After long term Pennsylvania 108th District Rep Lynda Schlegal-Culver (12 years) won a special election on Jan. 31 for State Senate District 17, a special election was scheduled to replace her in the 108th.
It will be Tuesday, May 16.
Running are Trevor Finn (D), Michael Stender (R) and Elijah Skretching (L).
The district is In Montour and Northampton counties, including Rockefeller Township. It has been a Republican seat for about 60 years.
For possibly the first time ever in a Pennsylvania State House race, both major Party Candidates are firefighters.
Trevor Finn worked at Finn’s News Agency, the family business. He has been Commissioner of Montour County since 2004. He has been operations chief and facilities commissioner if the Montour County Emergency Management Agency. He has worked as an EMT and volunteer firefighter.
He lives in Danville with his wife, Betsy, a kindergarten teacher. They have two children who became teachers.
Michael Stender is a firefighter and a former emergency room technician.
Stender is a lifelong resident of Sunbury and he and his wife have three daughters. He is a Bloomsburg graduate and has done various volunteer work.
The Libertarian Candidate Elijah Scretching spent five years in the Marines. He lives in Northumberland Borough with his wife and daughter.
In a candidate’s debate, he said “I want the people to have the power, not the government”. He is in favor of having armed guards in the schools because “We have to stop being reactive and start being proactive.”
Incumbents William Morgan and Elizabeth Williams are facing challenges from Tamika M. Gibson and Fred Green in the Chester City Council in the May 16 Democrat Primary.
All participated in the League of Women Voters Forum available on YouTube.
“I hear a lot about plans that are supposed to be coming forward but you had six to eight years to put a plan in place and now because it’s election season, I hear what we’re planning to do,” Ms. Gibson said. “The plan has failed. We need a whole new administration to come forth to implement better plans to change the situation that Chester is in. The plans that you’ve already had don’t work. They haven’t worked. It’s time to get rid of the old and put something new in place so that we can move forward properly.”
There are a number of YouTube videos of Tamika M. Gibson.
Fred Green is vice-president of Chester Upland School District, and has been a Salvation Army Board Member, a community liaison to Mayor and Council. For more information, see the following websites;
Councilman and Deputy Mayor William Morgan has a bachelor of science in communication from the University of Rhode Island. He was appointed to City Council, when Natis Nichols resigned in September 2016. He had worked for TD Bank as a Financial Services Rep.
Councilwoman and Director of Public Property and Recreation Elizabeth Williams has an associates in Early Childhood Education from Delaware County Community College. She has worked in various capacities for numerous insurance companies. She is executive director for the Chester Democratic Party and vice-dhair for the Delaware County Democrats.
Even though the nation is divided about immigration and its consequences, on one point, unanimity must be reached. Immigration, whether legal or illegal, cannot be a vehicle for child labor. And yet, the Department of Labor has uncovered several incidents that involve under-age migrants working in slave labor-like conditions.
A DOL Tweet: “Packers Sanitation Services Inc. has paid $1.5 M after @WHD_DOL investigators found the company employed at least 102 children-aged 13-17 – in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts in 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.” Furthermore, DOL accused PSSI of employing “oppressive child labor in perilous conditions.”
In a series of stories, NBC News provided the horrific details. PSSI, a company contracted to work at slaughterhouses and meatpacking facilities throughout the county, allegedly employed at least 31 kids – one as young as 13 – to work overnight cleaning shifts at three facilities in Nebraska and Minnesota, a Fair Labor Standards Act violation. Additional evidence indicated that the company may also have employed more under-age children in similar perilous conditions at 400 other sites nationwide. Identity theft is rampant and a major facilitator in underage migrant employment.
PSSI is a huge company that employs about 17,000 and has contracts with hundreds of meatpacking facilities. Toiling at PSSI wasn’t an after-school job at the soda parlor. During the graveyard shift and across three slaughter houses, when they should have been home in bed, minors literally slaved away, mopping up bloody floors.
Interviews with the minors, in their native Spanish language, revealed that several children began their slaughterhouse shifts at 11 p.m. and worked until dawn, some for six or seven days a week, and often for periods of up to 15 months. At least three victims suffered chemical burns.
The NBC News story skirted the central factor that abets minor children’s criminal employment – President Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ open border. Don’t be misled. The media’s deceptive language about “unaccompanied minors” (UACs) is intended to deflect the truth – UACs are more accurately described as the victims of child smuggling rings and are tied into the Biden administration’s open borders policy. As the minors mature into adulthood, they become embedded in the permanent labor force. To most of them, any job is a good job. They need incomes to send remittances back home and to pay off their smuggling fees.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show that after President Biden took office in January 2021, he acted immediately to eliminate effective policies, including categorically exempting UACs from Title 42. UAC encounters skyrocketed. Between FY 2020 and FY 2021, total UAC encounters at the Southwest border increased a staggering 342 percent, from 33,239 in FY 2020 to 146,913 in FY 2021. Those encounters increased to 152,057 in FY 2022 and are on pace to be at a similar level in FY 2023.
At a recent Senate hearing, Secretary Mayorkas couldn’t explain the child exploitation surge under his watch, a fact that The New York Times described as “ignored or missed.” Multiple veteran government staffers and outside contractors told the Health and Human Services Department, including in reports which reached Secretary Xavier Becerra, that children could be at risk. Critics had previously brought to Mayorkas’ attention that the DHS Office of Refugee Resettlement routinely releases minors into the custody of unvetted families, many of whom are illegally present, and likely also illegally employed. The Labor Department also issued news releases that noted an increase in child labor. Senior White House aides were shown proof of exploitation, like migrants working with heavy industrial equipment and caustic chemicals. The net result of multiple efforts to shine light on booming child exploitation: nothing.
Multiple felonies are committed on every step of the journey from the border to the slaughterhouse. Corrupt government and private sector employers hold the upper hand. Fines are meaningless. Hard jail time might make a difference. But if Congress can’t pass mandatory E-Verify, it’s unlikely to put its weight behind throwing the donor class behind bars.
Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Child Labor Back In Vogue Child Labor Back In Vogue
The mayor’s race in Upper Darby has had numerous twists and turns. Incumbent Barbarann Keffer was arrested on Jan. 26 and charged with driving under the influence.
Since then, she has spent time in an alcohol rehabilitation program. She believes her drinking problem began during her time at Harvard, where she earned a degree in government.
On Feb. 7, Council President Brian Burke, citing a provision in the Upper Darby Charter, declared himself mayor while Ms. Keffer was undergoing alcoholism treatment.
Burke was not successful in his claim.
Mayor Keffer, a Democrat, had long been battling Burke, also a Democrat, along with councilmembers Matt Silva and Laura Wentz, also Democrats.
The letter also criticized a perceived delay in the dispersion of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money.
It’s penultimate paragraph read: Ensure that Brian Burke, Laura Wentz, and Matt Silva do not hold elected office as Democrats again in Upper Darby Township
On March 2, Burke, a life-long Democrat, became a Republican to run for mayor.
Ms.. Wentz is on the primary ballot as an independent Democrat, battling Edward Brown, the endorsed Democratic candidate. Among her many accomplishments, Ms. Wentz has served as president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). She graduated cum laude from Rider Univesity in 1993 with a B.A. in theater, and since 2002 has been a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local # 8. She is also a founding member of Delco Now.
The endorsed Democratic candidate is Edward Brown, president of the Upper Darby School District Board of Directors. An employee of Lockheed Martin as a Cybersecurity Engineering Manager. His masters degree from Drexel University is in Cybersecurity and Business Administration. He is the father of three children.
Crime is an issue in the race. On April 21, Michael Garr, a 15-year-old, 10th grader at Upper Darby High School, was fatally stabbed in 200 block of Bridge Street.
Before I could vote, the name of the Candidate Kennedy was in everyone’s psyche, some seeing him as a savior, others as a Ssocialistic threat. Sadly, he became the first President to be assassinated since William McKinley.
Almost 60 years later, another Kennedy, the son of the also assassinated brother of John, one Robert Kennedy, has now announced his candidacy.
It’s safe to say he’s the most controversial announced Major Party Candidate, being atttacked from both the left and the right. He’s the author of The Real Anthony Fauci
Which is just one of his over 20 books. He is also the founder of The Children’s Defense Fund
And has also been involved with many environmental causes.
The New York Post has declared the “RFK Jr’s “disgusted” family unlikely to support his bid for the Presidency.
Unlike Hunter and all his family who unilaterally support Uncle Joe’s continued time in office no matter how it profits them.
At the time of this column, 10 percent of Democrats had already said RFK Jr had their vote. MSNBC and others with their ilkitude in the Dem establishment media are refusing to mention his name. Meanwhile, it’s getting up to 15 percent.
“If I run, my top priority will be to end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power that has ruined our economy, shattered the middle class, polluted our landscapes and waters, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and freedoms,” Kennedy said.” Together we can restore America’s democracy,”
From coast-to-coast, concerned citizens have formed “Save our Neighborhood” organizations to protect their communities against relentless, all-consuming development. Politicians at the federal, state and local level demand more growth, residents’ wishes be damned.
Consider Colorado. Because of the Centennial State’s environmental bounty, thousands of disgruntled Americans left home to make Colorado their new residence. But Colorado’s appeal is on the wane. Gov. Jared Polis’ bill, SB 23–213, also known as the “More Housing Now” proposal, will keep Colorado sprawling, especially in already overcrowded metropolises like Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Boulder. More Housing Now designated these, and other major cities, as “Tier One,” targeted areas where single-family-only zoning would end, allowing permitting of duplexes, triplexes and add-on housing units. The land-use bill would block established limits on how many unrelated people can live in the same home.
The Polis administration’s dream plan would, over the objections of residents and elected officials, allow more dense housing across Colorado’s increasingly expensive metropolitan and resort areas. Traditionally, local governments in Colorado have had the authority to make their own growth decisions; under SB 23–213, that authority would shift to the governor’s office.
Polis’ power grab will put the governor and state legislature on a collision course with cities and counties. Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, who attended Polis’ State of the State announcement, declared the bill “a pretty scary prospect” for local officials who would lose local land use control, as it’s transferred to the state capitol.
The Colorado Municipal League is also critical. In its statement, the League said that the bill would alter more than 100 years of municipal authority over Colorado’s land use and zoning: “It’s a vote of no confidence in local government and in citizens in having a say in how they would like their own neighborhoods and communities to develop.” Although the few Republicans in the legislature will push back, the stark reality is they’re the minority party and have little influence over which measures pass.
In Colorado, and in other states, building can never catch up to population growth. Developers attempting to match ever-higher population levels to housing starts are on fools’ missions. Colorado has experienced a population boom that has recast the state’s image as a final destination to get away from it all. Since 2010, Colorado’s population grew 15.1 percent to 5.8 million, more than twice the 7.3 percent national average. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that Colorado, over the last four decades, has turned more than 1,250 square miles of open space, natural habitat and agricultural land into housing, shopping malls and streets.
Demographers project that the state’s 5.8 million population will, by 2050, increase by another 1.8 million. Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins, all Tier One cities, will become a single mega-city. When polled about growth, Coloradans are opposed. They want a future that has fewer arriving people. Nearly three of every five voters, 59 percent, prefer either a complete stop or a decline in the state’s population growth. Population stability is a key issuethat few elected, corporate or civic leaders will discuss. To help Colorado reach sustainable population, the state needs manageable immigration, the federal policy that, along with births to immigrants, drives more than 75 percent of all growth.
Coloradans should brace for more housing. Polis is pro-growth, but opposed to immigration limits. During his five terms as a U.S. Representative where his districtincluded the Tier One cities of Boulder and Fort Collins, Polis consistently voted in favor of expanded immigration and less enforcement at the border, as well as in the interior.
Under Polis, Earth Day celebrations will be de rigueur, butmeaningless charades. Other Coloradans, now deceased, like former Gov. Richard Lamm and Professor Al Bartlett, who spoke about protecting the Centennial State’s environment, would be disappointed and dismayed about what lays ahead.
As Professor Bartlett said: “The first law of sustainability is that you cannot sustain population growth; you cannot sustain growth in the rates of consumption of resources. That’s just arithmetic — it is not debatable.”
Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.
The nation’s housing shortage, 6.5 million homes, is an out-of-control crisis, according to CNN’s dire warning last month. Between 2012 and 2022, 15.6 million households were formed. During the same period, 13 million housing units (9 million single-family homes and 4 million multi-family homes) were started. Of the 13 million, 11.9 million were completed (8.5 million single-family homes and 3.4 million multi-family homes).
In 2021’s second half and the first part of 2022, the fast-paced building spurt continued. Then, with the Federal Reserve determined that slowing inflation was essential, interest rates including those on mortgages rose, and housing demand cooled. Builders backed away from single-family housing starts. The solution to the shortage, CNN predicted, would be to triple the single-family home housing starts which would, within three or four years, close the existing 6.5 million shortage, and keep up with new demand.
The CNN story mentioned, but did not elaborate on, the shortage’s cause: in 2022, the U.S. saw the last decade’s highest annual household formation level with 2.06 million new households. Population growth, long ignored by Congress and the establishment media as toxic and unmentionable, drives the need for more development. The equation between ever-more people and the need to build homes for them is obvious, but unmentionable. Accelerating growth remains taboo because the subject will eventually come around to immigration, an even more uncomfortable topic.
The math that the Census Bureau and other federal agencies provide is inarguable. Every year, more than 1 million permanent residents enter the U.S. Another 1 million arrive on temporary employment visas. Whether they return to their home countries or not, they need housing during their visa’s term. Since Biden’s inauguration, his administration’s open border policy has welcomed about 5 million asylum seekers, with millions more to come before the president’s 2024 re-election bid.
Add more than 2 million gotaways — the 1.2 million to date that Customs and Border Protection knows about and the roughly million certain to elude border agents in the next 18 months. During the Biden administration’s four years, between 10 and 15 million legal permanent residents, guest workers, asylum seekers and gotaways will need housing. The Census Bureau predicts that by 2060 the nation’s immigrant population will rise from its current 14.3 percent to 17.1 percent of the total U.S. population.
The powerful pro-growth lobby maintains a $60 million Capitol Hill presence, and Congress’ informal motto is “the more, the better,” especially if it makes donors’ wishes come true. The list of negatives that over-development worsens is long. Among them are biodiversity loss, carbon emission increases and overcrowding. At the top of the list, however, are water shortages, a problem so acute that the Biden administration has proposed cutting the Colorado River’s water allotments delivered to California, Arizona and Nevada by as much as one-quarter. The Colorado River provides drinking water to 40 million Americans and irrigates 5.5 million agricultural acres.
With water running low and development an increasing environmental scourge, a responsible federal government would comply with the requirement to weigh the environmental effect on any new policies it enacts; opening the Southwest and Northern Borders would be such a policy. The National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act require an environmental impact study. But like U.S. immigration laws, the Biden administration ignores the federally mandated obligation to conduct environmental impact studies, perhaps because it knows that the results would be catastrophic to developers and to Biden’s commitment to mass immigration.
Immigration and births to immigrants are the biggest population growth drivers in the U.S. As long as the status quo continues, housing demand will be impossible to fully satisfy. Good luck to builders tackling that challenge, especially in the increasingly dry Southwest, and good luck to the established neighborhoods that will have to cope with the quality-of-life-altering sprawl that overdevelopment creates.
Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.
The cruise ship industry puts out beguiling advertisements intended to attract more customers on board. Showing couples in summer wear, sipping cocktails and looking out over the ocean to watch the setting sun as they sail off to a distant, romantic destination, ads appear everywhere, from television, social media and movie previews to subway cars.
A closer look at the cruise ship business and its harmful effects on the ecosystem paint a far grimmer picture than advertisements convey. Hakai Magazine, an online publication that focuses on science and society in coastal regions, created the route of the Oceanic Topaz, a fictional but representative cruise ship, on a seven-day journey from Seattle to Alaska. The weeklong trip stopped at various ports like Juneau, Ketchikan and Victoria, before returning to Seattle.
This year, an estimated 700,000 passengers will depart Seattle on hundreds of different cruises. Travelers’ voyages are on increasingly massive ships that house, feed and process the waste of upward of 4,000 passengers. From 2015 until today, the average weight of a major line’s new cruise ship was 164,000 gross tons — more than twice the size of a ship built during the 1990s. The Symphony of the Seas weighs a staggering 228,081 gross tons.
Touted as inexpensive, all-inclusive vacations, Pacific Northwest cruises deliver thousands of people to the glaciers, fjords and small towns of southeast Alaska. Cruises are an integral part of the Pacific Northwest’s tourism economy, but they bring with them significant environmental degradation and deleterious human consequences. Carbon emissions, wastewater discharges, engine and propeller noise, mountains of trash and an unmanageable tourist influx have had a damaging cumulative impact on the ecosystems of tiny communities. As they move from stop-to-stop, the massive vessels disrupt fish, whales and birds; while docked, residents.
This tourism season, 13 ships will make 291 trips between Seattle and Alaska; the imaginary OceanicTopaz will begin its journey in Seattle which derives significant economic benefits from cruise passengers. In 2022, cruise tourists spend around $900 million in the greater Seattle area, income that supports about 5,500 jobs. That’s the good news. On the other hand, as an Alaska-bound ship sets sail, its 3,600 passengers go about their daily business of flushing toilets, showering and brushing teeth. Each passenger will produce a daily average of 7 gallons of sewage — also known as black water — and about 66 gallons of wastewater from showers, pools, laundry and other non-sewage runoff known as gray water. For a ship carrying 3,600 people, that amounts to about 400 eight-person hot tubs worth of sewage and over 3,000 hot tubs worth of gray water each day.
A grand ship voyage with dramatic views and promised nonstop fun on board is hard for tourists to resist. But add together the carbon emissions, wastewater pollution, noise impacts, trash, thousands of tourists and the impact on wildlife, and the negative effect of cruising is overwhelming.
The argument for economic gains for small communities is understandable and persuasive. But as the Oceanic Topaz example shows, the regions that host these mammoth floating hotels also have a lot to lose. In 2019, in Victoria, where cruise ships have the option to offload accumulated garbage rather than return it to their home port of Seattle, the equivalent of 100 fully loaded garbage trucks were dumped in the region’s Hartland Landfill.
Pre-COVID, the cruise industry’s aggregate revenue hit $27 billion. The U.S., with its long coastlines and easy access to Caribbean ports, leads the world in cruise revenue. By 2026, cruise revenue is expected to reach $35 billion.
Cruise lines have a powerful presence in Washington, D.C. Unlike U.S. airlines and hotels, cruise lines did not benefit from generous government subsidies since they are not registered in the U.S., and therefore American laws do not entirely bind them. Consequently, lobbying by cruise lines spiked from the average $3.5 million between 2009 and 2019 to $4.4 million in 2020 and $5.3 million in 2021. The objective: to get those floating hotels back on the water after the sharp COVID-19-related decline.
An all-out ban on cruise ships is unrealistic, but daily limits at ports-of-call make sense. Based in part on a 2022 commissioned study that the Juneau Assembly requested and in which 74 percent of residents supported limits, the final approval urged a five-ship limit. But such an obvious idea to at least reduce the adverse outcome for residents and the ecosystem has little chance against Big Money interests.
Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Find his immigration pieces at Immigration News on Substack.
There’s a three way race for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of Chester. Incumbent Thaddeus Kirkland is trying to hold off the challengers; City Councilman Stefan Roots and Realtor Pat Worrell.
The Pennsylvania Ethics Commission ordered him to pay back $2,000 to the state. He also received $15,000 in campaign finance contributions from individuals and entities connected to PFS V11 which has a parking contract connected with the City of Chester. There’s more but space is limited.
Kirkland, who was previously a state representative, is pastor of Community Baptist Church. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Cheyney University. He and his wife have five daughters.
Pat Worrell is owner and operator of the Worrell Real Estate firm. She is a member of the Chester Zoning Hearing Board and had served as chairwoman.
She has run for magisterial district judge (2011), state senate (2012) and County Council (2013). She has been endorsed by PMBR (Philadelphia Metropolitan Board of Realty), Frank Daly, Estate Attorney, and NAREB (National Association of Real Estate Brokers.)
Stefan Roots is familiar to many of us from his occasional columns in both the Delco Times and The Swarthmorean. In 2006, he launched the Chester Spotlight and currently edits the Chester Matters Blog
In January 2022 he was elected to Chester City Council. He has a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Villanova. He notes his campaign was championed by Todd Strine, co-owner of the Swarthmorean, and part of the wealthy Strine family.
He is crusading to shut down the Covanta trash-to-steam plant, which brings the city $8 million per year of 15 percent of its budget. It also generates electricity for 48,000 homes
He is not impressed with Kirkland.
“I work with the man every day and I haven’t seen or heard any vision coming from him,” he said.
There will be a virtual candidate forum on Wednesday, April 26.
In 1994, a year before his death from alcohol-induced cirrhosis, hepatitis C and inoperable liver cancer, Mickey Mantle gave a remorseful interview to Sports Illustrated. The New York Yankees superstar center fielder and first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee recounted his life as an alcoholic with brutal candor. Mantle admitted that because of alcohol abuse, he ended up “killing himself.”
Except to other alcoholics, Mantle’s confession about how drinking kept him from living a more fulfilling life and ruptured his relationships with friends and family doesn’t square with baseball diamond fame. Mantle began some of his mornings with what he called the “breakfast of champions,” a big glass filled with a shot or more of brandy, some Kahlúa and cream. Yankees’ second baseman Billy Martin, a regular drinking partner, and Mantle would stop at Mickey’s Central Park South restaurant where the bartender blended the ingredients and served them up. As Mickey remembered, the frozen drinks “tasted real good.”
Mantle’s “breakfast of champions” was the first of many drinks he threw back each day. Inevitably, Mickey’s heavy drinking led to long blackout periods. By his own admission, Mantle would forget what day it was, what city he was in and about his commitments to appear at baseball card signing shows, although he eventually showed up. The best man at Martin’s 1988 wedding, Mantle “hardly remember(ed) being there.” One year later, Mantle served as a pallbearer at Martin’s funeral. Billy had been killed in a single vehicle automobile accident on Christmas Day. Although there is some dispute about whether Martin or his friend Bill Reedy drove, no one questions that the pair had been drinking heavily in the hours before the fatal crash.
After Mantle retired, his drinking became, in his words, “really bad.” He went through a deep depression. Teammates Billy, Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer and Moose Skowron were part of his past life, and leaving those guys “left a hole in me.” Mantle tried to fill up his baseball emptiness with nonstop alcohol intake.
The older Mantle got, the more he drank. Family and friends begged Mantle to get help. But Mantle stubbornly refused. Like too many alcoholics, Mantle foolishly convinced himself that he could stop whenever he wanted. Butat a charity golf outing for the Harbor Club Children’s Christmas Fund near Atlanta, Mantle hit bottom. He drank Bloody Marys in the morning, and then downed two bottles of wine in the afternoon. At the card show that evening, Mantle embarrassed himself with his obnoxious, drunken behavior. In his alcohol-fueled stupors, Mantle often berated autograph seekers, a shock to his fans who cherished his image as a homey, blond-hair, crewcut Oklahoma kid.
Atlanta was an overdue awakening for Mantle. Finally seeking guidance, Mantle approached his son Danny who had been treated at the Betty Ford Center. Three of Mantle’s four sons and his wife Merlyn were also alcoholics. While Mantle deliberated about checking into the Betty Ford Center, his doctor gave him his MRI results: Mickey needed a liver transplant.
Once at Betty Ford, Mantle confronted his uncomfortable truth. Mantle admitted that, as he told Sports Illustrated, “he really screwed up,” was a lousy family man, and preferred running around with his baseball buddies. Envisioning his life as a sober, responsible Mantle, Mickey had big plans, but did not live long enough to realize them to the fullest. His goal was to stay sober, be strong and make amends. At his final press conference, Mantle said to an audience aghast at his wasted-away body: “This is a role model: Don’t be like me.”
Today, Mantle is remembered mostly for his brilliant baseball achievements: 20 All-Star games, three AL MVP awards including one in his 1956 Triple Crown season, seven World Series championship rings, four AL Home Run crowns, and a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee.
But for the millions of Americans suffering from alcoholism, Mantle’s ability to overcome – although too late to save his life – is a bigger triumph than any of his baseball feats. For more information, go to the National Alcohol Awareness Month website here.
