‘Don’t be like me’

Mickey Mantle during his final public appearance 31 years ago today

Just a month before he dies, a terminally ill Mickey Mantle makes his final public appearance 31 years ago today to promote the awareness of organ donation programs.

A lifetime of alcohol abuse leads the Hall of Famer to receiving a donated liver just a month earlier in early June 1995.

After his plea for others to donate their organs to those in need, Mantle dies shortly afterward on Aug. 13, 1995 – 10 weeks shy of his 64th birthday.

Before then, Mantle uses his fading voice but still considerable influence to tell young adults to “don’t be like me.”

“All you have to do is look at me and see where (my life) was wasted,” Mantle says on this date in 1995 during a 30-minute press conference from Baylor University Hospital.

Mantle makes his comments a few hours before the 66th All-Star Game in nearby Arlington, Texas.

“I want to get across to the kids not to drink or do drugs,” Mantle says.

“Mom and dad should be the role models. That’s what I think. I was given so much and I blew it.”

While he uses his final public appearance to promote the use of organ donor cards, Mantle confesses that he has not done so.

“What would you want from me?” Mantle whimsically and rhetorically asks. “Everything I have is worn out.”

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