photo #6267928

Stevie was invited to play the national anthem at the Houston Astros season opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Houston Astrodome in April 1985. Stevie and Lenny Vaughan were hastily flown to Houston, where he confessed to his wife that he didn’t know how to play “The Star Spangled Banner”..She hummed it to him in the limo on the way to the game.Watching her husband play the national anthem there to a packed house in the cavernous Astrodome, Lenora turned to the guy standing next to her and said, “You know, he didn’t know how that went – I had to hum it to him on the way here.”The man replied, “Yeah, it’s a hard song.”When Lenora asked the man if he knew her husband. He nodded and said, “No, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of him. My name’s Mickey Mantle.”Mantle was at the game to throw the first pitch; it was pure chance that Lenora found herself standing next to one of the greatest baseball players in history. When Stevie joined her minutes later, she introduced the two men.“I don’t know how to play that song,” Vaughan confided to Mantle, to which the Yankees great replied reassuringly, “Nobody can play that song.”Lenora then sheepishly asked for Mantle’s autograph, upon which Mantle asked where her baseball bat was. “Oh… oh… am I supposed to have a bat?” she stammered. Mantle explained that most autograph seekers bring a bat.Lenora remembers that “I was looking around for a piece of paper or something, and Stevie said, "Well I’ve got this bat right here – her name’s Lenny." And he took it out and said, “Why don’t you sign this?"And Mickey said, "It’d be my pleasure..”