(Originally published by the Daily News on August 14, 1995.)
He came to us carrying a straw suitcase and a couple of bats, this shy and scared country boy out of the mining country of Oklahoma. Mickey Mantle was pure hush puppies and hominy grits and about as far removed from the big city's neon and glitz as a rookie could possibly be.
It is that Norman Rockwell image more than any other that came to mind yesterday morning after word came out of Baylor hospital in Dallas that Mantle was gone at age 63.