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AJ McKenzie
  • 2 days ago
Great Yankees player, manager, and troublemaker
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
Transcript
00:30It's going to be all done. Unbelievable. Don't believe what I just saw.
00:49In a life rubbed raw by personal conflict and adversity, Billy Martin managed as he played ruthlessly and brilliantly.
00:58He reshaped teams in his own likeness, preaching a bunker mentality that often lifted his players to levels beyond their
01:05capabilities.
01:06In 16 seasons, Martin turned around five American League teams, taking four to the postseason.
01:12But when the stadium darkened and then emptied, Martin couldn't even manage himself.
01:23Listen here. He wasn't far enough for me.
01:26Don't you be intimidated.
01:28I'm not intimidated, Martin.
01:29Probably the meanest, honest, unfair man on the field.
01:38Contrary to probably what most of the public thinks, the father was a very spiritual man.
01:44He was a very down-to-earth, gentle person when you get him away from that baseball field.
01:49There is no clear-cut picture of Billy because he was a number of different personalities.
01:54I'm also sorry about these things that were written about George Steinmetter.
01:57He does not deserve them, nor did I say them.
02:00I did say it. I don't know why I said it.
02:03He was a troubled, troubled man. He really was.
02:06I mean, I think there was demons inside him, you know, just barking at him.
02:11Mickey used to say that Billy Martin is the only man alive that could hear somebody giving him the finger
02:20across the room.
02:21He'd be watching a walking time bomb.
02:24When is he going to blow up? We know he's going to blow up. When is he going to blow
02:27up?
02:28Billy is really upset.
02:34I think everybody liked Billy until he drank.
02:38Including me.
02:39I kept warning him that he had to straighten it out or he was going to self-destruct.
02:44And in the end, that's unfortunately what happened to him.
02:47There are some managers that you play for because of who they are.
02:53There are other managers you play in spite of because you have no choice.
02:58And I always felt that Billy was a manager that you played in spite of.
03:06Many parts of Billy Martin's nature were accurately reflected in his 1972 Tigers.
03:12We had a team of, I won't say rejects, but we picked them up from all over.
03:17And most of them were at the end of their career.
03:20I had operations.
03:21Frank Howell had operations.
03:22Gakes Brown had operations.
03:24Freehand.
03:24All the way down the line.
03:26And Jim Campbell at the time thought, we need to get a stimulus in here because we have talent here.
03:34And they took on Billy's personality.
03:36I mean, they weren't a very good team, but they were a really tough team.
03:39I liked him.
03:41I mean, you know, unfortunately I was about the only one on the team that did,
03:44but I liked him for the simple reason the man knew how to win.
03:47He had this fearlessness that if people didn't like what he was going to do, that's okay.
03:54I'm the manager.
03:55I'm going to do it.
03:56And I'm going to do it until it gets done right.
03:59Billy ball.
04:00Well, you know, we used to call it Billy bullshit.
04:02And that's all it was.
04:04Ignoring the rumblings from within his ranks, Martin juggled, quodded, cajoled, and drove his injury-riddled over-the-hill gang
04:12to one improbable victory after another.
04:15In late August, they were tied for first place.
04:18He could light a fire under a baseball team and get them to believe in themselves, to win, and to
04:24play better than they knew how.
04:27At the same time, that enthusiasm wore thin after a while, and the players started to rebel.
04:34Midsummer, you see some of that.
04:37You see where people lose rest, get dark on their eyes.
04:40Most people out there kind of rode it out for him, Billy.
04:42He's drinking.
04:43I mean, I've been to lunch with him when he was drunk, so drunk with him, he couldn't hardly walk
04:47out of lunch, go in and take a nap, and then after the ball game, go out and drink again.
04:51I mean, Billy was drinking all the time.
04:54They'd show up at game times, reeking of whiskey or whatever he drank, you know, stumbling around.
05:00But once he settled in on the game, he was trying to find a way to beat you.
05:05I can't say I ever saw alcohol affecting any of his decisions.
05:11I think when he was managing, he was as sharp as anybody around.
05:17Despite his hard drinking, Martin managed brilliantly as the Tigers won the American League East.
05:23Then, in a dramatic five-game series with the flamboyant Oakland Athletics for the pennant, Martin's rush to World Series
05:30glory hung nervously on the precipice.
05:33They won the first two games out in Oakland.
05:35We came back to Detroit, and we won the next two games.
05:38Then the final game was being played in Detroit.
05:42An hour before the game, we didn't even know who was playing.
05:45Billy had.
05:46And the man's not even here, you know.
05:47Then, he puts Bill Freehand behind the plate with a broken tongue.
05:52And Duke Simms in left field.
05:54Game five, deciding game for the pennant.
05:57And Duke Simms, catcher, is playing left field because he's a left-handed batter.
06:03It came down to him playing Duke Simms in left, and Willie Horton sitting on the bench.
06:10The runners are going, and freehand throw through.
06:13Here comes Jackson on the way.
06:14Oh, they're going to play.
06:16And both of those positions cost us a run, and we lose 2-1.
06:20If I would have played that day, we would have won.
06:22It ended sort of a dream season.
06:25The Tigers took it as far as they possibly could.
06:31And we were walking up there, and he stopped, and he says,
06:35Boy, Charlie, this one I really wanted.
06:38And he cried on my shoulder.
06:40He said, I really wanted this one today.
06:43He was a three-stage rocket.
06:45He was spectacular in the launch.
06:47The separation looked gorgeous.
06:49The head of the rocket going to outer space would seem perfect, and then the thing would plunge back to
06:54Earth.
06:55He couldn't sustain the flight.
07:02Billy's real name was not Billy Billy.
07:05He was born Alfred Manuel Martin.
07:09Well, my grandmother called him Bella because she thought he was pretty, and that's Italian for pretty.
07:14So, pretty Billy.
07:18Billy, from the time he was a kid, had, you know, was this sort of bony, sort of...
07:24You can't change your real name to another real name.
07:27If you change, if you give a real name to a different name, it has to be a nickname.
07:35A strange-looking character whose teeth were bad and whose ears stuck out like the stop signs on a school
07:41bus.
07:43He was always teased about his nose, and he was teased unmercifully.
07:49The horn and nose and mountain nose and so forth, so many names.
07:54He got really paranoid about that, and anytime anybody mentioned that to him, he was ready to fight at the
08:01drop of the hat.
08:01Copping Sundays was the expression used in those days.
08:05He used to throw a Sunday punch, always throw the first punch, and Billy was the master at copping Sundays.
08:15In many ways, Billy was just like his mother, you know, pretty tough and on me, and that's where she
08:19was, and she didn't back down from nobody.
08:22Her expression she passed on to him was taking from nobody.
08:26Billy believed that that was his mantra.
08:31Billy and I grew up in the same neighborhood in Berkeley, and it was in an industrial area, and we
08:37called it West Berkeley.
08:39Everybody was poor. We were all in the same class, and we lived from week to week.
08:46Literally.
08:46He had two different sets of clothes that he wore to school.
08:53One Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and one on Tuesday, Thursday.
08:58My father took mustard sandwiches, and on the way to school, he would steal fruit from the neighbor's fruit trees
09:04so that he'd have a full sack of lunch.
09:12Kenny Park was only a block from Billy's house and a block from my house, and we spent all our
09:17time there.
09:18If I made 10 points in basketball, he'd make 12.
09:21If I hit five home runs in our little softball game, he'd hit six.
09:26Kenny Park was his turf.
09:27It was a place where he was both a street fighter and a ball player.
09:33If Martin ruled Kenny Park in its blue-collar environs, he soon learned that the rules of social engagement changed
09:41when he enrolled in Berkeley High School in 1943.
09:45The privileged kids were always called goats in those days at Berkeley because they lived on the hills, mountain goats.
09:50And then West Berkeley, of course, represented, I can't say exactly a slum, but it was certainly the, it was
09:56the, and so the kids from West Berkeley were always called shop boys because that was mainly what they took
10:02in schools and their shop courses.
10:05If Martin was not invited to run with the goats, he gained notoriety with all-out performances in basketball and
10:12baseball.
10:13He was just a force, like a dynamo out there.
10:16Billy was very awkward as an athlete.
10:20But he had so much drive that you forgot about what you were seeing.
10:27As Berkeley High shortstop, Mark was named to the all-county team as a junior.
10:32But his combative nature would cost him his senior season when he slugged opposing basketball and baseball players.
10:39He was kicked off both teams.
10:41He became so disoriented and so focused on his anger that he was oblivious to everything else.
10:49It was common sense or backing off.
10:53He just tore into it.
10:55An average student, Martin sought his education at Kenny Park, her Bay Area major leaguers, would gather for pickup games
11:02during the offseason.
11:04He liked it.
11:05When Billy was there, he played with the big guys, you know.
11:09Upon his graduation in 1946, Martin received no offers to play pro baseball.
11:15But he clung to his dream as though it were a lifeline.
11:19You know something, Rude?
11:21What, Bill?
11:22He said, I'm going to play for the Yankees.
11:26I got my mind made up.
11:27I'm going to play for the Yankees.
11:29I turned around and I looked at Billy and I said, Billy, you're full of it.
11:33You mark my words.
11:35I am going to play for the Yankees.
11:38He played for the Yankees.
11:41Being a Yankee was like your religion.
11:47It's the best way I can relate it.
11:49If you're in the baseball business in those days, becoming a Yankee was the biggest thing in your life and
11:55nothing ever surpassed it.
11:57Martin's hopes lay with Oakland Oaks trainer Red Adams, who lobbied for him.
12:02After hitting grounders to the scrappy, outspoken 18-year-old, manager Casey Stengel put in a good word, and Martin
12:08was signed for $200 a month.
12:11A year later, Martin was batting .392 in Class C when he was called up to the Oaks.
12:17I was playing second base at that time, and that was the position that he was playing.
12:22And he said to me, is there any other position you can play?
12:25And I said, yeah, well, I said, of course, you're not playing second anymore.
12:28Even at that age, he kind of took charge of the games, and he'd sit near Casey Stengel between innings,
12:39particularly all the time.
12:41Stengel incited in Billy the love of figuring out how things went on the field.
12:48I think that Casey saw in himself Billy Martin.
12:53When he looked at Billy, he saw himself as a young player.
12:56One day, Cookie Lavajetto came up to me.
12:59He had gone to Casey Stengel, our manager, and told him that I was keeping Billy out late at night
13:06after the games, going to bars and drinking and carousing.
13:10But it wasn't really the truth.
13:13It was just the opposite.
13:16Billy was keeping me out late.
13:18In 1949, Casey Stengel was hired to manage the Yankees by GM George Weiss.
13:24A year later, Martin arrived in New York to a cold reception from the front office.
13:29Weiss thought he was a hoodlum.
13:31Didn't want him on the Yankees.
13:33This was not the image he wanted for the Yankees.
13:36And the reason that Weiss bought Billy was because Stengel wanted him to.
13:41And after a while, they started calling Billy Stengel.
13:45He said, yeah, well, you know, Casey's my old man, you know.
13:49I've got to stay close to my dad.
13:51The Yankees really were a kind of national symbol.
13:53They proved to Billy that he belonged, that whatever deficiencies in his character and his past all would vanish with
14:00an N-Y over his heart.
14:05As the Korean conflict broke out, Martin rode the Yankees' bench, gleaning every smidgen of knowledge from Stengel.
14:12In October, Martin had received his first World Series check, a nose job, and a letter from his draft board.
14:19Before reporting for duty, he married high school sweetheart, Lois Burnt.
14:24The day he got married, Billy and I and Jackie Jensen went over and played four or five innings.
14:30And he was late for the wedding, and he came to the wedding with his brown street shoes on and
14:37a dark tuxedo.
14:38Didn't look too good together, but that's the way he showed up at the wedding.
14:44The mantle came up as probably the most over-publicized rookie that's ever been.
14:54I think they were like brothers, that too, Billy and Mickey.
14:58That was one of the greatest friendships you ever saw.
15:01I mean, aside from the fact that they'd get in more trouble than the law allowed.
15:06Mickey was really a very docile type person and could be led easily.
15:12And Billy did a lot of leading, and maybe not in the right direction.
15:15In 1952, the inseparable pair moved into adjoining Bronx apartments with their wives, each of whom was pregnant.
15:23While Mantle's great natural talent began to express itself, Martin's visceral abilities were winning admiration in the press.
15:30He was exactly the kind of ball player that wins for teams, who is not a star.
15:39Billy Martin, a second baseman.
15:41He wasn't particularly fast. He did not have a great arm. He had very little power.
15:46He wasn't a great fielder and he wasn't a great hitter, but he found a lot of ways to beat
15:50you.
15:50He'd take out guys at second base. Guy coming too hard, he would tag them in the face.
15:55Casey said, I'll give anybody $100 tonight who gets hit with a pitch.
16:02Well, Billy got hit twice.
16:04Billy's presence had a lot to do with the Yankees winning.
16:08One of the greatest plays that Billy ever made came in the 1952 World Series.
16:14Dodgers in Evans Field have the bases loaded, two out.
16:18Jackie Robinson is at bat.
16:20Green runners ready to lead away.
16:29Everybody looked at everybody else.
16:32The pitcher, Bob Cazava, looked at Joe Collins.
16:36The ball kept coming in closer to the mound, to the mound.
16:40If I knew that, I would have ran out to myself.
16:42He made this wild dash.
16:43His cap flew off.
16:45Here comes Billy Martin digging hard and he makes the catch at the last second.
16:50How about that?
16:52Nobody seemed to want the ball except Billy.
16:55And Billy made a play that won the game.
17:01That fall, when Martin returned to California, he was a national hero, and soon the father
17:06of an infant girl, Kellyanne.
17:08But he was hardly a hero to his wife, Lois, who decided that two years with Martin was enough.
17:14Guy came to the door and my mom says, I think it's for you, Billy.
17:16Get it?
17:17So, of course, he opened the door and there was the process server to survey newspapers.
17:23Either he was playing baseball with the New York Yankees, or he was out drinking with the
17:28boys, or hunting, or whatever.
17:30He wasn't hardly ever home.
17:32So, she felt like she was married to a newspaper article.
17:36When Lois informed Billy that she wanted to divorce, Billy went into a deep, deep depression,
17:42and that lasted most of the 1953 season.
17:45For the last part of that season, he says that he was on goofballs, sleeping pills.
17:51He said he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, which is probably true.
17:54He stayed at the Yankees.
17:55Oh, well, he just won a World Series.
18:01You can get married and divorced.
18:05You can't unwin a championship.
18:08When he was at home, Martin lit a candle in St. Patrick's Cathedral and prayed for a second
18:14chance in his marriage.
18:16Burying his pain on the field, he was never better, hitting 15 homers and knocking in 75
18:21runs.
18:22This guy was as devoted to baseball as Rodin was to sculpture.
18:28His life could be a total disaster, but not his baseball.
18:32Martin up to the bottom half of the nine.
18:34Martin, laced one right up the middle, his fourth hit of the series, making him the
18:39hero of heroes.
18:43Billy, I want to congratulate you on winning this beautiful automobile here.
18:46I think it's the Ributon Award as the outstanding player in the series.
18:49Is that right?
18:51Why don't you say automobile?
18:54That's right, Tom.
18:55Do you think you deserve it?
18:57Well, I love that.
18:59You know very well you did.
19:01And were you as confident during the series as you've always been all your life?
19:05I was a little more confident, Tom, than I would have been in my life.
19:09In early 1954, Martin was recalled by the Army.
19:13At Fort Carson, he earned his first stripes as a manager when the base team went 25-4.
19:20Discharged with a medal of good conduct, Martin returned to the Yankees in August 1955,
19:25and Stengel resumed employing him as an antagonist.
19:29I mean, he used him because he knew that he was like his club.
19:33He was his enforcer on the field.
19:35Billy Martin's on the top of the dugout steps, hollered at me, telling me that he would get
19:40me before the year was out.
19:42And I called timeout with the umpire, Charlie Burr, and I said, come on out now, banana
19:46nose, you don't have to wait.
19:48And he came charging out of the dugout, and I went charging off the mound.
19:54Martin played hard, no matter what the hour, and Stengel looked the other way.
20:00In case you never had a bed check, just as long as you played and played hard, that's
20:04all he wanted.
20:04They could go wherever they wanted, do whatever they wanted, have whatever women they wanted,
20:08drink as much as they wanted.
20:10They lived it up.
20:11Well, we were put on the floor, and we were being handcuffed, you know, like this.
20:17I had his knee right under the back of my neck, and Billy Martin said, let's take him.
20:23And I said, you know, your timing sucks.
20:28Weiss blamed Martin for getting Mantle into trouble and keeping Mantle from reaching his
20:35full potential.
20:36The fact that Mantle had his greatest year when Martin was still there looking after him
20:42seems to have escaped notice.
20:44The most infamous Yankees altercation occurred in the early morning hours of May 16, 1957.
20:51A group of Yankees that included Martin, Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Hank Bauer arrived at a famous
20:57Manhattan nightclub called the Copacabana to see Sammy Davis Jr.
21:01We had the bottles sitting in front of us.
21:04We was popping a few, you know.
21:05Sammy's entertaining us, and this big heavyset guy, he had a bowling party or something, and
21:12he was feeling pretty good, I think, and he came by me, and he says, don't touch your
21:18luck too far tonight, Yankee.
21:21Well, and I give him my best vocabulary.
21:24I can't tell you what I call him here, but I give it to him.
21:27A couple of them met in the men's room, and somebody said the wrong thing, and somebody
21:32got belted.
21:35The Copacabana incident, in which Martin really had no role, was an excuse for Weiss to say,
21:44we don't want this kind of thing associated with the Yankees, and shit them off to Kansas
21:50City.
21:51We finished the bowl game.
21:52We got on the bus, and everybody was there except Casey Stengel and Billy Martin.
21:55And they stayed for about an hour, and when they finally came out, there was one empty
21:59seat on the bus.
22:00It was by me, and Billy Martin sat down by me, and he said, okay, kid, it's all yours.
22:04I've been traded to Kansas City.
22:07For seven years, Billy wouldn't talk to Casey.
22:12Casey tried calling him.
22:14Casey would come over, and Billy would walk the other way.
22:30When my father was traded from the Yankees, he was never the same baseball player, and it
22:40wasn't because his skills had eroded so much.
22:43It was because a chunk of his heart was torn out.
22:46After half a season at Kansas City, Martin was traded again.
22:50He would fight his way through five more teams.
22:53You know, when you're a ball player, your greatest fear is that your career is going to be open.
22:59And I don't think it's a coincidence that he got in some really vicious fights.
23:03And Billy had been over like he was going to pick up the bat, and just came up with a
23:07haymaker
23:08right, and hit the door right under the eye, and you could hear it like he was hitting
23:13a piece of meat smack.
23:15You could hear it over the ballpark.
23:16But he broke his cheekbone and stuff, and that, and that, and he just thought nothing of it.
23:21If his playing life was chaotic, Martin was showing signs of settling down.
23:25He had met airline stewardess Gretchen Winkler in 1957.
23:30After about a month of phone calls, I decided to go out with him because my roommates all wanted
23:37to, and I did.
23:41And that, from then on, we, I guess you'd say we were inseparable.
23:45After marrying Gretchen in October 1959, Martin's career continued to fail as he bounced around
23:51before finally landing with the twins in 1961.
23:56It was a real hard time.
23:59He had never been referred to in the papers as a veteran.
24:03It was always the fiery Billy Martin, the peppy Billy Martin.
24:10Billy Martin has something to say.
24:12Released during spring training in 1962, Martin wept.
24:17Kept on by the twins as a scout and then a third base coach, his personal life seemed
24:21less driven.
24:23Gretchen bore him a son, Billy Joe, in 1964.
24:26Those were really probably the best years of our lives.
24:29He loved to garden.
24:31He loved to be outdoors.
24:32He built us a fence.
24:33I always felt like he was very happy living in that situation.
24:39Some of the ballplayers were sort of like children that needed daddy.
24:45When I came up, I was a very hot-headed, moody kid.
24:50And, um...
24:51That's what?
24:52You know, he took me under his wing and he says, you know, you've got to learn to stay
24:57on an even keel.
24:58And I looked at him and he says, you've got your nerve to tell me about staying on an even
25:01keel because here you are, one of the brashest guys that have ever played the game.
25:07And we developed a great friendship.
25:10And he always looked out for me.
25:14In 1968, Martin accepted the managerial reins of the twins' AAA farm club, the Denver Bears,
25:20who had started the season with a dismal seven wins in 29 games.
25:25I'd say probably for the first two or three weeks he was there, I couldn't stand him.
25:30I mean, I hated him.
25:31He was always yelling and screaming at us.
25:33And, you know, I had never been in a situation like that where the manager was that forceful.
25:39Martin's shock therapy jolted the Bears into finishing the season above .500.
25:43The quick fix, which included eight Martin ejections, not only impressed the twins' front office,
25:49it punched his return ticket to the Majors.
25:57He was a great manager.
25:59If you play hard for Billy, you do not have no problem with him.
26:04Hired the previous October, Martin opened the 1969 season with a team tuned to winning by any means.
26:11The Martin method was a smash as attendance soared and the twins surged into the division league.
26:17Then, in August, Martin stepped into a bar fight between pitcher Dave Boswell and outfielder Bob Allison.
26:25Dave, at the time, was a problem.
26:28You know, he drank a lot and he was a problem.
26:30And he challenged Billy, and knowing Billy Martin, he's not going to back down from anyone.
26:36And he didn't.
26:37And he put a weapon on him and Boswell.
26:40His face was all black and blue and looked like he'd been in with Jake LaMotta or something.
26:45Both returned to work.
26:46Martin with a bandaged hand and Boswell wearing and credited Martin for his success.
26:52Meanwhile, Twins owner, Calvin Griffith, was unimpressed.
26:56He wanted to have people who would represent his ball club in a way that was wholesome, healthy, and all
27:02-American.
27:02And Billy was a guy who was constantly, in one way or another, breaking the rules.
27:06What Billy, I think, relished was confrontation with the front office.
27:11Calvin Griffith would say, come up and talk with me anytime, except I take a little nap.
27:16Between 5 and 5.30, because he was at the ballpark all day.
27:19Five after five, Billy knocked on his door.
27:22He was defiant.
27:24After winning the West by nine games, the Twins were swept by Baltimore for the pennant.
27:29A week later, Martin was fired.
27:31None of us could believe it.
27:32What?
27:33Because here he had brought some fire to the Twin Cities with the ball to a bit he'd put on
27:37the field.
27:38And the next thing you know, he was...
27:40What do you mean, fired for losing to Baltimore?
27:44There's no shame in that.
27:46Gone.
27:56The next year was the only year that Billy sat out of baseball.
28:01And that was a really hard time.
28:04The first time I ever met Billy Martin was after his Minnesota managing job,
28:08when he became a radio broadcaster for Minneapolis radio stations.
28:12And embarrassingly, had to come around to the different camps carrying his own tape recorder
28:19and doing interviews for his radio show, which was really demeaning to Billy.
28:23By 1971, Martin was back in charge, this time with Detroit.
28:27After winning the division title the next season, Martin wore out his welcome by fighting with the front office and
28:33league officials in 73.
28:35That September, he was fired.
28:38That firing was hard.
28:39It was probably the worst, I think.
28:45I don't think he had any idea where he was going to go from there.
28:55Six days later, he goes to Texas.
28:58He replaces Whitey Herzog, of all people, and proceeds to turn Texas around.
29:03Nobody even thought about the Rangers as being a major league ball club.
29:07When we first came here, and I opened a bank account, and I said my husband was with the Texas
29:11Rangers,
29:12they said, oh, he's in law enforcement.
29:17He had a conglomeration of players all on losing ball clubs.
29:22And when Billy joined the team, he said, boys, we're going to start playing some baseball.
29:27You know, Billy literally willed his teams along, I think, in a lot of ways.
29:32In some ways, it was just total fear, abject, abject fear.
29:46And the fans loved it.
29:48You know, they really got behind all this, and it was almost like, let's go to the ballpark today and
29:53see what Billy's going to do.
29:54Billy came up with the idea that he was going to use these walkie-talkies.
29:58I said, a what?
29:59He said, a walkie-talkie.
30:00This is the first time in the history of baseball.
30:04It's working good, okay?
30:06The eighth inning, men on first and third, went out.
30:11Frank, can you hear me?
30:13Nothing.
30:13And I look at the dugout, and I see Billy talking.
30:15I can't hear him.
30:17I see him going.
30:18I can't hear him.
30:20Just then, Louis Tiont, the Boston pitcher, steps off the mound, puts his hand up to his mouth, and he
30:25says,
30:26hey, Frank, did he want you to put on the squeeze play?
30:30Billy got upset and took the power pack off and threw it against the concrete wall.
30:35All the dugouts shattered everything, and that was the end of the walkie-talkie experiment.
30:39Martin's tactics fired the 1974 Rangers to win 84 games and finish second in their division.
30:46Attendance almost doubled to 1.2 million.
30:49No one really thought this could happen, but I think it was the greatest story in baseball that season,
30:54even though the Rangers didn't make the playoffs, because Billy Martin was such a dominant figure in the clubhouse,
31:02and you could see right then and there the impact that he could have on young players.
31:09First exposed to a cowboy lifestyle in Mickey Mantle's Oklahoma, Martin embraced the romance of the Old West.
31:16I could get him to any film if I could convince him it was a Western.
31:21It was macho.
31:22It was heartfelt.
31:23It was sentimental.
31:25It was tough.
31:27It was risky and dangerous.
31:29It was hard-drinking, hard-loving.
31:31And he'd always kind of perceived himself as a gunfighter in a way.
31:36You know, he always read the old Billy L'Amour books and the Western books,
31:40and always had said, hey, if I lived back then, I'd either been a sheriff or a gunfighter.
31:48With new ownership, Martin's influence waned.
31:51When he resisted, some thought he was too big for his boots.
31:54Because Billy was somewhat of a control freak, and he wanted to control everything,
31:59not just the players on the field, but I think he wanted to control a lot of things in the
32:03front office.
32:04Whatever went right in 74, things went wrong in 75.
32:10Martin was fired in mid-season, just a year after he made big-time baseball popular in Texas.
32:16Billy was so intense and so focused on what he was doing to get things turned around
32:22that there wasn't a whole lot of energy left after they got turned around.
32:29When sports century continues...
32:32It's important to me, it's important to all of us,
32:34and it's particularly important to New York and to the Yankees.
32:36In 1973, new Yankees owner George Steinbrenner promised New York a world championship within five years.
32:43But few knew the extent to which the Cleveland shipbuilder would go to deliver on his word.
32:48When George took over to the ball club, it was unlike anything we had been through,
32:52because George treated the team like it was a Broadway play, and he stopped to sell tickets.
32:59George wanted a little more histrionics, a little more pizzazz, a little more playing to the crowd.
33:06And it crossed my mind, I said, my God, he's talking about Billy Martin.
33:11Incredible.
33:17The hero of the 1952 and 53 World Series victories of the Dodgers.
33:22This morning, he was officially named as the 20th manager of the New York Yankees.
33:34Well, of course, this was the lifting of this 18-year burden that Billy was carrying.
33:39It was a wonderful thing for him.
33:41Martin's ex-ended in 1905, but the joyous homecoming turned sour in September when he was stricken with a deep
33:48loss.
33:49Casey Stengel, his mentor and father figure, died at 85.
33:53The night before the funeral, Martin stayed alone in Stengel's California home.
33:58Billy slept in Casey's bed that night.
34:01Casey's dying there.
34:03It was a real blow to Billy.
34:06In 76, then, Billy wore a black armband on his uniform all season for Casey.
34:12He was the only one to do it.
34:16Seven weeks after Stengel's death, Martin learned that his daughter, Kelly, was arrested in Columbia on charges of drug smuggling.
34:23Martin busted me with a little over a pound of cocaine.
34:27By being Billy Martin's daughter, really kept me down there longer, because then I was somebody important.
34:35His private life a shambles, Martin plunged into his mandate as Yankees manager.
34:41No wonder he wanted me.
34:42At the beginning, he wanted nothing to do with me.
34:44No wonder.
34:45You could call it a creative tension.
34:48And it reached a genus in 76.
34:50That was a wonderful team without great players.
34:54He liked that attitude that we brought to the table every day, where we were fighting everyone, you know.
34:58And we did.
34:59Literally, we fought.
35:00It's Boston, Kansas City, Milwaukee.
35:02And he won with that kind of a flair, with that kind of a brazen approach.
35:08Mark Littell delivers high ground.
35:11It's in the center field.
35:13That's good.
35:13There it is.
35:16Go.
35:17Best Jambles has won.
35:23They had been so mediocre for so long.
35:27And Steinbrenner had created something.
35:31It was through, at the top, him pushing, spending, prodding.
35:35Steven Laird.
35:36He's just Steven Laird.
35:37The hell he isn't.
35:37Who's he just Steven?
35:38My Laird.
35:39They're going to go on one or the other.
35:40They're going to go pick up to a stop and it breaks halfway.
35:42They go to the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds and proceed to win four in a row.
35:52Now, George Steinbrenner shows Billy the sort of guy he is.
35:57George has a fit.
35:59That winner, Martin did not go home to his wife and son in Texas, settling instead for a hotel room
36:05in New Jersey.
36:07I knew I didn't ever want to leave Texas.
36:11I think we all knew that it was going to be hard to maintain the marriage and continue as we
36:22had for so many years.
36:27When my parents divorced, it was hard on my mother.
36:41In a lot of ways, I almost thought it was good for both of them.
36:44Family was basically nothing.
36:47Baseball was everything.
36:48And it took a lot of years for me to, you know, get over that.
36:52I think in Billy's heart of hearts and the place where he was.
36:58If your daughter is caught with cocaine in another country or something like that, makes it hard to, you know,
37:07like your family, especially when it hurts you.
37:12He wasn't devoured by alcoholism.
37:14He was someone who longed for one woman, one family, one God, one home.
37:22The way in which his life was a disaster and a wreck was his inability to achieve what it was
37:28his heart really longed for and couldn't begin to reach.
37:43Martin believed the Yankees could win it all in 1977 if they had just one more player, a right-handed
37:50hitting outfielder.
37:51He wanted Oakland's Joe Rudy.
37:53And George, being the smart businessman he was, and recognizing turnstiles and dollar signs, did the right thing.
38:02And he signed Reggie Jackson, much to Billy Martin's dismay.
38:07I don't think Steinbrenner knew what was coming.
38:09I don't think anybody knew what was coming.
38:12I'm a Yankee because George Steinbrenner was husband, man, and there's no other way to say it.
38:18There isn't enough mustard in the world to cover me such a hot dog.
38:21They need one more guy.
38:24I'm the final ingredient.
38:25Hey!
38:26I'm one that believes a ship gets nowhere on a calm sea.
38:30Well, he compared us to a sailboat.
38:31He wanted the waters to be choppy and the wind to be blowing real hard.
38:36You've got to have a little bit of turmoil.
38:38It was constant controversy, constant turmoil.
38:42A magazine article came out in spring training in 1977 in which Reggie was quoted as saying,
38:50I'm the straw that stirs the drink.
38:52Thurman thinks he's the straw that stirs the drinks.
38:55Well, he's not.
38:56Thurman can only stir it wrong.
38:57But it was the wrong time.
38:58It was against the wrong guy because Thurman was beloved by his teammates.
39:03Once Reggie said those things about Munson,
39:05Reggie, in effect, became a really bad guy in Billy's mind.
39:10All this backstabbing stuff that I've been reading is good for anybody.
39:15Even the good baseball fans aren't going to pay any attention to it.
39:18We're a good ball club.
39:19We had our troubles to begin with.
39:21We'll eventually get everything going together and we'll eventually win it all.
39:24We don't need this type of articles that have been coming out.
39:27Billy in some way saw Reggie as a threat to George's love.
39:31And Billy was a patsy for George because Billy was so screwed up.
39:36He was so vulnerable to having his emotions played with.
39:41Every day, George...
39:42There is no blow is struck down there.
39:46I think Reggie says something that just sets my father on.
39:52Billy wants to get asked, Reggie.
39:54I was being betrayed by...
39:56That's in four below the crowd.
39:57He told me he was going to kick my ass.
40:01And I looked at him like...
40:05The alcohol you're drinking must be going to your head.
40:08Billy gets around, but now Yogi's got him.
40:10And trying to rush Lindon, Yogi's got him.
40:12And Billy wanted to embarrass him.
40:14That's all.
40:15It was all about ego, macho, I'm the boss.
40:19Munson continued to torment Jackson by batting him everywhere but the cleanup spot.
40:25Munson and Lou Piniello, who were quote-unquote
40:29with Martin guys, they went up to his hotel room one night and said,
40:32for crying out loud, he wants to bat forth, bat him forth.
40:36Jackson was a thundering hitter the rest of the year.
40:39While rumors flew that Martin's job was in jeopardy,
40:43the Yankees rallied to beat the Royals
40:45and into the World Series against the Dodgers.
40:47In game six, history rang down on the stadium.
40:58Boom.
41:02And of course, the third one was into the black seats.
41:05You know, the longest of them all.
41:07This majestic, soaring, towering home run.
41:11After a season that rode the edge of disaster,
41:15the Yankees were world champions.
41:17Jackson had reached his zine.
41:19Steinbrenner had delivered.
41:21And Martin had restored honor to the pinstripes.
41:24In the haze of victory, all was forgiven.
41:26I really thought that that would be the beginning of a friendship.
41:33I hope this will put to rest
41:36the unfounded rumors that a change was about to be made.
41:40Billy's contract runs through the 1979 season.
41:44I'm glad this came out because it will stop all the things
41:48going around the country saying,
41:49well, Billy's gone, but this, I guess, will put it to rest.
41:52This will not go wrong.
41:53And people say, well, I see you're going to be back with the Yankees again.
41:59However wild the ride had been to the top,
42:02it would get even wilder on the way down.
42:05For their dysfunctional antics,
42:07the Yankees would become known as the Bronte Vu.
42:10Steinbrenner would be dubbed the boss,
42:12while Billy Martin would be cast as his battered child.
42:15With the House of Ruth already in disarray,
42:18Yankee life would become an unbearable soap opera
42:21when the clash of egos reach new heights.
42:23That's tomorrow night on Billy Martin Part 2.
42:27For ESPN Classic Sports Century, I'm Chris Fowler.
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