Mickey Mantle

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio, whose classic swing and classy persona made him one of the most revered sports figures of the 20th century, died early yesterday after a five-month battle with lung cancer. He was 84.Mr. DiMaggio passed away at his Hollywood, Fla., home from complications after the removal of a cancerous tumor from his lung last October. His funeral will be Thursday in Northern California, with burial in the San Francisco area, where he grew up and began his professional baseball career.

There were a couple of days last week when "Fat Jack's" place in Easton, Pa., more closely resembled the legendary TV bar "Cheers" than just another sports hangout in small-town America.Thrust into the role of Sam Malone, as portrayed by Ted Danson so ably on the tube, was the owner of the establishment, Jack Fisher.First, ESPN's cameras were there reminiscing about the last days of Roger Maris' charge to supplant Babe Ruth as the all-time, one-season home run king, and Fisher played a significant role.

With the sun spreading its vast Technicolor glow along York Road, and with thousands streaming into the Towsontown Festival, and with the music of their laughter filling the weekend air, this kid was spotted outside the Towson Library. Immediately, he made you want to cancel spring and issue a factory recall for winter.He was maybe 14 years old and wore a black T-shirt and a smirk. The T-shirt said "Nazi Punk." The smirk said: I am a geek who thinks this is cool, and I have no idea what I am doing.

As a genuine American sports legend, Mickey Mantle was always accorded star treatment. When cops realized whom they had just pulled over for drunk driving, they inevitably closed their ticket books and drove the Yankee slugger home. When he drunkenly barreled his car into a telephone pole, nearly decapitating his wife Merlyn, the whole affair was hushed up. Not a word made the papers.But now, a little more than a year after Mantle's death, a new book has been published that lays bare Mantle's shortcomings, which seem every bit as titanic as his tape measure home runs.

Topps has been repackaging Mickey Mantle this baseball card season and now is giving him the cereal-box treatment.To honor Mantle, who died last year and whose cards are among the most sought, Topps has reprinted cards from his 19 major-league seasons. Picture this American hero on the all-American breakfast table and you have Mantle's latest morph.The 19 Topps and Bowman Mantle cards selected for 1996 Topps Baseball will be turning up on Topps Baseball Mickey Mantle Cereal Box sets. Each card, plus the redesigned commemorative No. 7 card, will be featured on a box the size of a single-serving cereal box. Each box will be packed with 110 cards from '96 Topps Baseball and a randomly selected Mantle reproduction.

When Oakland's Geronimo Berroa hit his 35th homer last weekend, he and Mark McGwire, who had 46 at the time, set a club record for most homers by teammates. McGwire and Jose Canseco set the record in 1987, when that duo hit 80. The major-league record is 115, by Mickey Mantle (54) and Roger Maris (61) of the 1961 New York Yankees.Cleveland finished the year 7-17 against Texas and New York, the other two division leaders.When Mike Greenwell drove in nine runs in Boston's 9-8 win over Seattle on Monday, he broke a record held by Bob Johnson, who drove in eight in the Philadelphia Athletics' 8-0 win over St. Louis on June 12, 1938.

"The Last Hero: The Life of Mickey Mantle," by David Falkner. Illustrated. Simon & Schuster. 255 pages. $24There's no attempt to alter the reputation or rework the imagof Mickey Mantle, who, like the line in one of those country and western ballads he so much enjoyed and sometimes personified, "lived fast, loved hard, died young and left a beautiful memory." jTC The latest book about him, in the lexicon of a game he once dominated with such natural effusion, is an absolute Grand Slam winner.

Some men dream of owning palatial estates, sea-going yachts and all the money they can count for the rest of their lifetimes. Paul Wajbel isn't one of them. What he wants to do is of more modest and meaningful purpose . . . it's about building a baseball park in the suburbs, specifically Dundalk, for the use of amateur teams.Wajbel is a businessman; he operates General Die Finishing Inc., and for the last two years has sponsored one of the Baltimore area's most successful sandlot organizations.

Whoever it was who said "Into each life some rain must fall" must have worked for a newspaper on its last legs . . . or meant it as a prayer for a region like ours that could use about a four-day dousing to begin an hour ago.As we muse for one of the last times (promise) about this section, it's time to drag out our notebook of lists, bests and worsts, lows and highs, the pitiable and pitiful and some good old-fashioned name-dropping.Among the top three smartest moves I ever made was coming here to The Evening Sun. And memorable was that first day, a Monday in mid-October, 1965.

Cal Ripken as the object of collectors' affection is not just a local phenomenon. Baltimore remains the center of activity and the source of many collectibles, but more out-of-towners are signing on as Ripken approaches Lou Gehrig's streak.That's why Mark Kerwin, devoted Indians fan from Cleveland, was in Pikesville last weekend at a card show -- to buy, sell and swap Ripken items.He began collecting Ripkeniana in 1991 and started dealing by mail the next year. He went to Baltimore-area shows and discovered that collectors wanted "oddball" items, not regular-issue cards.

As the years had passed, they had all scattered to some degree. They owned restaurants, they ran companies and small businesses, they sold products, marketed products, produced products, and one in particular - whom Calvert Hall's class of 1992 will never forget - served as a paramedic for the state police. But there they were, drawn together by unexpected phone calls, jarring e-mails and news reports that just didn't make sense. Did you hear? They were coming home from vacations. Enjoying the weekend.

A scout's take On Hanley Ramirez, Florida's 22-year-old rookie shortstop, who is batting .273 with 19 steals and 50 runs scored Defense -- He's got quickness, great instincts with his feet and hands and has a plus arm. He's just instinctive. He gets great jumps and has tremendous range and arm strength. He'll be in the top class of shortstops. He'll be in the discussion as one of the game's best shortstops in the next two or three years. Attitude -- He was a little maligned in his makeup with the Red Sox, but this is a great, great kid. He has a great work ethic, has fun playing and is a great teammate.

BEFORE WE GET to this business of a ballplayer's chewed bubble gum fetching thousands of dollars in an online auction, a word about baseball memorabilia from a simpler time. One day, when I was a young boy living in southern New York, my uncle took me to a game at Yankee Stadium. As we walked near the players' entrance a few hours before the game, I spotted the great Mickey Mantle and asked him for an autograph. At first, Mantle looked at me the way you'd look at a fingernail in your soup.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio, whose classic swing and classy persona made him one of the most revered sports figures of the 20th century, died early yesterday after a five-month battle with lung cancer. He was 84.Mr. DiMaggio passed away at his Hollywood, Fla., home from complications after the removal of a cancerous tumor from his lung last October. His funeral will be Thursday in Northern California, with burial in the San Francisco area, where he grew up and began his professional baseball career.

There were a couple of days last week when "Fat Jack's" place in Easton, Pa., more closely resembled the legendary TV bar "Cheers" than just another sports hangout in small-town America.Thrust into the role of Sam Malone, as portrayed by Ted Danson so ably on the tube, was the owner of the establishment, Jack Fisher.First, ESPN's cameras were there reminiscing about the last days of Roger Maris' charge to supplant Babe Ruth as the all-time, one-season home run king, and Fisher played a significant role.

With the sun spreading its vast Technicolor glow along York Road, and with thousands streaming into the Towsontown Festival, and with the music of their laughter filling the weekend air, this kid was spotted outside the Towson Library. Immediately, he made you want to cancel spring and issue a factory recall for winter.He was maybe 14 years old and wore a black T-shirt and a smirk. The T-shirt said "Nazi Punk." The smirk said: I am a geek who thinks this is cool, and I have no idea what I am doing.

As a genuine American sports legend, Mickey Mantle was always accorded star treatment. When cops realized whom they had just pulled over for drunk driving, they inevitably closed their ticket books and drove the Yankee slugger home. When he drunkenly barreled his car into a telephone pole, nearly decapitating his wife Merlyn, the whole affair was hushed up. Not a word made the papers.But now, a little more than a year after Mantle's death, a new book has been published that lays bare Mantle's shortcomings, which seem every bit as titanic as his tape measure home runs.

When Oakland's Geronimo Berroa hit his 35th homer last weekend, he and Mark McGwire, who had 46 at the time, set a club record for most homers by teammates. McGwire and Jose Canseco set the record in 1987, when that duo hit 80. The major-league record is 115, by Mickey Mantle (54) and Roger Maris (61) of the 1961 New York Yankees.Cleveland finished the year 7-17 against Texas and New York, the other two division leaders.When Mike Greenwell drove in nine runs in Boston's 9-8 win over Seattle on Monday, he broke a record held by Bob Johnson, who drove in eight in the Philadelphia Athletics' 8-0 win over St. Louis on June 12, 1938.

Topps has been repackaging Mickey Mantle this baseball card season and now is giving him the cereal-box treatment.To honor Mantle, who died last year and whose cards are among the most sought, Topps has reprinted cards from his 19 major-league seasons. Picture this American hero on the all-American breakfast table and you have Mantle's latest morph.The 19 Topps and Bowman Mantle cards selected for 1996 Topps Baseball will be turning up on Topps Baseball Mickey Mantle Cereal Box sets. Each card, plus the redesigned commemorative No. 7 card, will be featured on a box the size of a single-serving cereal box. Each box will be packed with 110 cards from '96 Topps Baseball and a randomly selected Mantle reproduction.

"The Last Hero: The Life of Mickey Mantle," by David Falkner. Illustrated. Simon & Schuster. 255 pages. $24There's no attempt to alter the reputation or rework the imagof Mickey Mantle, who, like the line in one of those country and western ballads he so much enjoyed and sometimes personified, "lived fast, loved hard, died young and left a beautiful memory." jTC The latest book about him, in the lexicon of a game he once dominated with such natural effusion, is an absolute Grand Slam winner.