The Guy Who Passed Out on the Porch

August 3, 1963.  Two fellas find their way to a farmhouse somewhere between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, Maryland.  Dinner.  Drinks.  A bunch of drinks. They spend the night.  One crashed on the couch while the other slept outdoors on a porch swing. He said that when he woke up, the morning dew was in his eyebrows. They both had to be at work in Baltimore for their shift that was scheduled to start at 4:53 PM on Saturday, August 4th.  Cutting it close, they made it to work on time.

This one is in Montgomery County, Maryland

They were pretty banged up, and the one who slept on the couch smelled enough like booze that he was given Tic Tacs.  The other one grabbed a seat out of the view of his boss and did all that he could to hide.  It didn’t work – baseball players.  Sitting in the dugout, it was a chore for the one who slept on the porch even to find his hat.  He was called upon by his manager to take the plate in the 7th inning, with his team down by one run. 

When he got to the plate, the manager from the opposing team walked out to the mound to have a word with his pitcher.  He told him not to worry about the batter – because the batter had been out drinking all night.  The manager figured his reflexes would be slow, and his vision would likely be blurred.  No reason to throw him any balls.  Give him the heat – this one will be an easy out.

One pitch was thrown.  Then the game was tied. 

It was 445 feet to the center field fence at Memorial Field in 1963. That’s where he put the ball.

This story was told on late-night TV in 1987, and when he got to the part where he hit the home run – there was quick applause. He said the most challenging part was running the bases. America loves the story – a guy so good that even when drunk, he clears the fence when his team needs him to. 

Just seven years after he told that story, Mickey Mantle would have a liver transplant.  Then, two months after that…he was gone.

I have his card and his autograph. Actually, my son does now.  I watch his interviews, and I read his book.  We’ve all seen the pictures of him with Bobby Kennedy, him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and, of course, LIFE.  

Great pictures.  Great stories.

As Mantle aged, he started telling a different story.  Please don’t do what I did.  Take care of your body.  He went from a rhetoric of pride to a rhetoric of regret. 

I asked AI to tell me how many home runs Mickey Mantle would have hit if he didn’t drink, and took being a ball player more seriously – like Jeter did, and like Aaron Judge does today.  AI projects Mantle would have hit 800 home runs.  Even juiced-up Barry Bonds couldn’t get there. 

It doesn’t matter if AI is correct or not.  What matters is that Mickey Mantle knew this long before AI even existed.  As one of the greatest players ever to play the game, he didn’t know what he wanted.  And when he finally figured it out, all he could do was say Oops.  There’s no DeLorean DMC-12 Mickey.  You can’t go back in time.    

Something we will never know is what Mickey Mantle really wanted when he was playing ball.  The noise around him was so loud, and he was so famous – he might not have known either.  For most of us, our minds are focused on fiction – and it’s not until we stop chasing fiction that we can really love our world and the people who are in it. 

Can’t go back.  But with the right focus, we can go forward differently. 

That’s the gift Mantle left us – not the records or the rings or the towering home runs – but the vulnerability he showed in the end. It takes a different kind of strength to stand at a podium and say, “Don’t be like me.”

It’s strange how regret works. It doesn’t hit all at once like a fastball. It creeps in like a slow curve. One day you’re living loud, the next you’re whispering apologies to people you’ve let down – sometimes even to the kid version of yourself.

Don’t think this is glum chum.  This isn’t a pity party – it’s a turning point. Because regret isn’t the end of the story.  It can actually be the middle. It can be the plot twist. It can even be the beginning.

I still carry Mantle’s story with me – not just because of who he was, but because of who he tried to become. That means something to me now. That you can be a legend on the field and still fall short in life – and that your truth, when you finally tell it, might help someone else rise.

There’s no time machine. But there is today. And today, we get to choose differently. We get to show up for our kids, not just hand them the cards and autographs—but the stories. The lessons. The truth.

Mantle said, “If I had known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” That line used to make me laugh. Now it makes me stop and think.

So I’m taking better care of myself.

I'm swinging at fewer bad pitches – metaphorically and otherwise.

I'm trying to stay present.

I'm doing my best to become the kind of man my son will quote one day – not because I was perfect, but because I learned.

And if you're reading this…maybe you can too. Maybe we all can.

The real home run isn't in the distance the ball travels. It’s in the courage it takes to step back up to the plate, and try once more.  We don’t need to be perfect to be powerful. We just need to be awake. And present. And willing. We have more at-bats coming. Be ready. Make them count.