Former New York Yankee great Mickey Mantle recalls that as a teenager in the minor leagues he began playing poorly. Discouraged, homesick, and feeling sorry for himself, Mantle tearfully called his father to come to take him home.

When the elder Mantle arrived, Mickey expected sympathy and reassurances that yes, it was time for the father to take the boy out of his cruel environment. But Charles Mantle jarred his strapping son by saying, “Okay, if that’s all the guts you’ve got, you might as well come home with me right now and work in the mines.”

Snapped awake, Mickey Mantle stuck it out that year—and wrote his name in baseball history.

Today in the Word, November 9, 1995, p. 16.