1955 M

1955 Mickey Mantle Signed Baseball

THE COMMERCE COMET"S SIGNATURE

Selfie taken in 2011 on front porch of my home in Tennessee. Down the street lived former Detroit Tigers standout pitcher Paul Foytack, whom I remembered quite well. On each visit at his place he regaled me with stories about Mantle, some quite ribald. They were great friends.

A baseball, a sunny spring day, Mickey Mantle, life is good. 

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Former Detroit Tigers Star Settles in Spring Hill      By Bryce Martin         The phone rang more than usual for Paul Foytack at his Spring Hill home back in late April of 2007.      “I was watching some basketball on television and got a call. They kept coming for a couple of days.”      That was because a little known pitcher for the New York Yankees, Chase Wright, had given up four consecutive home runs in a contest on April 22. Once the record book was dusted off, it revealed the dubious feat had happened only once before. The pitcher then? Foytack.      A tall, hard-throwing righthander, Foytack was an outstanding major league pitcher from 1953 to 1964 during a career with the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels.       He recalls well the game when he was with the Angels and took the mound against the Cleveland Indians. “We had used up a bunch of pitchers, I had pitched not long before and they asked for volunteers. I guess I shouldn’t have volunteered. It was a little embarrassing. I think everyone in town homered against me except Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Temple.”      He can drop Hollywood names because once he left Detroit and landed in Los Angeles he met many of the stars and starlets in the city, including Elizabeth Taylor, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Eddie Fisher and a host of others.      “My favorite growing up was Gene Autry,” he said. “Since he owned the Angels I got to meet him and I really enjoyed that.”      Foytack, 81, was born in Scranton , Pa. He moved to Spring Hill in 2004 to be near a daughter and his grandkids. “We moved to get away from the Michigan winters,” he said. “It’s nice here. I’m not going anywhere else.”      To occupy his time now he mostly watches horse racing on television. “I put the golf clubs up. I was a two-handicap.”      He gets plenty of mail from those wanting autographs. “I get letters from Iraq wanting me to autograph things. For those I always send them back airmail. You don’t know how long they’re going to be there."      Though a highly effective pitcher in getting batters out, Foytack is more historically connected to homeruns he allowed. When Yankess outfielder Roger Maris hit 61 out of the park in 1961 to better Babe Ruth's longstanding record of 60 from 1927, it was Foytack who started Maris off with No. 1.      The great New York Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle was his best friend. “Mickey was a great guy. He hit one of the longest home runs ever off from me. One time when we were both around a reporter asked him about it and he said, ‘Heck, what about all the times he struck me out?’ It was true. I struck him out many times."      Long after his playing days were over, Foytack, living in the Detroit region, would pitch batting practice to the Tigers. Many of the younger Tigers did not know who he was.      “Mark Fidrych asked about me and they told him I was an old fighter pilot from the last war. He believed it and asked me about my flying days. He was a great kid.”      Foytack loves to tell old baseball stories. A favorite is one about Ron LeFlore, who played for the Tigers after serving a prison term.      “Billy Martin was manager for the Tigers. He and Art Fowler gave LeFlore a tryout. 'Look how fast this guy is,' Billy said. 'We've got to sign him.' Fowler said, 'No, we ought to sign the guy who caught him.'" The Informer (newspaper), Spring Hill, Tenn,, August 2012 ...