ROB BUCK, 42, lead guitarist for the rock band 10,000 Maniacs, died of complications from liver failure on Tuesday, reports the Associated Press. According to the band's publicist, Buck died at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center . . . MICKEY MANTLE JR., 47, died of cancer Wednesday in Dallas, five years after the same disease claimed the life of his baseball star father (at age 63). The younger Mantle, like his pop, was a switch-hitting center fielder. He played in the minors for several years but never made it beyond . . . BARNEY MCNULTY, 77, considered the father of cue cards, died in Los Angeles on Monday. He invented the gimmick in 1949, when TV star Ed Wynn needed help with his lines, then went on to work with Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and others. His last gig, his widow told the Associated Press, was the upcoming TV movie "These Old Broads," with Liz Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine and Joan Collins . . . Former New York Mayor (1966-73) JOHN V. LINDSAY, 79, died yesterday of complications from pneumonia and Parkinson's disease, his daughter told The New York Times. A glamorous and charismatic figure of nearly Kennedy proportions, Lindsay never graduated to any higher office (though he attempted a run for the Presidency), and, in fact, his administration's blunders were later blamed for plunging New York into a fiscal crisis.