Billy Crystal Finds Way To Talk About Loving Mickey Mantle At Charity Golf Event

MYRTLE BEACH, SC—Actor and avid New York Yankees fan Billy Crystal found a way to talk about how much he loves Mickey Mantle at a charity golf event for Parkinson’s disease, an ailment that had nothing to do with the slugger’s eventual passing. “Seeing that little white ball disappear over the horizon reminds me of the way Mickey used to hit ’em—I mean Mickey Mantle, of course. And that reminds me of the time my father first took me to Yankee Stadium to watch Mickey play,” Crystal said to the gallery, mimicking Mantle’s swing with his putter, and forcing a 14-minute stoppage in play. “So we get to Yankee Stadium, and it’s the greenest thing I have ever seen—greener than all the grass at this golf course. And there in the batter’s box is the great Mickey Mantle—young, athletic, handsome, everything that I wanted to be. Anyway, I look at my father, my father looks at me, and the Mick hits one out.” Crystal then gathered himself and sank his three-foot putt, but was delayed on the following hole because, in the group ahead of him, Bob Costas was reportedly in the middle of telling the same anecdote.