Name: Mickey Mantle's Hangover Home Run | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-08-13T15:00:59.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mickey Mantle's Hangover Home Run | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mickey Mantle's Hangover Home Run | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-13. Transcript available.

Our next guest is certainly a baseball legend in the truest sense of the word.
He played more games as a New York Yankee than any other person to ever wear
the pinstripes.
An amazing total of 2,401 games.
This man is also now a sportscaster and the man behind this video right here,
Play Ball with Mickey Mantle.
Folks, please welcome Mickey Mantle.
Hi Mickey, how you doing? Nice to see you again.
Come on over. Thank you.
Nice to see you.
You know, the last time you were here, I guess it was a year ago, a year and a
half ago, I'm not sure when, whatever.
You were nice enough to sign, you autographed my baseball glove,
and I'm telling you, as long as I've been doing this show or anything else in
show business,
that's still one of the nicest things I ever received from anybody I ever met
doing a show.
Great.
It's been great.
I heard you've been in a bit of a slump, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm hoping to break out of it in the 90s.
How are you feeling?
Good.
They told me you were going to play at Yankee Stadium.
Well, we're looking into it, yeah.
That'll be good.
You want to come up and help us?
See if you can hit one over that left center field fence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you let me D.A. each other.
Sure, we'll be happy to have you there.
Now, how are you feeling?
I feel good.
Yeah.
You had, a couple of months ago or so, we read some pretty scary headlines that
you were not feeling too good.
It wasn't as bad as it sounded.
I think I just ran out of gas.
I'd been down to Fort Lauderdale with Whitey and Billy for a couple of days,
and then I had to go to San Francisco.
I'm with an insurance company in Dallas, and we had our convention for five
days right after that.
Right.
And I come back, dropped my wife off, and went back to Fort Lauderdale with
Billy and Whitey for three or four more days,
and I just ran out of gas on the way home.
Yeah.
Is it like the old days at all when you and Billy and Whitey get together?
Now, are you guys, do you still go out and punish yourselves?
Well, that's exaggerated, too.
You know, I mean, like, I've played, like you said, 2,400 games for the Yankees,
and probably got maybe a little too much to drink five or six times.
I mean, it didn't work.
Oh, Mickey.
Mickey, come on.
Five, five.
It wasn't like it happened every week.
No, maybe five times in your entire career.
You had a little too much to drink.
Yeah, okay.
Mickey, you're in the Hall of Fame now.
You don't have to keep this up.
That's right.
When we first came up, Whitey and I and Billy all come up about the same time,
and I can remember that Allie Reynolds, the old guys, you know, like Reynolds
and Bauer and Woodling,
Low Pat, even Yogi, you know, some of them say, you guys better slow down.
You know, you're burning the candle at both ends.
You're not going to last very long.
And Whitey and I went in the Hall of Fame together, and he won more games than
anybody,
and I played more games as a Yankee than anybody.
Yeah.
Yeah, you had a very long career, but you actually finished at an early age,
early comparatively speaking to what players played through these days, right?
Well, I don't know if you read my book or not, but I have a book out,
and if there's any moral to it, it's for kids to take good care of themselves,
you know,
because I say in the book if, you know, like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and
Pete Rose, Stan Musial,
all those guys that are up at the top in those statistics for a lifetime are
guys that took care of themselves.
Yeah.
I retired when I was 36 years old, but I was over the hill probably when I was
33, so.
Do you ever get the sense that looking back on it now that maybe, of course,
they didn't have the DH rule then, did they?
No.
When you retired.
But that would have prolonged the career, certainly, huh?
Well, no, I wouldn't have kept playing.
Really?
I was through.
They put me on first base to save my legs.
I couldn't play first base.
Sounds like me.
That's me, Friday.
Is that where they put you?
Yeah.
Just don't embarrass the team.
That's what I'm doing on first.
But now, when you guys would be on the road, you and Billy Martin and Whitey
Ford,
and you would have, like, a game that you weren't going to play or maybe you
were off a day,
I mean, would you ever go out and get crazy?
I mean, tell us about one of those five occasions, Mickey.
Well, I'll tell you about one time when I thought I was on the disabled list.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I came back on the active list and didn't know it.
Didn't realize it.
Whitey had paid.
We were in Washington, and there's a couple from Dallas.
I live in Dallas, and they had moved from Dallas.
They were developers, land developers, and they had bought some land like a
farm out in the country.
It was playing in Baltimore, and this farm was between Baltimore and Washington
somewhere.
I don't have any idea where it was at.
It was farther than I thought it was.
Anyway.
It always is, isn't it?
Whitey had pitched on a Saturday afternoon.
So he's off.
And won the game.
So he knows he's not going to play again for four more days.
That's what's good about being a pitcher, right?
Anyway, I'm thinking I'm on the disabled list, which I was on that Saturday.
I couldn't have played that Saturday.
So we went over and had dinner with these people and had a couple, you know,
and went out to the farm.
Instead of coming back to the ballpark, we was going to stay all night in the
farm, and they had some wine or something there at the house, you know.
And we had a couple more drinks after we got.
Anyway, I woke up Sunday morning in a porch swing on this farm, and I had, like,
dew in my eyebrows.
So I figured I better start trying to find Whitey, and he luckily was in the
house on the couch, I guess, or something.
Anyway, by the time we get around, it's about time to go to the ballpark again.
So we didn't even go by the hotel.
We just went right straight to the ballpark in Baltimore, and Hank Bauer at
that time was with Baltimore.
And Whitey went out first, and Hank had seen him and told him, you know, like,
you know, I got a pocket full of Tic Tacs here.
Why don't you have some of them?
Whitey said, well, you think I'm bad?
Why don't you see Mick?
You know, anyway, I come out, and I saw Hank and Whitey.
I went over and talked to him.
He said, my God.
He said, has Halk seen you?
And I said, no.
He said, Halk was our manager at that time.
He said, you guys better get in the outfield, you know, and none of us thought
I could play.
Anyway, to make a long story, this is getting to be a long story anyway.
I'm laying down there on the end of the dugout about the seventh or eighth
inning asleep.
Laying.
I wasn't laying down in the dugout.
I'm just, like, with my head on Whitey's shoulder.
So Whitey says, get up.
Here comes Halk.
You know, so I'm, like, I'm watching a game, you know, and Halk says, can you
hit?
And I said, I can't play them on the inactive list.
He said, no, you come back on the active list today.
Can you hit?
And I said, well, yeah, you know, and I don't have my cap.
Well, I can't find my cap.
Whitey's sitting on my ball cap.
The bill of it's, like, smashed together, you know.
Anyway, I finally get up to the plate, and I, just as soon as I come out of the
dugout with my bat,
here comes Hank Bauer out of the Baltimore dugout and goes out and talks to the
pitcher.
Yeah.
And I know what he said.
He said, hey, whatever you do, don't walk this guy.
And the first pitch he threw me, I hit a home run over the center field fence.
Yeah.
That was the easy part.
The hard part was running around the basement.
What are we doing here?
Geez, Mickey, I'm glad to see you looking so great.
You look terrific, and have a wonderful summer and a great season.
I hope things continue to go the way the men are so far.
I feel good.
Hey, Doug, you know, you ought to use that thing.
Maybe you'll learn how to do it.
I'll take a look at this.
Gary Carter and Tom Sieber.
Tom Sieber, Mickey Mantle, and Gary Carter.
And they show you everything you need to know to be as successful as you are.
Yeah.
Yeah, or what to do when you wake up on the front porch.
We'll be right back, folks, with Dougie and Tom.