents of the DVD.)

Not too long ago, I remember they thought I was having a heart attack on an airplane. I had a real bad cold. It was almost like walking pneumonia or something - I could hardly breathe on the plane. I was getting a little scared myself, so I asked the stewardess, "What do you do if someone has a heart attack?" She looked at me and she said, "My god, you better go sit down. I'll give you some oxygen."

They called the paramedics and they came to the door of the plane when it arrived in Dallas. I still had the oxygen on me that they had put on in the plane. They put me on a stretcher and put the thing in my nose and the oxygen on my face. They were pulling me out of there and some guy was standing outside the door. He yells "Hey, that's Mickey Mantle!" And he says, "Say Mick, would you sign this for me?" He had a piece of paper and pen for me to sign.

Well, they went ahead and took me to the hospital and checked me all over. The next day they gave me an angiogram (a heart test), to see how my heart was. It turned out I was okay, and just had a very bad cold.

But I got to thinking about that guy wanting an autograph. I mean, as far as he knew, I was dying. I went to New York pretty soon after that, so I made up a story for the New York press.

I told them that I'd dreamed that night that I'd died and gone to heaven. I finally got in to see God and God said, "Well, Mick, I'm sorry, but we can't keep you up here because of the way you acted on Earth."

But he said, "Would you do me a favor?" I said, "What's that, God?" He said "Before you go, would you sign those two dozen baseballs there for me?" And I thought that was really funny.