Mantle Says Doctors Told Him He Had One Day to Live

Mickey Mantle doesn’t understand why people think he got preferential treatment in receiving a new liver, he said in his first interview since the surgery.

“You know, people think I got that liver because of who I am, but they have rules they go by,” Mantle told the New York Daily News. “They told me I had one day to live. If I hadn’t got this one, I wouldn’t have made it.”

Mantle was hospitalized May 28 and received a new liver June 8, two days after he was put on the list of patients in need of an organ donor.

The transplant was done when doctors found Mantle had progressive liver failure they linked to a small malignant tumor, more than 40 years of excessive drinking, and a long dormant hepatitis C infection.

Mantle, 63, was released from Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas on Wednesday after continuing to show significant improvement from the surgery. He is staying at his youngest son Danny’s home in North Dallas.

Mantle’s doctors have said the former New York Yankee slugger’s outlook for recovery is good, despite signs that his body has been slightly rejecting his transplanted liver.

Mantle told the Daily News he had no idea how serious his condition was before he received the transplant.

“I didn’t even know what was going on,” he said. “I can’t even remember them telling me anything.”