Mantle Tries New Kind of Comeback : Baseball: Hall of Fame outfielder speaks of a life full of regrets while making first appearance since liver transplant.

Mickey Mantle talked Tuesday about regrets and luck and how sorrowful he feels that he has squandered so much of his life. But with humility and the good humor that always seemed to carry him through his darkest days, he also vowed “to try and pay back” all the blessings he has received.

“I guess everybody knows I’ve been so lucky in my life,” he said slowly, at a news conference at the Baylor University Medical Center. “I’ll never be able to pay it all back, but as soon as I get to feeling better I’m sure going to try.”

It was a poignant day for Mantle’s first appearance since the life-saving, and, in some quarters, controversial, liver transplant he received on June 8--a consequence of a lifetime of drinking.

“One of the things I wish I had taken more seriously,” he said, “was the All-Star game. It was always like a party day.” Later, he told a story of flying from Dallas to Anaheim, for one all-star outing that lasted 16 innings, arriving from the airport in time to run out on the field and strike out, then hopping on the same plane back to Dallas to rejoin his friends at the bar.

Mantle’s speech had the tone of both a confession and a rebirth. On May 28, when he entered Baylor with a hugely swollen abdomen and bone-crushing pain, doctors surmised Mantle was dying of three potentially fatal ailments: liver cancer, cirrhosis, and hepatitis. He had, at most, two weeks to live.

Mantle spoke of the 20,000 cards he has received, of his family’s support, and his determination once he recovers to work on behalf of the Baylor organ-donor program. Asked if he would be willing to donate organs himself, Mantle laughed and said he doubted if he had “anything good to give. Everything I’ve got’s worn out. . . . A lot of people have said they would like to have my heart, though--because it’s never been used.”

Pointing to his youngest son, Danny, Mantle recalled that with his four sons, “I wasn’t like a father. I was a drinking buddy with them, and now that’s changed. Now I’m like a father.” He and his wife of many years, Merlyn, are separated.

He has lost 40 pounds, he said, and can only stand 15 minutes a day on the treadmill. “There is a chance of--what do you call it?” he consulted the doctors, “rejection, but I think I’m going to make it. I always think I’m going to make it.”