This video brings back awesome memories for out Bone Daddy, the original Sportsphile….who has been a huge Mickey Mantle fan since the early 1950’s…..as he grew up being a Yankee fan of the highest order…..who ended up with a rather outstanding New York Yankees baseball card collection….as this video reminds me of how Bone Daddy got his first of many Mickey Mantle baseball card….a 1956 Topps card celebrating The Mick’s MVP season….which he won in a marble’s game against his best friend and future partner at Madison Square Garden, The Sports Place, at 302 E. 6th Street in Austin, TX some some 20 years later. This particular baseball card his one of Bone Daddy’s most prized possessions in his collection of over 4000 individual pieces of sports memorabilia….and as BD always says…..“But for bad knees….Mickey Mantle might have been the greatest Yankee of all time…exceeding the popularity of even The Babe and Joe D”. After many serious games of marbles played in the sandy dirt in and around the area close to the basketball goals on the playground at Sam Houston Elementary School in Midland, Texas back in the 1950’s……a place where fortunes in any young kids eyes were won and lost in serious competition requiring a steady hand and a shooting-eye worthy of champions. As the circle was drawn and the cache of marbles from both competitors were scattered out inside the circle…. save for their “special shooters”…..you know, those special marbles with magical accuracy……which were used by competitor when it was their time to shoot.
With one true shot with BD’s old reliable “steely shooter”……a prize of immeasurable value to BD was captured …..one which BD had sought after for such a long time…..and the prize possession of any and all marble bags in the whole town of Midland…and maybe all of West Texas….for it was a beautiful one of a kind red and brown swirled polished agate….unique unto itself and unlike any in any other kid’s bag….and it had finally been won by Bone Daddy with one spectacular shot….for this agate marble was so loved by its previous owner TNT…..who just happened to be BD’s best friend….that immediately after TNT lost his prized marble….and knowing just how much BD loved the Yankees….and especially Mickey Mantle…..that TNT halted the marble game the moment he had lost his prized agate….and ran to his house returning with a baseball card he had just gotten in a recent pack of cards that he had purchased …..and he said to BD that he would trade this card in exchange for getting his prized agate marble back.
The minute that Bone Daddy’s eyes connected with the card….he handed TNT back his prized agate marble….and that’s when TNT handed BD this 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card seen above. Now folks…..to a Yankee fan in the 50’s and 60’s……that is what this lil ole chiweenie Sportsphile calls a good trade.…. and Bone Daddy had his first Mickey Mantle card….and OH MY GOD DOG what a card it has become today as evidenced by the video provided herewith….for like legendary sportscaster Bob Costas in this video….folks who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s loving baseball….will always be Mickey Mantle fans….and the one card that they will always keep….is the one seen in this video and in our ImaSportsphile memorabilia collection….the one that Bone Daddy traded a prized agate marble for back in ’56.