Quote Originally Posted by n2ize View Post
I have to agree. Everyone has their faults. In Mick's case it was too much booze. Messed up his liver. None of us are perfect. But all in all Mick was a great guy in that he played some good baseball and make lots of fans and kids happy and proud. And patrons like him and his restaurant. It was symbolic of good food, great baseball and an all round great guy. A guy with faults but a great guy nonetheless. The restaurant became a legacy in and of itself just as Mick himself. It is sad to see it closing because it was a part of a great city and a still great city that has sadly is loosing too many of the things that make it great. I guess its happening all over the country. I know a lot of rural folks tel me their favorite town ain't the same after the small Ma and Pa shops and restaurants have left and have been replaced by the chains. We are all in the same boat. We are loosing too many of the good things that made our big cities and our small towns unique and spacial to those who knew and grew up with them.
I know a little of Mantle's story; of course as a kid in NNJ, I grew up idolizing him, as most kids my age did. (Wouldn't happen to as great a degree today, since Ball Four came out, a lot of indiscretions that the writers would look the other way on now get reported on the front page, but I digress)

His family was dirt poor, worked in the coal mines. His father and uncle and other family members died young. Those are driving forces that haunted him, as he clearly didn't want to go home to work in the mines (before he became famous, of course), and he had an understandable fear of dying at a young age. His boozing & womanizing came in part from those fears, and from trying to live a lifetime in what was thought to be a much smaller time span than it turned out to be.

After baseball, I know he was involved in several ventures, most of which didn't work out financially, for one reason or another. Still, he had his looks and his fame.

I don't know how involved he actually was in the day-to-day operation of the restaurant. I suspect that his partner(s) did most of the grunt work, and his job was to be the face of the place, the main attraction if you will. Not unusual, it happens all the time (Jerome Bettis's restaurant out by Heinz Field is a good example of that). So once he passed, it's not surprising that the establishment fell on hard times; if anything, I'm surprised it lasted 20 years after.

WRT the other mention: Yes, a lot of mom & pop places are being displaced. It actually happened all the time, but now they're being displaced by chains that can run cheaper (economies of scale & national advertising), as opposed to a new M&P place replacing an old one. But those dynamics are a topic of discussion for another time.

Suffice to say: If you want your local place to survive, patronize them. And if they provide exemplary service or products, tell them & encourage them.

For example: There's a reason why our monthly club breakfast is at a little hole-in-the-wall slightly-out-of-the-way place called The Beach House. We could easily go to a chain restaurant a little more centrally located. But the food's better, the service is better, they like to see us come in, and the cost is about the same.