Revisiting a Michael & Mantle memory

I DIDN’T know Gene Michael well, just well enough to like him — especially because he wouldn’t allow George Steinbrenner, the big bully, to bully him. The last time I saw Mickey

Mantle, live, as an active Yankee, he was in the on-deck circle, a physically depleted pinch hitter late in a game at Yankee Stadium in 1968 — Mantle’s last year as a Yankee, Michael’s first as a Yankee.

There was one out and one or two on when Mantle limped into the on-deck circle, the excitement, despite another pending Yankees loss in a lost season, had risen. The Yanks finished 83-79, fifth in the AL — now good enough to reach the World Series as a wild card.

And that’s the last time and place I saw Mickey Mantle, live and still swinging a bat as a Yan- kee. He was in the on-deck circle when Gene Michael grounded into a double play.

About 10 years ago, I asked Michael if he remembered that, the time he broke my teenage heart. With a thin smile he nodded then said he did, adding, “I didn’t feel too good about it, either.”

Diminished standards are now being replaced by no standards.

The Vikings, as seen Sunday night on ESPN, inducted Randy

Moss, the most selfish player in team history — he was sent packing for it — into its Ring of Honor. Small wonder FOX then ESPN hired him.

The Bengals continue to get what they deserve and pay for. Perhaps as a reward for costing them a 2016 playoff win against the Steelers with an absurdly unnecessary late-game hit to

Antonio Brown’s head, plus multiple fines and suspensions for misconduct, linebacker

Vontaze Burfict has signed a three-year, $38.7 million extension.

And, of course, Bud Selig, who took the money to play blind and stupid as MLB became conspicuously infested with records-smashing drugs, was a first ballot Hall of Famer.