NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Dodgers had just tied Game 6 of the 1953 World Series on Carl Furillo’s two-run homer in the top of the ninth. Yankee Stadium went quiet.
Then a scrappy second baseman lined a Clem Labine sinker up the middle. A runner scored from second. The Yankees won 4-3 on Oct. 5, 1953, and clinched a fifth straight championship, a run no club has matched since.
Billy Martin delivered the winning hit. It was his 12th of the Series, tying a World Series record, and it earned him the MVP award. Allie Reynolds got the win. Labine took the loss.
That swing made Martin a Bronx hero for life. He collected four rings as a Yankees infielder, in 1951, 1952, 1953 and 1956, then added a fifth as manager in 1977. The franchise later retired his No. 1.
His career also came with a temper that followed him from the clubhouse to the hotel bar. A 1957 brawl at the Copacabana nightclub got him traded to Kansas City. Twenty years later, he and Reggie Jackson nearly came to blows in the Fenway Park dugout on national television.
George Steinbrenner hired Martin to manage the Yankees in August 1975. He fired or forced him out again and again. The fifth and final stint ended June 23, 1988, with the club 40-28 and two games out of first place. Lou Piniella took over.
In between, Martin delivered the 1977 title, the Yankees’ first in 15 years, with a six-game win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also won division titles away from the Yankees with Minnesota in 1969, Detroit in 1972 and Oakland in 1981. Only Texas slipped past without one.
Now, nearly 37 years after his death, that complicated legacy has landed Martin somewhere few Yankees fans expected.
Three Yankees crack a villains top 10
An independently run baseball page on X named “Baseball’s Greatest Moments” published a list of top 10 biggest baseball villains ever this week. Three of the 10 names wore pinstripes.
Alex Rodriguez sits at No. 2, tagged for his season-long 2014 suspension in the Biogenesis case. Roger Clemens is No. 4, cited for his place in the 2007 Mitchell Report. Martin closes the list at No. 10, with a note that he managed the Yankees five times.
Barry Bonds tops the ranking for his 762 home runs amid the steroid scandal. Pete Rose, banned in 1989 for betting, is No. 3.
Houston’s Jose Altuve is fifth for winning the 2017 AL MVP during the Astros’ sign-stealing season. Chase Utley is sixth for the 2015 playoff slide that broke Ruben Tejada’s leg. Manny Machado, seventh, is listed for a 2018 comment about hustle. John Rocker and Ty Cobb round out spots eight and nine.
No franchise placed more names on the list. The Dodgers, with Utley and Machado, are the only other club with two.
The words that put them there
Some entries rest on a single sentence. During the 2018 postseason with the Dodgers, Machado defended his effort level by dismissing the idea of being a hustle player.
That was, he said, “not my cup of tea.”
Martin’s most famous line came in July 1978, when he took aim at his own star and his own boss at once.
“One’s a born liar, the other’s convicted,” Martin said of Jackson and Steinbrenner.
For Rose, the story has shifted. Commissioner Rob Manfred removed him from the permanently ineligible list on May 13, 2025, in a letter to Rose’s attorney that set a new standard for lifetime bans.
Manfred wrote that “permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual.”
Martin’s rings outnumber the rest of the list
The surprise in Martin’s inclusion becomes sharper when the championships are tallied.
Martin owns five World Series titles. The other nine players on the ranking own nine combined: three for Rose, two each for Clemens and Altuve, and one each for Rodriguez and Utley. Bonds, Machado, Rocker and Cobb never won one.
That means the three Yankees on the list account for eight of its 14 rings. Martin is also the only manager on it.
There is a Yankees thread even in Cobb’s entry. His infamous charge into the stands came May 15, 1912, at Hilltop Park against the New York club that would become the Yankees. He attacked heckler Claude Lucker, who had lost eight fingers in an industrial accident.
Detroit’s players struck in protest of Cobb’s suspension, and a replacement Tigers team lost 24-2 to the Philadelphia Athletics.
Where the three Yankees stand in Cooperstown
The ranking lands as the Hall of Fame cases of its Yankees members remain stalled.
Rodriguez received 40% of the vote in January, his fifth year on the BBWAA ballot, well short of the 75% needed. Clemens failed again in December 2025, drawing fewer than five votes from the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee alongside Bonds. Jeff Kent was elected instead.
Martin is not in the Hall of Fame. He died Dec. 25, 1989, in a car crash in upstate New York, four months after Rose accepted his ban.
Rose, meanwhile, could appear before the Classic Baseball Era Committee as soon as late 2027.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
