Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani tonight hosted a reception at Gracie Mansion in honor of the Mickey Mantle Organ Foundation. The Foundation, started in 1995 by the Baseball Hall of Famer, promotes organ and tissue donations for the 46,000-plus Americans waiting for transplants, nationwide.

"Tonight we honor the memory of Mickey Mantle and his courageous advocacy for organ donorship," said Mayor Giuliani. "At the start of his Major League career, Mickey got a crash-course in determination that he would have to draw on much later in life. The young phenom was called up for spring training in 1951 as the heir-apparent to Joe DiMaggio, but after a disappointing start, was sent back to the Minors after only a month. He called his father, Mutt Mantle, a miner from Commerce, Oklahoma, and announced that he was all washed up and was through with baseball. His father told him to stop feeling sorry for himself --- to get back in there and fight. Mantle summoned his courage, got back in the game and went on to become one of the greatest players in the history of baseball.

"At the end of his life, Mantle would once again have to come to terms with his most difficult and personal problems and summon the courage to deal with them," the Mayor continued. "He rose to the challenge with tremendous grace and dignity showing that he was not only a heroic baseball player, but a heroic human being as well. After his life was saved by an anonymous liver donation, he created this great Foundation as a way of educating Americans about organ donation to ensure that others would have the same gift, a second chance at life, that he received."

"Mantle's untimely death remains a source of great sadness for me personally and for the City whose ball field he graced," concluded the Mayor. "But some good will have come of it if we can strengthen our commitment to organ donorship and the gift of life it carries for so many."

Mickey Mantle began his baseball career in 1951 with the New York Yankees and remained with the team until he retired in 1968. During the course of his famed 18-year career, Mr. Mantle played in 14 World Series and was named the American League's Most Valuable Player three times (1956, 1957, and 1962). He was capable of hitting home runs further than any of his contemporaries and inspired the use of a tape measure to measure the distance that a ball is hit. Mr. Mantle also was touted for the fact that his statistics were among the best in Baseball's history despite being plagued by injuries and often playing with intense pain in his legs. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.

Mickey Mantle developed a serious problem with his liver and was given a liver transplant on June 8th, 1995 at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He died only two and a half months later but not before he was able to establish the Mickey Mantle Foundation. The Foundation is currently run by Danny Mantle, Mickey's youngest son and is supported by the rest of the family.

Joining the Mayor at the reception tonight were Foundation President Danny Mantle, baseball stars Rusty Staub and Keith Hernandez, Art Shamsky, Sal Schiliro and Melissa Austin.