Edition: U.S. / Global

Sports of The Times; Judge Stars By the Way They Perform

Published: August 11, 1995

SOMETIMES it's a pleasure to meet a great performer. But just as often, distance is the best thing between the public and the star who hits home runs or makes beautiful music.

It's been a difficult exercise for anybody preparing articles on Mickey Mantle in recent days. The older fans tell the younger fans about the superstar with the discus-thrower's strength and the sprinter's speed, and the golden smile when Mickey Mantle was in a good mood. But journalists like me, of a certain age, can also remember the snarls and the grimaces when Mickey Mantle was in a foul mood.

Lately I've been searching for my best memory of Mickey Mantle, the one I want to keep up front. I can remember him strutting and laughing in the clubhouse on occasions, but that's not quite what I want. I can remember him giving me a polite hour once for a magazine article, but the responses were pretty superficial, if I think about them.

My happiest memory of Mantle returned a few weeks ago when I was visiting my daughter in Minnesota. We drove out of the Twin Cities airport, right along the Mississippi, which really hasn't changed all that much in 33 years.

I remembered my first flight with the Yankees as a very young reporter. The charter bus got lost outside the airport, and we kept circling the roads near the banks of the river. The players all got on the driver, but I most remember the sly, joshing, southwestern-drawl humor of Mickey Mantle, his eyes crinkling, his nose scrunching up. "Hey, Bussie, ain't you from here?" Maybe Mantle said something like that. It wasn't mean, the way I've seen players get with bus drivers. It was bemused, down-home funny.

"Let somebody else have the pressure for a change," Mantle seemed to be thinking. "See how they like it." He was relaxed. He was funny. He was human. I wish it was that way more often for him.

Reporters get close. It's part of our job. I could name you dozens of athletes I really liked and respected, from Flood to Bossy to Clemente to Shriver to Mattingly to Lockhart to Doc Rivers to Joyner-Kersee to Arguello. With the nicest of them, you can see the flaws, but the humor and the wisdom far outweigh them. Still, it's hard to be a hero-worshipper when you've seen somebody from a few feet away, maybe distracted, maybe under the weather, maybe even hung over.

That's why I'm glad I've never covered much of the music industry, except for Nashville and country music. I've hung around Johnny Cash (Mantle-like in his aura and his moods) and Minnie Pearl (a smart classy lady, never mind that $1.98 price tag on her sunbonnet.)

Let the music stand by itself. I'm thankful that I was never in the locker room of the Grateful Dead. I never had to interview Jerry Garcia after he went 0 for 4 and made a throwing error.

Sitting around my house yesterday morning, I staged my own personal shiva for Jerry Garcia. I did it the best way to honor a singer. I turned on a tape and I sat in a quiet corner and I listened. This tape happened to be of a concert in San Rafael, Calif., on April 1, 1984. My son, the semi-Deadhead, lent it to me.

I went to a few Dead concerts. Jerry Garcia was always a silver-haired, buddha-shaped presence a thousand miles away up on a stage. A few years ago, a kid sitting near me offered me a joint and said, "Would you like a smoke, sir?" I laughed and told him I didn't smoke, and my name wasn't "sir," either.

You really didn't have to be high to love Jerry Garcia's music. That sweet, soft voice and that gentle guitar lit up my house yesterday. "Jack Straw." "Friend of the Devil." "Mexicali Blues." "Brother Esau." Songs of mischief and misplaced love, songs of tentative hope and lurking danger.

How much of the music and the message came from the drug culture? I don't want to know. From what I hear, Jerry Garcia abused his body and he died at 53. I'm thankful for the touching obituaries and assessments of his career, but the main thing is that Deadheads and near-Deadheads will be able to rock gently to "Touch of Grey" and "Uncle John's Band" when we're 70 or 80.

Mickey Mantle's statistics only tell part of his story. Much too soon, we'll all be giving our reasoned evaluations of his life and his career. In this electronic age, I suggest fans also watch some old tapes of Mantle nearly hitting the ball out of Yankee Stadium, or tracking down a line drive in spacious center field. Rock gently with them until we're 70 or 80.