MLB: Billy (Martin)

middle name should have been billy trouble martin and i think that would have been the right thing i may rather put my appetite the man knew himself never forget that as you walk back through his life his career and all the ways they intertwined never forget he not only didn't deny the trouble part no no he reveled in it the new york yankees fired manager billy martin because wherever you pick up the story the fact and it was a fact that billy martin won was always only the start of it all martin's been fired billy martin has been fired billy martin is out of his job again for every ending there was another beginning billy martin has been named the manager of the new york yankees for not the first not the second not the third not the fourth but the fifth time for everything there was to regret the yankee dugout is a place of turmoil there always seemed to be something to root for [Applause] in my opinion the best game manager in the history of the game but as much as the game defined him the truth was that it never was gonna save him from himself baseball produced a vicious fight last night one of baseball's baddest boys charged with assault charged with common assault billy martin out of control a loaded missile waiting to self-destruct reportedly has a drinking problem can you confirm that it may sound like an old story but billy martin is in trouble again billy the kid battling billy great talent hair trigger tempered you're hashing it all up but yeah i know billy martin and the last laugh is going to be mine i haven't looked at these for a very long time it's funny it's hard to get rid of this stuff i'm not quite sure what i'm supposed to do with it right now in my heart hearts i never thought we'd find billy in a rocking chair somewhere he's the windshield where he broke his neck it didn't have to end this way [Music] you've got to begin every story somewhere so maybe it works to begin billy martin's with a tale of a misunderstanding billy he didn't know his name his italian grandmother called him belize that is beautiful in italian believed so all the other kids thought she was saying billy and they started calling him billy so when he went like to the first grade the teacher said what's your name said billy martin said no no no no you're alfred manuel martin he said no ma'am i'm billy martin we grew up in an impoverished place i mean west berkeley right on the docks there in the east bay it was just this almost like little square mile of uh squalor he was an infant he was no more than five or six months old when his father left the hustle and his mom after billy's father left you know called him the jackass for the rest of her life growing up without a father and having his father vilified that's step number one the biggest step toward his road to success and then ruin well his mother jenny she was a real character and she didn't like anybody talking about billy or criticizing him you know billy was her pride and joy if they pick on them well what they supposed to do is sit down and not take it i would you if somebody if i went to youtube would you sit down and don't take it he tried to hit me back wouldn't you wouldn't you if you didn't you'd be a damn fool if you talk about jeans being passed on i mean that's where billy got all his feistiness from it came came directly from his mom billy was not the most attractive looking kid and so he was a guy that people picked on billy fought back and got pretty good at it fight promoters they tried to convince him to become a professional fighter but his main passion was baseball certain things to become a permanent trend throughout his life start early and one of them would be in high school where he's the star of the high school baseball team it's fairly apparent he's going to get signed and yet he keeps getting in fights on the field and it gets them kicked off the team so after graduating high school in 1946 billy martin didn't get any offers from big league clubs leaving him to sign with an independent team the nearby oakland oaks and their up-and-coming manager casey stengel i'll tell you casey was as close to a father figure as my father had casey liked him because he was a ferocious competitor and he was really smart billy just spends every game and every minute asking casey questions about what he's doing and what's going on in the game and what should we do next and how do you steal signs and all these things and casey just sort of takes him under his wing and before you know it casey goes and gets the yankee job and he brings billy to new york you know a year or two later [Music] who's that up there kate that's billy martin and billy martin can play two or three positions on the ball club stengel would mostly play martin at second base when he debuted for the yankees in 1950 right at the start of a new golden age for the club the yankees would win the world series in each of martin's first four seasons and he always seemed to be in the middle of the biggest moments like in the 52 series when the dodgers loaded the bases late with game seven on the line it's a high pop up who's gonna get it here comes billy martin digging hard and he makes you look at his career he was a 260 257 lifetime hitter but he was a 333 world series young billy martin ties into the first pitch for a home run he was casey's tight ball player he was aggressive not only by deed by word as well he wouldn't mind getting on the opposition and he'd fight anybody at any time that endeared him to people they could understand a guy who looked like them wasn't much bigger or stronger than them wasn't faster than them but yet got so much out of what ability he did have they related ability everything was going right for the kid who'd grown up with nothing even breaking his arm turned out well when the yanks flew him home to get checked out and he started talking to the stewardesses i said oh my gosh you look just like billy martin the ball player and he beamed and said i am and i rolled my eyes and said sure you are the team's in chicago and with that i walked up the aisle went into the galley my flying partner laughed she said you didn't watch the game last night he broke his arm oh i was just horrified at my behavior anyway he proceeded to get her phone number about two weeks later she knocked on my door and said well has he called you yet and i said who and she said billy martin called me to get your number billy was always fun he was always good company he really liked to dance and we would literally dance all night it was a good date but falling in love didn't slow down martin's nightlife my roommate's a little different than most roommates oh really who is he a mickey mantle i mean they were like inseparable you know the three musketeers tim whitey and dad they played together they got in trouble together they would sneak out of the hotel rooms to beat curfew i'm sure you heard the story about the cows and the horses oh sure my favorite hunting story of all time kind of embarrassing because i came out to be in the scapegoating the whole thing you know billy just loves to hunt and so we go to a place down by lakey texas the rancher always let mickey hunt there and make it went up to the door and the guy said i'm so sorry mickey but i won't ask you a favor my mule is just about to die i want you to put him out of his misery for me of course you know dad they had always played jokes on each other and so you know dad came back acting like he was p.o'd he said billy i can't believe it it made me so mad guy won't let us hunt what are you talking about we drove eight hours to get up here he says well you want to light us on he says i'm so mad i'm gonna go up to his barn and shoot his mural so mickey's grabbed his gun went around to the bar and loaded his rifle took one shot then all of a sudden you hear like three other shots and billy comes running around he goes i got two of his cows what are you doing to kill the guy's good cows the three musketeers might have been popular in new york but their reputation didn't sit well with the yankees front office in 1957 came a tipping point a fight in a nightclub that spilled out into the new york papers billy and mickey and whitey ford and hank bauer at the copacabana which was the hottest nightclub in new york at the time they went to see sammy davis jr they were all just sitting around their water and there's like a bowling team or something that came in and they were kind of getting on sammy and heckling one of the bowlers and some of the yankees are really going at it and they get up to like go settle this somehow the bowler ends up out cold in the coat room dad always said hank's the one that threw the punch and knocked the guy out it wasn't billy but you know they had to blame it on somebody and so since billy had that reputation i think he just got stuck with it george weiss the yankee general manager he wanted to get rid of him for years they were trying to break up the fabulous threesome of you know martin manoland ford and were they going to trade the winningest postseason pitcher in history at the time maybe the greatest all-time player in mickey mantle or the 260 hit and second baseman so they traded my father i guess assuming that mickey and whitey weren't going to go out and have anything to drink after my father left yeah billy took it very personally because he thought that casey could have somehow prevented that trade billy felt my daddy has abandoned me again and they didn't reconcile for many many years if you look at his career he was never the same after after taking off the pinstripes billy martin former great new york yankee infield star former coach of the minnesota twins now their new manager heading to minneapolis-st paul for the season by 1969 it had been more than a decade since billy martin left new york he bounced around to play four more years and became a coach after that meanwhile billy was now married to gretchen and they had a son together so life was pretty good when he was named manager of the twins prior to that 69 season it was the major leagues and you know it's his first opportunity so it was truly exciting [Music] the twins before billy takes over are not a good team but he molded them into a unit that played together and did unusual things for baseball back then the running game became primary when he got to the twins bunting hit and run first to third on every hit all these very aggressive sort of things one night says we're going to work on stealing home are you into crazy rod carew would steal home and amazing seven times for martin that year [Applause] dad always said that billy was going to be a great manager when they were playing billy was always just right there into the game he's a great teacher great teacher he would come up with different plays that he imagined in his head and we would work on that until we got it right and then sure enough there's a play he was ahead of managers all the time martin's twins ran away with the western division but the ride there wasn't always smooth because martin's style graded on some corners of the clubhouse including with one of his best starting pitchers 20-game winner dave boswell dave was a hot-headed guy he kept harping at philly all the time and one night billy was sitting at the bar and here comes boswell he came in there and he's yeah there's that little short italian and boswell threw the first punch and he was knocked out on his feet before he could throw another one it was the first but definitely not the last time that a front office had to decide whether billy's genius was worth everything else that came with him no matter how many games he won i knew he wasn't going to be with us martin had improved the twins by 18 wins and gotten them to the playoffs but he was still fired after that one season in minnesota not that that convinced other teams he couldn't make a difference for them the detroit tigers hired him in 1971 to turn them around which he did and a season rolled on with the tigers turning out a new hero each day he was a force he went places teams got better billy had this incredible gut for the game martin's tigers won 91 games in his first season 12 more than the year before and they went to the playoffs the next year in 1972 but at the same time he ward with management he fought over personnel and so the tigers fired martin midway through the 73 season you know i used to say to him as a kid dad don't you want to be a little more you know politically correct here he'd say pal if they wanted a yes man they wouldn't have hired me [Music] the texas rangers dead last in the american league west end of this challenge steps new manager billy martin who in years past would jump into a scrap at the drop of a glob this time he barely had a chance for a vacation after he was fired as texas rangers owner bob short dumped his manager to hire martin just a week after he left detroit bob short uttered those famous words i would fire my grandmother to hire billy martin the second day that we were in arlington we went to the bank to set up an account when the vice president asked what my husband's occupation was i said oh he's with the texas rangers and he said oh law enforcement and i was just i said no no from the texas rangers their manager billy martin and that 74 season was absolutely amazing they had a song they the turnaround gang there's a man named billy martin who turned this team around he gave them strength and taught him to fight and it's hard to put them down they call them the turnaround gang because that's just what they did and goes on a night from there [Music] you would have thought billy just come in from odessa this guy's got a lot of cowboy in him and of course he's out there going nuts on the field umpires whatever and he's going nuts off the field at times people loved it this was a team that lost over 100 games here before all of a sudden they're battling for a playoff spot he was a fearless manager he didn't care what the owners thought he didn't care what the press thought we felt as a team if we went into a series against a team that we were even with that we had a better chance to win because he was our manager these managerial stands for offensive like this three-stage rock the missile was launched successfully this beautiful explosion at first they're really good they're getting better and they're getting better and then things sort of peter out and shortly thereafter the failure occurred and then the rocket crashes and that was what happened in texas again in 1974 martin improved the rangers by 27 wins and attendance figures doubled in arlington but in 75 things quickly fell apart by mid-july the club was 15 games out and his act had again worn thin with a lot of his clubhouse not to mention with a new owner brad corbett the ultimate thing that gets him fired which is only this could only happen in billy martin's life is that there was a dispute between corbett and billy over what should be played during the seventh inning stretch billy had instituted this playing a john denver song thank god i'm a country boy it was in line with billy's new texas theme and corbett felt they should play take me out to the ball game billy tells the public address announcer basically threatens him and tells them you are going to play thank god i'm a country boy i don't want to hear anything else but that over the pa and so the pa guy does what he's told from billy corbett's sitting in the stands here's that come on and during the seventh inning stretch and not as take me out to the ball game and goes berserk and fires billy immediately like the game ends billy's fired out the door all over a song it was july 21st 1970 billy martin had been fired as a manager for the third time in seven years but literally within hours he got a call from someone else who had taken notice of what he could do the new owner of the new york yankees george steinbrenner the story of billy martin in every which way was about to change again forever when george called i i i was just astounded that i said i know this is the end and he said what do you mean i said the end of our marriage and he said you mean me taking the job in new york and i said yes [Music] and he said well then i'm not going to take it and i said yes you are yes you are rich and start talking to me about i should go and i just you know i don't think i should and i i kept saying no all night long and then next morning i woke up i said you know this this is a challenge i always like challenges i said well i think i'll try it that was that it was just a premonition i guess and certainly came true just 11 days after being fired by the texas rangers in july 1975 billy martin started another job his dream job manager of the new york yankees his family worried what going back to new york might do to him but couldn't have known just how wild how long and how downright bizarre the ride would be he was so excited to get that job that was his dream job all his best years as a player were in new york it's where his heart was it's like a little boy dreaming someday to be a yankee player then the next thing is the yankee manager it's a wonderful thing but it was a tough place to manage i knew he had his hands full with the press and the players and certainly with george billy has had his problems in three different places for nine innings you won't find a finer manager in baseball what i've tried to impress upon him was that if you can put the other qualities with the qualities you have you'll be one of the greatest managers of all time casey stengel was his first baseball father the guy who got him to the big leagues who protected him who protected him and then who betrayed him now we got george his new baseball daddy george wanted to win as badly as my father did my father respected that very much in 75 when he took over the team there was not too much you could do we were that our record was not great barely finished maybe above 500. it was next year's spring training when things you went whoa what i got right away was how much this guy loves to win you make an error you throw a ball away you misplay a fly ball you do something that costs the game oh he'll come in and he'll up turn the food tray he'll have the beer cart taken out he'll go in his office and start you he'll close the door but you'll hear things rattling off the wall we fed into that like some managers might be sitting back in their seat and just kind of mellow billy was like almost like uh george patton he was like patton he was on that top step you know throwing rocks out there and that sky on his face and it was very comforting in some ways because you knew that that if things went down if things got tough he was going to be there in the trenches with you it was suddenly this wonderful team they ran the bases aggressively they hit home runs they had terrific pitching and that was maybe the best year billy ever had was a manager after more than a decade filled with mediocrity everything changed for the yankees in 1976 as they won the a.l pennant but in the world series against the reds billy's team came up empty it was a little embarrassing there's no question about it when somebody hurts your pride it hurts a little bit there's no question getting swept was kind of humiliating billy but i think they all knew that they were short a player or two and they especially needed another power hitter you know it's just a question of which power here they were going to get billy wanted joe rudy george steinberg had a different id both wire services agree that you and reggie jackson are about to sign a contract let me just say this i know you wouldn't be out here on a night like tonight if if you didn't feel there was something to it congratulations billy and reggie and new york did not get off from good foot at all the news conference where reggie is introduced to new york they don't even invite billy to the news conference billy seemed to think that reggie maybe thought he was bigger than the yankees i don't think martin ever was comfortable around reggie because reggie was a threat to his relationship with his baseball daddy george steinbrenner george made sure he had relationships with his important players on the team and billy did not like that people will fuel in the pot nettles and thurman was saying heard the boss took reggie to 21 today did they invite you the billy george reggie thing was really this like love try some days it would be george and reggie against billy some days it'd be george and billy against reggie some days it would even be reggie and billy against george the whole scene was just bizarre it's like you know pro wrestling you know it was always like some incident going on in may the sport magazine story comes out reggie is quoted on the straw that stirs the drink we all knew okay well this probably is going to be a problem billy always felt like he was the manager and the captain in some ways he always felt like he was the guy he was the guy that serves the drink if you will and he took a lot of pride in that and anybody that that came in that didn't conform to you know being you know a little bit subservient to that you know he had issues with him it all exploded with the whole country watching in june of 77. you're on national tv you're in boston they're already drubbing your butt and jim rice hits a fly ball to right field falls in front of reggie and reggie doesn't really hustle after the ball and rice takes an extra base i'm sitting down in the dugout and billy's pacing back and forth and he just exploded and he hollered at paul blair get your glove go to right field and we knew oh this is not good in spring training billy told everybody on that team if i think you dogged it on a plate i'm gonna take you right out of that game and billy did exactly what he said he was gonna do i remember that billy had said to a couple of players watch what i do today that he had planned something jackson hit the top step of the dugout and went fine right at billy martin i knew billy was a sucker puncher so i took my glasses off i told him all the alcohol you've been drinking must be going to your brain and he got hot there now the yankee dugout is a place of turmoil and you're going did i just see what i i thought i saw things only got worse that summer when martin moved jackson down in the order this became the subplot for the whole summer of 1977 is when is billy gonna admit that he has to bet reggie fourth and george wanted him to do it but billy was defiant and the more george wanted him to do it the more billy didn't want to do it and just as unpredictable was where the fans sighted with billy there was a guy doing what every guy wanted to do jumped back in his boss's throat we'd walk down fifth avenue guys up on scaffolds hey skip man that was great we read what you told george yesterday he always understood that new yorkers are blue collar people who play hard and want their players to play hard and get after it every day so when fans looked at billy martin they kind of saw themselves he had a sense of that he understood that i think they relate to me the truck driver relates to me i'm a badly they're battlers and i think i'm just with the old common folk like i don't know he would come out with a lineup card to home plate and get these great ovations and every time the ovation started dying down he would tip his cap and wave his calf at the ovation would start again ultimately martin moved jackson back into the cleanup spot and the yanks won 41 of their last 54 games to win the al east in 77 and then with their backs to the wall against the royals in the playoffs billy put his fearless genius on full display with a move far ahead of its time in game four in a critical situation he brings sparky lyle his closer into the fourth inning which was unheard of back then and he pitches five innings the ball game is over the yankees win it then in game five billy made a move even more unorthodox and more controversial for this one night at least billy martin could do no wrong he had boldly benched reggie jackson in the fifth and final game of the american league playoffs you know we knew that that there was some animosity there but we never thought that in a game like that they would sit reggie there was no way you're gonna said our best hitter down in the game like this we were saying what's going on here we got to win this game this is the playoffs reggie was struggling and kansas city had loads and loads of speed in that lineup so paul blair the great defensive ball player played right field that particular day how many managers would have the courage the nerve the thought of sitting a superstar in a game like that obviously it could have gotten fired if they had lost in the eighth inning another perfect move martin sent reggie jackson up as a pinch hitter and that started the rally where we scored and beat kansas city the players celebrated their own skill and their manager's genius if it weren't for billy martin that team doesn't get to the world series and in the series it was reggie's turn as he exploded for three home runs in game six reggie and billy might have had a bumpy ride but together they delivered the yankees first championship in 15 years it's an incredible feeling because the yankees hadn't won in such a long time for billy to be together to bring the team back it was probably one of billy's crowning moments in the game i still remember reggie and billy buddy buddy on the couch in his office oh all his sweetness and light and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and then we come to 78 and that's when things really blew up then the batter hits the ball way far away then it goes running up here to first base no philly always thought he could do anything better than anybody else or certainly as good great crew right so he felt like he was an actor i feel very strongly both i never he had a lot of endorsements he was behind the camera a lot i think i'll try a swig of this and he was comfortable and he was a big celebrity you know you walk in new york you go to restaurants we go to bars after a game and everybody knew billy martin at that point if you ask yankee fans who their favorite yankee was martin mantle dimaggio probably billy but while billy was reveling being back in the new york spotlight coming off the 77 world series win it was all taking a toll on his family who were left behind i didn't know then kind of what was going on a lot of the time they were fighting a little bit more if it felt like to me then i think he spent 24 hours a day thinking about the team when she told me they were breaking up i was actually relieved in a way because you know in reality dad was married to baseball but on the field like he had before billy martin quickly lost control the 78 season started out negative and within the first month you already several games out of first place so fingers are being pointed by the middle of june the defending world series champions were seven games out testing their own his patients if something happened in a game the phone would ring my wife would look at me and she would say you know eddie that's george and then george is saying billy lost his mind the yankees were in free fall by the middle of july they'd fallen 13 games back it's extra innings man's on base he asked reggie to bunt reggie gave it a couple weak efforts and billy wasn't too happy with it so he finally said let the damn guy hit and reggie deliberately bunted against orders and he fouls out bunting you know that threw billy into a of rage i did that because i wanted a confrontation i wanted to get it settled when it got to george george completely understood that reggie was defiant reggie got suspended and when reggie reported back reggie did some media interviews and denied it all the way that they have interpreted the offense and apologies in order but the way i've interpreted defense you know like i don't really feel like did anything wrong he's unrepentant he's not going to apologize billy is like i think that being black has something to do with it i think the fact that as a black man i don't act very subservient i did not accept the way he managed me i couldn't accept the uh racial epithets and so there there was a an uneasiness a a a knowledge about the person that i was very uncomfortable with if you were a guy that was going to get after on his team and play hard i don't think it mattered what color you were i really believe that behind the scenes george steinbrenner tried to find a creative way out of the reggie and billy feud by shopping his manager in the middle of the season but george didn't count on billy finding out about it build vac the white sox owner tells him oh by the way like a month ago or so george called me about switching managers and then all this is stewing in his head you know reggie's insubordination george disloyalty and he's talking to a couple sports writers billy was in a war that had two fronts and this time he tried to fight his way out with his mouth he says they deserve each other one's a born liar reggie and the others convicted steinbrenner which of course a reference to steinbrenner's conviction or illegal campaign contributions to richard nixon george told me that he couldn't handle that one and uh he was going to have to fire billy well i called billy that said skip here's what i need you to do call a press conference and resign from the yankees for health reasons he said eddie i'll do it but why am i doing all that you resign for health reasons he's got to pay you and george called me said you little i know what you did i don't want to hurt this team's chances for the pennant where the sun do publicity has a shot of the pennant and i hope they win it still have the uh the notepad that he wrote uh made some notes on about what he wanted to say i owe it to my health and mental well-being to resign at this time i would like to thank the management press the news media coaches players and most of all it was pretty emotional he had a hard time holding back tears phil rizzuto was there to comfort him put his arm around him and then two of them walked off [Music] all of new york is so distraught because people loved billy they did not want to see him exit and certainly not like this it's just this outpouring of anger towards steinbrenner and phone calls to the stadium and he's getting killed in the press as steinbrenner felt the heat he began to second-guess what he'd caused but he'd already given bob lemon a contract to manage the rest of 1978 and 79. so with old-timers day scheduled for just five days after martin resigned george steinbrenner had a crazy idea the plan that george comes up with is well you won't come back until 1980 but we'll announce it at old timer's day get you into the stadium in a clandestine way and then we'll just announce the jerk coming back in 1980 you run out in the field and you doff your cap and everybody's happy which is exactly what happened coming down from the clubhouse going to the dugout as you go down these utility doors on the way so i was walking by the first door and i heard this and i said oh jeez it's babe ruth babe ruth isn't he what's going on hearing ghosts or something and i was stuff so i stopped again and i heard hey hey and i stopped no i'm not i'm not dreaming so i turned around and the doors are jarred it's kind of cracked and i peeked in there and billy martin's inside dressed in uniform inside the room i said billy what the hell you doing in the room what are you doing he goes come here come come he pulls me into the room and he goes i'm coming back i said i said again manager of the yankees for the 1980 season number one he's running out on the field waving his hat i think i started laughing i'm going like here we go again it was such a great moment for him because not only were his players on the field that he managed there but all his old teammates were there [Music] and he got that ovation he said it was the greatest moment in his career when i quit and the other day i called george and told him how i apologize paulo said uh what he said to me showed me that he was a man who realized that he had maybe made a small mistake i'm a free spirit and i'm gonna try to do other things that george wants me to do in the same time he says he's going to try to be a little more free spirit too you might have thought that after the scene at old timers day 1978 the whole scenario surrounding billy martin george steinbrenner and the yankees couldn't have gotten any more bizarre but somehow it did because after billy martin was named the yankees manager with a two-year lead time the lame duck in the dugout bob lemon orchestrated one of the greatest comebacks of all time [Applause] [Music] lemon's yankees made up 14 games in august and september on their way to the a.l pennant in 1978 and then he led them to new york's second consecutive world series title yet nonetheless billy martin was still due to replace lemon when in november 1978 this happened i was uh working for the reno gazette journal at the time i was 25 and it's my first uh interview that isn't the douglas county football coach and i went up to him and i asked him a question about could he peacefully coexist with reggie jackson and right away i could tell that the guy was really hammered and he told me that he could get along with hitler mussolini and hirohito as long as they played yankee baseball then all of a sudden boom his his mood snapped and he says to me i've given you a good interview now i'm going to take it back and he grabbed at my notes and said give me your notes and so he put him behind my back and i said you're not getting my notes and he walloped me right in the face with a with a punch and he says to me fighting's no way to solve anything and then all of a sudden he hits me again you know you look at it you see the chipped teeth and the big lip and of course the the black eye says it all that that picture was was like in almost every sports section in america really was obviously at fault but somehow he had to come out not at fault for him to keep his job as the future manager judge eddie sabre got billy out of jam after jam after gym and he did it magnificently in this fight the hardest part of the whole thing was ray did want an apology and we weren't going to get anywhere with billy saying he was sorry i took the podium that day i said look this morning had an opportunity to talk to ray i talked to billy and both of them were really really sorry that this all happened eddie safer apologized it was kind of ham handed but i had had enough i said okay that's good enough for me that was the end of it billy never said he was sorry eddie sapers press conference was enough for george steinbrenner he not only gave billy a pass but with bob lemon's yankees struggling in 1979 moved up the timeline on his plan the yankees now are in fourth place and so steinbrenner is bringing martin back tomorrow night is it true you were bored and that's why he went really back well i wouldn't say that i just felt that the the team looked a little bored so i figured it was time that something had to be done now i realize some people say well he can't change or he won't change that's not so billy is a different guy you can tell you can tell it couldn't have started out better for billy martin in the yankees in june of 1979. a heartfelt reception from the fans was followed by the typical martin turn around winning is billy martin's faith he did it in new york again billy the kid should make things mighty interesting but just six weeks after his return tragedy struck the new york yankees suffered a great loss tonight that of star catcher thurman munson who was killed this afternoon in an airplane crash i was with dad we were actually fishing in new jersey and um a police officer came to the dock with a bullhorn and billy martin come to the dock [Music] i remember dad looking at me what i do now um we got to the dock and they told me thurman munson passed in a plane crash and they didn't want him to hear it on the radio he was crushed he loved thurman billy was a wreck it's like him losing the sun it was it was terrible as much as billy was the kind of guy that could get over something not when it came to thurman the entire team was so distraught that billy knew the season was over the yankees would finish a distant fourth unable to recover after munson's tragedy it was the darkest part of a bad year all around for the franchise and of course their manager found a way to put an absurd coda on it afterwards billy martin is about to become once again the ex-manager of the new york yankees in october 1979 the yankee season was over but billy martin and his team were still reeling from the death of thurman munson when almost too predictably billy found trouble again in a bar in minnesota so he runs into a marshmallow salesman a marshmallow salesman the marshmallow salesman you know which billy thought was hysterical he said the marshmallow man kept on annoying us i was tired i really didn't want to be annoyed i didn't challenge that marshmallow man he challenged me eventually billy's had enough of the marshmallow salesman and he just puts 500 down on them on the bar and says i bet my 500 to your penny that i can knock you on your ass out in the lobby and the guy says you know let's get it on i think that guy still owes my father a penny i can't honestly tell you who landed the first punch or if there was more than one punch but the guy went down he hits his head on the marble floor george said suppose he split his head open and he dies he said i just can't handle that one eddie i just can't handle that one and just a few months later sure enough another job came calling the a's were one of the franchises of the 70s but by 1980 they were completely in disrepair their nickname was the triple a's or the oakland pathetics they were drawing almost nothing they literally have crowds of 1200 people at games there were nights when they'd say they're 4 000 people here and you you like r3 000 in the bathroom the a's were almost a perfect landing spot for billy martin in february of 1980 a club that needed a shock to their system just a few miles from where billy had grown up and they were also owned by another larger-than-life figure charlie finley knew that he was a good manager he knew that he won wherever he went he also knew he'd be good for the gate whether it was winning or fighting with the players in the dugout i mean he could guarantee entertainment from the start of 1980 billy made an impact on a team that was suddenly exciting and unpredictable he had a genius for for pulling out a play the manufacturer runs like he'd hit run with a guy on first that couldn't run and the guy at the plate that would strike out it's the worst combination how does he get away with that you know he might go he is going here's the pitch it gets the way and murphy is stolen home we played the small ball we went out and we squeezed we hit him russ we stole we did creative stuff with billy at the beginning and then we got the habit of knowing how to win the a's took over second place in the american league west going 23-11 since the all-star break the team won and the crowds started to grow the a's are following martin's formula to perfection playing the kind of baseball that drives opponents crazy with frustration and fans crazy with love fans come out because they like to see exciting winning baseball whether we win or lose they go home they say what's not exciting it is an adult game where they just sit down and if you win fine if you don't fine too and here he comes he's heading for the plane they started stealing home a lot and he had a bunch of deceptive double steals i remember that's billy i have no clue about that double steel he said i tell you hang with me tonight and if you're hanging and i know that you're seriously hanging yeah i'll give him to you so about two in the morning he's all right you're still here so he gave me like six of his favorite double steel tricks he told me about the left-hander with a real slow pickup move and he says what you do is you have the guy on first make him get off enough for where the guy thinks he can pick him up and once you do that the gallon third breaks because by the time he throws to first to home safe wrote it down it's true story we're in kaminsky park brit burns big tall six foot four you know what got first and third you know i'm there i like looking at billy you know and i mean thinking also i see the guy first kind of look like he's running and i caught i said oh no and by the time before i could yell no burns goes like this picks off the first the guy comes third steps on home without even a fro and i'm you know no i went to the top step took my hat off and tipped it to billy and he tipped it back you know it's genius billy's a's finished second in the al west in 1980 going from 54 wins to 83 and then they came out storming in 81. the record for the best start in the history of major league baseball was broken today the oakland as became the first team ever to win their first 11 games of the season the team that was baseball's worst two years ago has become baseball's best an exciting brand of baseball known as billy baugh they call it billy ball ball billy bob can't beat old billy ball billy ball is invented everything out there is billy ball every billboard all the t-shirts everything was billy ball billy ball billy ball there was a frenzy out there the a's did a whole marketing campaign called billy ball and billy himself starred in the commercials and i suppose you came out here just to sit in your hands uh no the guy comes up to the ticket booth to buy a ticket and who's behind the counter selling the ticket but billy and he won't give the guy the ticket until the guy impresses him that he's going to cheer louder let's hear some chatter a way to watch him talk come on this guy's got nothing tony meg can't pitch to you that's not normal we'll give you a tryout it was a fun year with all the billy ball we doubled our attendance i really believe billy saved the franchise for oakland billy ball it's a different brand of baseball [Music] billy mart he's been ripping the umpires the whole series if umpires had to vote on their favorite manager unequivocally it would have been billy martin billy was good and mostly umpires will tell you that he argued but he didn't hold a grudge billy and earl weaver took it to a different level [Applause] that's the only reason billy loved the confrontations with weave weaver and martin kind of friendly enemies i guess when weaver would get thrown out billy would get thrown out the same game but it was which one would do it with more flair and i think it was always a show with those two who could put on the best show because they always got thrown out when we played each other and if it wasn't the same game because he didn't have the opportunity the very next night the first thing boom the game hasn't even started yet and earl's got the thumb again i mean he got thrown out one time handing the lineup to the umpire okay because weaver did it the day before [Music] it's 1981 and billy martin was managing the oakland a's just miles from his hometown of berkeley california he was surrounded by old friends and family which gave people some glimpses into where and who he came from one of the security guards comes up and he goes hey zimian some woman wants to see you i said what i walk over and i look and there's this old woman and she goes where's billy i look back and i said you know he's probably inside at his office he says well tell that little we're gonna come out here his mom wants to see him i said okay i'll go get him right now his family was so happy he was back there his kids were happy that he was there and not in new york and it wasn't in the pressure cooker of newark wasn't dealing with george steinbrenner he got there got a little stomach a belly uh got color in his face he he looked great he was under so little stress there it all came together for billy and the a's in 81 and the team got to the playoffs wearing a perfect twist they went up against the yankees billy so so much wanted to go to new york so so much wanted to go to new york it was a great moment when we went back there and the fan reaction to billy was incredible billy martin [Applause] [Music] before game one george came down they hung out together like they were the best of friends forever george wanted to be billy and billy wanted to beat george even more but that 81 yankee team was a really good team and the a's were no match and they swept him even despite the loss billy's turnaround job in oakland might have been his best one yet he was without question one of baseball's best on field managers maybe even its very best but there was still everything else and soon everything else got in the way again i never could totally understand how he couldn't go with the flow almost you know but things were going good it almost felt like he had to throw something in there to upset things a little bit as usual there were issues on the field oakland a's manager billy martin was charged with common assault a result of this run-in with umpire terry cooney during last friday's game with the blue jays and then also new issues elsewhere billy's personal life was a little bit tumultuous in that period for sure at that point he kind of had like a home girlfriend and a road girlfriend i had gotten a job working at angel stadium and so he asked me to meet him after the game i was kind of scared and frightened his reputation probably preceded him being somebody that just was bigger than life and i was basically pretty shy but it was fun it was a gentleman i danced great i remember when he walked me back to my car that evening you know he was kind of skeptical or whatever but he took his cowboy hat off and he bowed and said it'd been a pleasure you know i was melting it's easy to fall in love with him but there was someone else besides jill another woman who billy lived with in the bay area and would eventually marry in 1982. it's like heather's my homegirl jill's my road girl and it's kind of the best way to define it sometimes he would tell heather he'd be going to speaking engagement in denver he actually be flying to southern california to spend the time with jill and he would actually tip the sky caps at airports to give him baggage tags that said denver so when he got home his bags had denver tags on him he was in a dark mood a lot of the time he was having problems with the irs he wanted to have one of his years paid in advance the team would do that so billy just started drinking it was a bad game a couple of coaches were in there and they started drinking and destroyed billy's office and refrigerator got knocked down tv got pulled off its brackets billy cut his hand it was blood on the wall i tore up my office because i was told that i didn't have another five years on my contract which i did on a handshake and that really upset me i had a 10-year contract i had a handshake and to me a man's words is bond you could just feel it was different you know part of it was losing he didn't like to lose i remember one night we lose it's quiet it's definitely quiet in the clubhouse in the spread room there was like coleslaw there were some beans and then there's fried chicken and guys are just kind of munching and all of a sudden here's billy his eyes were wild and he was looking at everybody he said oh yeah we're eating he said you guys played like pigs and then he had a fungo in his hand and he started like just slamming it down on the table and cold slots and it was like beating the table and just like sort of cracked and sort of then he like flipped over the coleslaw knocked over the beans and then started hitting chicken and guys are ducking and pieces of chicken are going all over and then he yelled so eating like pigs and threw the fungo and i remember it hit the floor and a chair and like flipped and like stuck into the wall and at the end of 1982 billy's expiration date had come up once again they called me clearly i can hear him now say eddie we got the best manager in baseball we do not think that we can replace billy with a better manager in fact we know we can't but sometimes you have to make change for the sake of change and that's why we have to make a change january 1983 over the previous 14 years billy martin had managed five teams one of them twice 14 years of strategic brilliance and signature intensity 14 years of chaos and turmoil and too many bar fights to count there he was in the bronx up on a podium again with george steinbrenner the george and billy show incredibly was set for episode three for instance i'll be handling all the trades what do you mean uh there'll be no phone calls in the dugout what do you mean that is not no that's not right i'm handling the trades that isn't the way we have the right to call you in the not what it's going to be to our damn right it is and if you don't like it you're fired you haven't hired me yet thus did george steinbrenner and billy martin announce their third professional marriage making him the highest paid manager ever he's a winner and i want a winner and i think this time it's going to be for quite a while george liked billy very much and they both had the same lord that came down when they won and gave them each a little bit more life and when they lost came down and took a little life away from each of them [Music] billy's return would start like all the others everybody said the right things and the yanks immediately improved and the yankees win the ball game if you were unfamiliar with the saga all you would have focused on were all the highlights it's 83. reg is not there anymore you know so all of these other guys are new guys they don't know all of this stuff i really like playing for billy what a play by mattingly and look at him as a guy that actually gave me opportunity that maybe another guy wouldn't have the courage to do done mattingly his first opening of the year but the truth was that nothing had changed and pretty quickly the rest of the story began to drag things down he was married at the time but he was seeing this woman jill he was married to someone else then okay and so i didn't know this there was a day in milwaukee she was passing notes to billy by putting her a note between her toes and putting her foot up on the railing and billy was taking the notes now we were watching this in the press box and this ended up getting written about created a big firestorm because as billy said like they wrote that don't they know i'm married and so billy's agent holds a press conference he's saying reports of billy and this girl are unfounded unfounded i said if somebody showed me a picture of somebody passing billy a note with their toes you know i'd believe my eyes she was right there we saw her it wasn't true we all just watched it there were 50 000 people there it was hard it just didn't happen that way it became another you know thing that steinbrenner had to swoop in and try and you know get to the bottom of instead of talking about baseball we spent the weekend talking about was the manager paying attention to the game billy's response to the mess was to blame the new york press and when the yanks fell below 500 in may he zeroed in on one prominent critic new york post columnist henry hecht he might have wrote a few derogatory stories but look if you're going to pull the stuff that you pull how can you expect people to write great things they're going to write the bad things they're going to write negative stuff billy calls a team meeting he rips me a new one you can't trust me i'm no good billy it was like nobody talks to this guy if henry was there you'd have to go okay look got artists he was trying to ruin my career henry came up to me was talking and somebody had seen it and billy walks down there he just says you know balboni can play here too just one of those i'm like i get it but despite that issue and a few others billy martin and the yankees turned it around in 1983 winning 91 games 12 more than the year before which was good but not good enough for the boss billy martin is out of his job again as manager of the new york yankees and the yankee owner george steinbrenner has now replaced martin three times he'll stay on as an advisor this time and yogi berra will be the new manager george might have thought by keeping billy on the payroll nice salary that uh he was being a good guy but i just think he was there as a convenient stop gap in that job and then when he needed him to be a manager because no manager could ever satisfy him well there was billy when george steinbrenner fired billy martin for a third time after the 83 season the truth was billy had other problems to deal with anyway like when his girlfriend jill finally found out about his double life i had found that out and that kind of ended the relationship i took all of his stuff out of the house and i threw it on the street and i guess the neighbors called the police billy's reputation was tarnished before but it was starting to get smudged even more it was kind of a black mark you know that i'm jesus he's not in the spotlight and yet we're still having this kind of thing where the police are involved so after things calmed down there was a period of time he just started following me around and wasn't going to give up and promised me that it would all work and while billy was getting a divorce from heather and salvaging things with jill back in the bronx george steinbrenner was losing patience with yogi berra after a disappointing 84 season and a slow start to 85 he made the all too predictable move they changed from a yogi to a yo-yo yesterday when owner george steinbrenner hired billy martin as manager for the fourth time the georgian billy show has begun to wear thin in new york the yankee players openly admitted they didn't want martin back i don't blame him for being upset yogi's a wonderful man he's my best friend for 35 years so i'm you know i'm not exactly overjoyed seeing yogi beating fire but that's part of the game it's not like you don't like billy but you also know that you know drama is coming and in 1985 the defining drama unfolded in late september in the form of yet another yes another infamous fight there's a blast starter ed woodson had struggled in his first year in pinstripes and by the last few weeks of the season the pressure of new york and billy martin pushed him to the brink have you heard the stories about his locker i come walking in the clubhouse one afternoon a priest by the name of father joe was on his knees and he was performing an exorcism on his locker i just went father joe you got to be me it's an expression okay it came out that way and father joe bless his heart he went gator i i do not and he just kept doing it i mean he never missed the beat when you weren't going good you know with billy that was personal you know it's like you were trying to have a bad year to hurt him we go to baltimore and him and billy had words i think the day before he had scratched him from the start and said that the whatchamacallit was having some problem with his arm didn't even use his name so that came back to whitson it was in the bar through cocktail and he was fired all up so now we got a yankee for head company ain't coming in coming in and he they're getting all over here and all oh ed grabbed the guy and he threw the he turned the guy around and he put the guy up against the wall he had the guy off the ground in the neck strangling him lay off you know just to shut up have you drink whatever billy hears he runs from in the corner but it was eliminated i always called him a man complex and billy came up from behind and he threw a punch okay and look he ain't here today i can't ask him what were your intentions when you did it so i can't tell you if billy was actually trying to hit the guy or if he was actually trying to hit whitson but billy hit whitson well whitson then waits any time whitson was wearing these big like cowboy boots and he just kicks billy in the crotch just about lifts him off the ground with this kick what the hell do you think billy's gonna do billy just went crazy billy doubles over like he's gonna collapse and then like an action figure in a movie just stands up and says now i'm gonna have to kill you [Music] it's not funny but it was so funny the bouncers came in so y'all can't be fighting in here doing this gonna say okay can we go outside in the parking lot huh those two went at it again now we gotta pull the head off billy we took billy to the back almost like a service elevator and whitson was going to the front but as it happens whitson and billy were staying on the same floor the elevator doors open there's woodson standing right here and they started going at it again not a fight no no baseball produced a vicious fight last night in a baltimore hotel bar between yankee manager billy martin and ed whitson one of his pitchers martin got the worst of it a broken arm you're going like only here this crap like that happen and yet we wound up two games out of first place and we had a shot billy martin drove the yankees to 97 wins in 1985. somehow he once again produced results on the field even if once again the end of the story was almost too familiar to take and speaking of going around in circles martin's been fired by the yankees it's like deja vu all over again even after the craziness of the end of the 1985 season billy martin remained with the yankees organization as a part-time broadcaster and a special assistant to george steinbrenner in 1986 he was even honored with a plaque in monument park a reminder of the pride and the worthy sides of a complicated man yeah he was good to me he always wanted to do things for me he always wanted to make sure that i was okay he always had a soft very almost sweet side to him and most people wouldn't think that but he was always very giving in 1953 when he was the mvp of the world series they gave him a pontiac he gave it to his priest in california we're in minnesota this guy walks in looks like he was down on his luck i saw billy peel off a couple of hundred dollars give to this guy cabbies and elevator operators pulled me aside and tell me how nice my father was to them i had a day here in lafayette they wanted to know you think he would come hey i'll be there what time when you need me billy and i went to dinner one night and you know i said uh i'd like you to be my daughter's godfather i said no you don't want i said yes you started crying but of all of the people who loved billy martin there might have been no one more infatuated with him than george steinbrenner and after the 1987 season it was time for another announcement it's deja vu all over again billy martin has been named the manager of the new york yankees for not the first not the second not the third not the fourth but the fifth time replacing lupinella the man who replaced him back during the 1985 season people who say that why would you bring it back a fifth time well for one thing is if you want to create excitement around your team that's one reason look at the headlines look at you asking the questions all these people saying you know opinions on it but he has a tremendous following season ticket sales are three million dollars ahead of last year at this time and a major portion of that's because billy martin's coming back billy on the field is one of the most successful managers of all time but billy off the field has always been a loaded missile waiting to self-destruct billy often feels married now and is very happy and has been happy for the last three years somebody said well i haven't read much about you last three years i said well i haven't been out much in the last three years i kind of like it a lot of people look at him as some i don't know cartoon character who liked to fight a lot it was so much more than that and they missed so much of that if you saw him in spring training early morning how much he loved talking baseball you know he had time he had time for us buck showalter was a young coach in his first spring training with the yankees in awe of his manager and honored when the great billy martin invited him out for a night on the town i was a designated driver and billy flipped me to car keys so you're with us tonight he goes we'll see how good you feel about that so uh we ran around port charlotte everything was great i mean he just loved talking about the yankees and then sooner or later somebody would pop off and billy just wasn't one of those guys that walked away or turned the other cheek because of my reputations they're reading the paper they come out of the walls and they feel that they have a right to compensate something wise they forget that you're a man first and then you're a manager the manager part comes second as far as i'm concerned going out to a bar with my father was like hanging out with billy the kid somebody invariably would walk up and and challenge him i know i've been out with him now and i've seen it and i say just don't tell me the guy stumbled or tripped and hit his head against the wall i mean you want to hit a guy who gets on your case and really gives you a hard time okay almost too predictable to believe the 88 season followed a familiar script the yankees were in first place by may but soon after trouble found billy martin this time on a road trip in texas while out with his old friend mickey mantle dad had gotten a room at the hotel too where the yankees were staying so that way they'd just be together billy meets mickey at the hotel and it's just filled with yankee fans and so billy turns to mickey and says is there someplace quiet we can go and mickey says yeah i know the place and mickey who was like this takes him to this loud throbbing strip club put it on record because my wife will see this i have never been in the lace but i do remember the story and it wasn't good they might have been drinking a little bit too much that night and at some point mike ferraro who was a coach for billy takes mickey mantle home and leaves billy alone in the bar which is never a good idea billy just innocently went to the bathroom and when he went to the bathroom he got viciously attacked and they beat him i mean bad steinbrenner mr steinbrenner was with him for this road trip there was a fire alarm at the hotel five o'clock in the morning and uh the first guy out of the building is the old man and here comes the taxi pulling up after hours doors open up really falls out you know his ears bleeding and all this other stuff and mr steinberg looks and goes like he just said i don't want to know anything about just take him away [Music] it's like of all times to have a fire alarm the old man was coming out of his robe he almost lost his ear and obviously wasn't great for his legacy either the nurse asked him when he was getting his ears stitched up he says do you have any allergies he says yeah people p-e-o-p-l-e billy martin involved in an incident last night he came in the ballpark that next day all stitched up and uh it was almost like you see still bloodstains where they didn't clean them up too good i just remember looking at him and really feeling really bad for him like billy lily what are you doing man come on what are you doing you know by then the chorus was building that billy was perhaps dangerous he had big problems with the umpires that year he had this incident in oakland where he went after empire kill scott [Applause] and billy got suspended and the umpires threatened to not come on the field if billy was on the field that billy had to stay in the dugout and if he left the dugout they were going to stop the game so the story's getting familiar he wins they've been in first place most of the season but there was all this other stuff reportedly has a drinking problem can you confirm that i don't know sir i don't get into in those things the game is is a lot of times your salvation now when the game ends now you're you're by yourself it's a very lonely job as a manager and i think the way billy solved it was you know he'd go to a bar and have too many drinks that's the sad part of of the genius side of him i don't like telling the stories about that but you know if he had his glasses on in the dugout he was probably out [Music] you know sometimes i jab him in the ribs when the camera would pan in i'd knock him in there hey this camera's on dude was it worth it and george again had canelo waiting in the wings it may sound like an old story but billy martin has been fired as manager of the new york yankees again you know his downfall was drinking i mean that was it alcoholism is disease and so um i think that there was a touch of that [Music] i don't drink that much i mean i'm not as much i get credit for i don't do a lot of things i get credit for as much but i i think drinking is all right if you hold it and control it it won't control you i've never been a heavy drinker to the point where it controls me uh some people who want to throw rocks at me have come out and need comments like that but i never had any trouble that way i always wished that things would calm down and maturity would set in why didn't anyone ever say you have to go to an aaa meeting [Music] they didn't do that then it was a different world billy martin was of his time now there are many fans who want to know what's billy martin up to these days what are you doing i'm a very poor farmer but i love it where are you doing to farming and how are you up a little town called port crane up right outside of binghamton new york and i like it very much after his fifth tour as yankees manager ended in june of 1988 billy martin did something different he got away from baseball buying a farm in upstate new york [Music] it made it a great getaway a great retreat he really enjoyed it um and he knew more about the country than you would have thought he did all the bush hogging helped the gardeners took care of the lake he was a hands-on guy never saw billy happier than that time he loved having a big house out there a little bit of property and so i think he was very content very happy at that point even if he was far from any big league ballpark there were still rumors about the 61 year old martin's baseball future and the idea of a sixth trip back to the yankees dugout he wasn't ready to take off his hat he we wanted to go back there's no question 88 led into 89 and dallas green was the yankee manager and that didn't go so well and then bucky then took over that didn't really go so well if billy wasn't the yankee manager he was always waiting to become the yankee manager well let's talk about billy martin i mean would you would you bring him back as number six you know anything can happen in this game and anything might happen george hatched this plan that uh you know what i don't know how good 1990's gonna go if it goes bad like i think it's gonna go bad you're gonna be the guy so billy started calling all his old pals and said keep your powder dry we're going back to the yankees next year did he talk to you about that at all yeah he did and then it was christmas day 1989. billy's good friend bill reedy was in town for the holiday the pair left martin's house around noon heading to downtown binghamton to run an errand their trip became a trip to find a bar that was open on christmas day there was a restaurant morris that was open and billy saw the sign that was open he says well if they're open for dinner then they're open for drinks my name is bob dunlop and i was a bartender at mori's restaurant on christmas day in 1989 the restaurant opened at noon and billy and his friend bill reedy were there shortly after that billy was in a great mood very personable very happy wishing everybody a merry christmas he did tell me that he'd heard from george steinbrenner and he was going to return to the yankees in the spring billy was drinking martinis and bill was drinking beer they were there four hours i would say it'd be a logical assumption to say they had more than two or three drinks but i can't tell you that i don't know i don't remember never crossed my mind account how many drinks they had when they left they said goodbye to everybody wish them merry christmas again who got in what what side of the truck i have no idea it was probably 20 25 minutes from maurice to billy's house you get off the exit and go up kind of a windy difficult road to navigate even in good weather the elements out there that night snow sleet hail black ice and they get to within sight of the house billy's vehicle makes a left turn and they slid off the road into what was a very deep ditch the car lurched forward trying to get out of the ditch and didn't and instead hit this culvert the crash is literally at the foot of his driveway [Music] the gates were where the accident happened had ringers on it that would let you know that someone was coming or going and it rang and it was the chief of the fire department telling me that there had been an accident out front first responders on the scene when they get there they look inside the truck which was sideways in this culvert when showed us smashed neither one of them had their seat belts on and billy's neck was snapped immediately when i went out there i saw that billy was on a stretcher in the snow i just got down on my knees and grabbed his head and said oh baby there's so much to live for please you know keep trying [Music] and you know held his hand felt the blood leave his body [Music] horrible day horrible night five-time new york yankees manager billy martin died last night at the age of 61. martin was killed christmas day in an auto crash near his home in upstate new york um i i just remember billy jr just immediately in tears it was obviously you know that time of my life definitely the most painful moment of that i've ever dealt with all of a sudden that comes on the news dad was sitting here and i was sitting here he didn't even he just put down like the remote control didn't say where he got up walked to the front hall grabbed his keys left christmas day is my birthday and uh we was at home i got a phone call that you know billy had died and i was heartbroken and we really broke down about him uh been gone it all could have been avoided but then you're going when you're thinking about how much he drank you always figured something bad was gonna drinking killed him literally and figuratively police say martin was a passenger in his own pickup driven by a friend the driver has been charged with drunken driving [Music] at the scene of the accident bill reedy who suffered a broken hip told police he was driving but soon after he changed his story bill being the good friend at first said he was driving because he didn't want more negative crap written about billy but he didn't know that billy had died at the time when he found out that billy had died then there was no reason to cover up for billy any longer this sets in motion the controversy that ended up eventually there were two trials over who was driving there was no way that i could have this man pass away being the driver of that vehicle because he wasn't whoever drove that vehicle to billy's house missed the exit i don't think billy would have missed the exit which would suggest maybe somebody's not so familiar with the route which billy was but really wasn't i did overhear bill reedy say to billy if we're having one more he better give me the keys because i'll be driving i could never get the keys from billy never these are the windshields of the vehicle that they used as evidence where the bodies were in the vehicle suggest bill reedy was driving the circle over here is where they extracted the hairs to for the dna in both cases they said bill reedy was driving i think if you look at the preponderance of evidence i think bill really was driving it didn't have to end this way [Music] billy martin will be buried today following a mass at st patrick's cathedral in new york city in the cathedral i remember losing it as the procession was starting to leave and just as i'm getting up i really started breaking down and a man grabbed me kind of by the arm helped straighten me up and said i want you to walk outside and see how many people loved your father and he walked me outside and you couldn't even see the sidewalks there were so many people it was richard nixon that kind of helped me catch my snap and kind of get it back together and it was a tough day in baseball between yankee stadium and that road where billy martin died there's a place they put the ones who were the very best at what they did in the game but one name you won't find in cooperstown new york is billy martin maybe it's because of all the complications if we can put it that way that he calls for himself off the field maybe it's because he never lasted more than three full seasons and then he stopped as a manager maybe because now all these years after that truck drove off that road people just don't remember everything that billy martin was it takes a while to get to everything anyway still if they say one of the best things about baseball is the characters you find in the game people the game awakens something in a gift a genius a fire there's something worth treasuring about those characters no they're not perfect but don't ever let yourself forget them he was a genius do you belong to hall of fame i think he's blown in hall of fame there are seven managers in the hall of fame who have a worse winning percentage than billy martin and they include tony larussa i'm sorry that guys today have never gone against a guy like billy you better be on your toes or you're going to be walking in that dugout slaughtered i always get really credit for being the best manager i've ever played for he had a way of being able to go inside you get to know you in order to light the fire he was a ball player he was a fighter he was a lover he was a manager he packed a lot into a lifetime how would you like to be remembered well i think they'll think about me as uh with some of the press try to make them think about me a very tough hard guy to get along with i don't think that's what i'd like to be known at but that's the way i've been to build and that's that's a shame as that's the way it's going to be i don't care what anybody says about it he's a good man i saw the best of billy even when he was having too many drinks none of us got it all figured out but billy tried as good a bad as what you think it was when you were doing it when he was there and all of the chaos that he caused he did exactly what he wanted to do he lived life like he wanted to live it he managed it like he wanted to manage it he certainly played like he wanted to play so you know he did it his way it was how he wanted to do it you

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Id: qKaoQ8_rQEM

Length: 89min 27sec (5367 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021