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Mantle's Quote About First Base
Found it, from 1968 edition of Street and Smith's Baseball Yearbook in an article about switching to first base, ripe with remarks like "when you can't do anything else, you can always play first base" and Eddie Mathews; comment about moving across the diamond from third "If at first you don't succeed, you may not succeed at all" ...
Mantle initially "viewed his transformation with trepidation" and believed "it's easier for me to play center field than any place else". He changed his mind a year later, saying "Moving to first base was a big help to me, I'm quite sure I'll be able to play at least two more years..."
He missed 36 games playing first in his final 2 years, after missing 250 in the previous 5 seasons.
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