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Message: [QUOTE="Demo Square, post: 5007678, member: 10861"] One thing I neglected to mention - an important part - both of my 1956 Mickey Mantle Triple Crown Winner Topps cards were signed by The Mick. A NY Journal American Sports beat reporter named Til Ferdenzi lived in the next apartment from my family when I was growing up in NYC. He covered the Yankees for nearly 25 years, sitting in the writers' boxes out at Yankee Stadium & hanging out with the Yankees all the time on the road & at home. Everyone trusted Til. Til knew that I was a real Yankees fan & also a very good pitcher when I was young. He even wrote a little piece about me & my team in his daily paper when my little league team went undefeated, won the NYS LL Championship, & I threw ten no hitters & never lost a game at 12 years old. Great to have a friend in high places - Til also alerted Yankee & Mets scouts about me when my success continued through high school. (note: hoops was the game I loved to play though). Til was also very generous & only had a single daughter. So, any foul ball that ended up in his box at Yankee Stadium, Til would grab it, get it signed (sometimes by the foul-off player, sometimes part of or the whole Yankee team & he'd drop it off in our mail box or in person the next day. Sometimes, Til would play catch with me out in the street & talk Yankees with me - a great blessing back in those days when the home team hardly ever lost & won pennants & championships every year. He really made baseball come alive for me & built up my confidence. And my dad couldn't care less about me or baseball. Because of Til Ferdenzi's generosity, I actually was loaded with many, many Golden-era Yankee signed balls. cards & memorabilia. I even became a little jaded by it because it all became so normal & he loved doing it for the neighborhood kid. But when I brought Til those two '56 Mick Triple Crown cards to get signed, I had no idea how valuable that would become or how amazingly easy it was for Til with his nightly post-game relationship & beers with the players, including the Mick. I was SO LUCKY that Til Ferdenzi - who also wrote several books about the players over the years - adopted me as his surrogate "baseball son." Several times, he took me into the lockers room to meet players. I was in heaven. He really helped me survive my dysfunctional home situation & father's constant rath. So Lucky! Thank You Til Ferdenzi for being my "baseball dad." Father Demo [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach