Alfred Manuel "Billy" Martin died on December 25, 1989. I remember because we were in Modesto that Christmas where the O'Rileys always passed around the morning paper and I remember reading about the car accident that killed Billy the next morning. I was saddened by the news.
Not that I followed Billy's career that closely, but I was always somewhat aware of his presence in the baseball world mainly because he was several times the manager of the New York Yankees when a big time jerk named George Steinbrenner owned the team and fired managers almost annually.
Billy grew up in West Berkeley, California. This is the poor side of Berkeley. From the start baseball was his passion. He told everyone as a kid that he would one day play for the Yankees and by golly he did. He was Mr. New York during his time in the big town, buddies with The Mick, Yogi, and Whitey Ford. He and Mantle had many a good time together. Billy Martin knew everybody of note in New York, and everybody knew him.
Billy Martin was a good second baseman, but he gained his rep as a manager. He had 9 gigs as a manager, very successful, yet he was fired 9 times because he always had off-the-field issues. Steinbrenner fired him 5 times. The book makes you think he might have been back managing the Yankees in 1989 had he lived.
Billy Martin was a true baseball genius, a student of the game like no other. Most of his managerial competitors said he was the best. His vision saw the whole field. His modus operandi was to put pressure on the other team, to rattle, to force them into mistakes. Billy Ball it was called. Stealing bases. Double steals. Even triple steals. Stealing home. He loved stealing home. Yelling at opposing players. Taking advantage of their weaknesses and tendencies. In the language of poker, he looked for "tells" against his opponents. Working umpires. His confrontations with umps are legendary. Anything to score runs.
He was married4 times and divorced three times. He had two including Billy, Jr. We have to say that he was not a good husband or father.
The author says that Martin liked to talk about the Civil War and in particular General Lee's tactical choices at Gettysburg. I wonder which side he was on. The author says that Billy could entertain by talking like Donald Duck. How hilarious to think about!
Baseball writers constantly refer to the 50's as baseball's golden age. Why is this?
If Billy Martin were Auburn's coach, we'd win the conference title every year. With a team like we have this year, he would extract every run he could out of this bunch.
He was a big time alcoholic, which was his undoing, leading to constant bar room fights which got him into constant trouble and led to his continuous firings. He couldn't hold a managerial job not because he couldn't manage but because of off-the- field issues. The worst situation was the day his pickup ran off the road in Fenton, New York, in the Binghamton area where he was living with his last wife Jill. Another man was in the truck with him when the truck ran off the road and into a ditch on that Christmas Day. Most likely both were sot drunk. Who was driving the vehicle? It was a subject of litigation. Most likely the other man was driving. Both were not wearing seat belts. If Billy were wearing a seat belt he likely would have survived the crash.
The man had a passion. That passion was baseball. It is thrilling to read about a man with such a passion. Billy Martin was a man of awesome talent and awesome weaknesses. He had an identity. He was always a New York Yankee even from childhood. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Once a Yankee, always a Yankee.
No comments:
Post a Comment