Mickey Mantle Undergoes Transplant -- Baseball Great Gets Liver Within 2 Days

DALLAS - Mickey Mantle was undergoing a liver transplant this morning after a donor was located in less than two days.

Surgery on the 63-year-old Hall of Famer, whose drinking exploits were nearly as heralded as his baseball heroics, was expected to last four to six hours, said Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman at Baylor University Medical Center.

"He was already prepped (for surgery), so I don't think it took them very long to start after the liver arrived," she said.

Mantle's liver was rendered useless by a small malignant tumor, 40 years of heavy drinking and a long-dormant hepatitis C infection, doctors said.

Mantle was hospitalized on May 28 complaining of stomach pains. Doctors notified the Southwest Organ Bank Inc. on Tuesday that he needed a new liver to survive.

A donor was found yesterday. The typical wait in this country for a liver transplant is 130 days.

The organ bank's director, Alison Smith, said it was not unusual for an organ to be found so soon. She said Mantle's poor health placed him in the Status 2 priority category, in which recipients have waited an average of 3.3 days this year to find new livers.

"His medical condition was worse than any other recipient we had listed from the local area," she said. "I'm sure there will be people who refuse to believe there wasn't some special consideration given because of who he is . . . We hope people realize we work as hard to recover organs for everyone on the waiting list."

Smith would not reveal the name of the donor.

"I believe our answering service has received several calls tonight from people wanting to donate their own livers, not realizing that's not in their best interest," Smith said.

Before the surgery, Mantle was severely jaundiced, in pain and too weak to get out of bed.

"He has not eaten anything in days. I've never seen Mickey's face look so thin - he's emaciated," Mantle's longtime friend Roy True said last night.

Tests showed that Mantle's cancer has not spread beyond the liver, said Dr. Jeffrey Crippin, a liver specialist at Baylor and partner of Mantle's attending physician, Dr. Kent Hamilton.

Mantle was one of baseball's premier sluggers as the centerpiece of the New York Yankees dynasty in the 1950s and '60s. The Oklahoma boy who replaced Joe DiMaggio in center field retired in 1968 with 536 career home runs, eighth on the all-time list. Five years later, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Mantle also was famous for his drinking escapades, notably with pitcher Whitey Ford and infielder Billy Martin. Mantle never kicked his drinking habit, and in January 1994 he checked into the Betty Ford Center to treat his alcoholism.

His storied career also was sidetracked by many injuries. Doctors speculated the hepatitis may have come from blood transfusions Mantle received during past athletic-related surgeries.

Mantle always said he expected to die young because no male member of his family had lived past 41. His father died at 41 from Hodgkin's disease, a lymphatic cancer that had killed his grandfather at age 40. One of his sons, Billy, also had a long struggle with the disease and died of a heart attack last year at 36. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mantle and liver cancer

Baseball great Mickey Mantle has liver cancer and was undergoing a liver transplant today. Doctors said he also has hepatitis C as a result of past blood transfusions he is a chronic alcoholic.

The liver: Because the liver is the organ that breaks down alcohol in the body, it is a chief site of alcohol related disorders. Alcohol's effect on the liver is direct and toxic.

Liver cancer: Most frequently, it affects people with other liver disease, including cirrhosis. It often goes undiagnosed because its symptoms are presumed to be a progression of cirrhosis. Once, liver cancer was almost always fatal within a few months, but now patients with small, localized tumors can be treated with surgery and chemotherapy. ----------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: Complete Home Medical Guide AP