DALLAS, July 11 -- Former baseball superstar Mickey Mantle, his face drawn and his body weakened from the affects of a liver transplant that saved his life, Tuesday said he wanted to tell children, 'don't be like me.' 'All you have to do is look at me and see where (my life) was wasted,' Mantle said during his first public appearance since the surgery June 6. 'I want to get across to the kids not to drink or do drugs. Mom and dad should be the role models. That's what I think. 'I was given so much and I blew it.' Mantle, 63, spent 30 emotional minutes at a news conference conducted at Baylor University Hospital, where doctors replaced his cancerous liver that had failed after a life of alcohol abuse. The news conference was held seven hours before the 66th All-Star Game -- played only 20 miles away in Arlington. Mantle still shares the record for most consecutive All-Star Games -- seven -- with at least one hit. He wore a white All-Star Game baseball cap as he fielded questions from a standing-room-only crowd. 'I'm not well, yet,' Mantle said. 'I'm getting a lot better, they say. But I'm not well. There is still a chance for rejection (of his new liver), but I think we are going to make it. I'm still real weak and shaky. I think I've lost 40 pounds. I've got to try to get that back and if I get my legs back in shape, I can play golf.
'The doctors say it will be three months before I can do that.' Then Mantle pointed to one member of the medical team that saved his life and said, 'that's one of my doctors and I can beat him (at golf) right now.' With that, Mantle flashed a large smile, as he did often during the news conference. Mantle, who was released from the hospital less than two weeks after the surgery, revealed the unidentified donor of the liver implanted in him had also donated five other organs. 'What would you say to someone,' Mantle said when asked a question about responding to the donor's family. 'It saved my life and probably five more. I will never be able to pay it back.' Mantle said he hoped to work with Baylor University to help publicize the donor program as much as he could. 'I want to start giving back,' he said. 'All I've ever done is take. Have fun and take.' And when someone asked him if he had filled out a donor card, he said: 'What would you want from me? Everything I have is worn out. I've had a lot of people say they would like to have my heart because it's never been used.' He said he, 'barely remembered,' being admitted to the hospital a week prior to the transplant operation and that he had been in severe pain during the week prior to being hospitalized. 'I was chilling so bad when I came in they had four or five blankets on me. I was in the hospital and didn't even know it. I didn't know anything until after the operation.' Since enterting an alcohol rehabilitation clinic, Mantle has spoken frankly about his relationships with family and friends and he did so again Tuesday. 'I wasn't even like a father to my sons (both of whom have also undergone alcohol rehabilitation,' Mantle said. 'I was like a drinking buddy with them. That has changed. I feel more like a father now.' He also expressed continued surprise at the outpouring of concern over his health. He has received 20,000 pieces of mail since the surgery. 'Through your career, you get a lot of people like that. They'll say, 'hang in there, you will be all right and will you please send me a baseball.' 'But these people (who have written) are serious. I can't believe this. It makes you feel great. It makes you feel wanted. 'I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to make up.'
