Terry Collins' mom once let him skip school to watch the Yankees in the World Series

You could say Mets skipper Terry Collins is a little bit excited to be managing a team headed for the World Series. Collins -- who spent 10 years as a Minor League player and previously managed the Astros and Angels -- is a baseball lifer. He's one of those kids who started playing when he was four or five and spent time as a player-manager in the Minors. It's been his whole life for his whole life.

At his first press conference after the Mets clinched a spot in the World Series, Collins addressed the loss of his father, Bud, who passed away at the beginning of Spring Training this season. He told the media that Friday would have been his parents' wedding anniversary, and then told a story about what it was like growing up in a family obsessed with baseball.

And he's not just in the World Series ... he's in the World Series and has Daniel Murphy on his team, so things are definitely lookin' good for Collins.

For what it's worth, the World Series that Collins skipped school to watch was the 1960 Fall Classic, which the Pirates won thanks to the dramatic, walk-off home run Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski hit to break a 9-9 tie in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7: