The decision still didn’t sit well with Mickey Mantle, even 25 years later.

Plagued by leg and knee pain for the majority of his career, the 37-year-old Yankee icon wasn’t getting any younger in the spring of 1969. But the option of calling it quits plagued him just as much as his injuries had, going as far to occupy his subconscious mind years after he had announced his retirement.

“I used to have that reoccurring dream, I was trying to get back into the ballpark,” Mantle told Bob Costas in a March 1994 interview. “I could hear (manager) Casey (Stengel) and the team out there playing. All the gates were locked and I had to try and sneak through a hole in the fence to get into the ballpark. And then if I did get in, I’d hit a ball that should’ve been a hit but I couldn’t run and the outfielder would throw me out.”