Yankees’ No. 1 Billy Martin: Iconic player and manager in one

Thursday August 10, 2023

For 11 seasons, Billy Martin played as a second baseman for the Yankees and had a batting average of .257 and managed them for five seasons. On August 10, 1980, the team retired his No. 1 shirt to honor him in the pantheon of the Yankees greats.

His most notable years were with the New York Yankees from 1950 to 1957. Billy Martin performed exceptionally well in the World Series, where he had a batting average of .333. In the seventh game of the 1952 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, he made a game-saving catch off Jackie Robinson’s hit, reaching down to catch the ball just above his shoetop. The following year, in Game 6 of the Series, Billy Martin hit the ball for the 12th time, setting a record, and that hit brought in the winning run during the ninth inning. This victory marked the Yankees’ fifth consecutive World Series win.

When he became a manager, Billy Martin gained a reputation as someone really smart who could make almost any team successful. However, he also had a different side where his behavior wasn’t consistent, often because he drank too much. This behavior and his difficulty dealing with experienced players or young pitchers resulted in his being fired from his coaching position sooner than expected.

In addition to managing the Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, and Oakland Athletics, Billy Martin also managed the Yankees, not just once but five separate times. His connection with the team’s owner, George Steinbrenner, got so bad that it started to affect how well he could manage the team. Throughout his time as a manager, which lasted for 16 seasons, Billy Martin achieved quite a bit. He won five division titles (with four different teams), two league pennants, and even managed to win a World Series.

Billy Martin’s playing career

Alfred Manuel Martin was born on May 16, 1929, in Berkeley, California. His mom, Jenny, was strong and street-smart. His dad, also named Alfred Manuel Martin, was unfaithful, and Jenny removed him from their lives before he was even born. Billy Martin didn’t meet his dad until he turned 15, and even then, it was just to tell him that he didn’t want any connection with him. Growing up in the flatlands of the western part of East Bay city, Billy Martin’s upbringing was very different from that of the well-known university situated uphill. As a tough kid from the streets, he found an outlet for his energy in baseball. He began playing the sport on the sandlot when he was nine years old.

After finishing high school at Berkeley High School in 1946, Billy Martin joined the Idaho Falls team in the Class D Pioneer League. In his 32 games there, he had a batting average of.254.

In the later part of the 1947 season, Billy Martin became a part of the Oakland Oaks team. This was his first time playing under Casey Stengel, who was not only the team’s manager but also someone who strongly supported him and acted like a father figure he never had. Stengel then took over as the manager for the Yankees in 1949, and in the following year, he brought Billy Martin to New York. There, he played in 34 games and achieved a batting average of.250. Even though Billy Martin was known for being bold, his reputation didn’t affect how Joe DiMaggio, a famous player, treated him. DiMaggio actually became friends with Martin.

By 1951, DiMaggio had retired, but Mickey Mantle had joined the team, and this marked the beginning of both the achievements and the ups and downs of Billy Martin’s time with the Yankees. His top-performing year was 1953 when he had a batting average of .257 and drove in 75 runs. This was the only time Billy Martin managed to surpass 50 runs batted in (RBI), and he also played exceptionally well in the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Back when he played, Billy Martin became known for his tough and confrontational behavior on the field. This led to him getting nicknames like “The Brat” and “Billy the Kid.” Off the field, he had a habit of going out at night, often with Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. Despite this, when Martin was part of the team, the Yankees had a lot of success. The only time they didn’t win the American League pennant between 1950 and 1957 was in 1954, and that’s because Billy Martin was serving in the military during that season.

Even though the Yankees did well with Billy Martin as part of the team, the general manager, George Weiss, believed that it might be better for the team if Martin wasn’t there. He thought that Martin’s habit of going out and partying had a negative impact on players like Mantle and Ford.

Weiss held Billy Martin responsible for the well-known incident that happened at the Copacabana. On May 16, 1957, a number of Yankees players came together to celebrate Martin’s 29th birthday. Although it was actually Hank Bauer who got into a fight with someone at the nightclub, and players like Mantle and Ford were also involved in Martin’s late-night activities, Weiss didn’t pay attention to what the team’s manager, Casey Stengel, had to say. Instead, Weiss went ahead and traded Martin to Kansas City just a month later.

After he left New York, Martin spent about 4 and a half seasons moving around different teams. He went from the Athletics to the Tigers, then to the Indians, and after that to the Reds, the Brewers, and finally the Twins. The most notable incident during this time was when he attacked Jim Brewer, a left-handed pitcher for the Cubs, which caused Brewer to break his jaw. This incident led to a lawsuit that took nine years to settle.

Throughout his 10 seasons, Billy Martin’s batting average ranged from .242 to .267. In 1955, he stood out by hitting .300, but that was in just 20 games.

Billy’s managerial career

After he finished his playing career in 1961, he took up coaching with the Twins and managed at the Triple-A level in Denver for a year. In 1969, Billy Martin was promoted to lead the main Twins team and secured a divisional title with an impressive record of 97 wins and 65 losses. However, he didn’t get a chance for a second season with Minnesota, as he was let go. The primary reason for his firing was a situation involving pitcher Dave Boswell. Billy Martin got involved after Boswell was accidentally hit during an altercation in a bar.

After leaving Minnesota, Billy Martin moved on to Detroit, where he managed from 1971 to 1973. The Tigers managed to win a divisional title in 1972, but his tenure came to an end during his third season. He was let go because he had instructed his pitchers to intentionally throw the ball at players from the other team. This was done as a way of responding to Gaylord Perry’s use of spitballs. In 1973, Billy Martin briefly managed the Texas team, leading them to a significant improvement from being last to finishing second in 1974. Unfortunately, he was fired in 1975 from his managerial role with the team.

Next, there was a big dramatic situation in the Bronx involving Billy Martin and Steinbrenner. In this situation, there was a manager who really wanted to be liked and wear the Yankees’ uniform. On the other side, there was an owner who was really good at controlling people who were unsure of themselves. He didn’t give approval easily and always seemed to want to fire managers.

Billy Martin became the Yankees’ manager for the final 56 games of 1975, and the team ended up in third place. The following year, he guided the Yankees to a really good record of 97 wins and 62 losses. This got them into the World Series, but unfortunately, they lost all the games and the Reds won.

Despite the fact that the Yankees had secured their first pennant in 12 years, Steinbrenner decided to make a number of changes during the offseason that Billy Martin didn’t approve of. The biggest one was bringing Reggie Jackson onto the team. It didn’t take long for their strong personalities to clash with one another.

Jackson kept talking about how important he was and said he was the one making everything exciting. He celebrated himself, saying he was the most important thing on the team. Some players even secretly worked with the team’s bosses to make things difficult for Billy Martin. The situation got really crazy in 1977, especially in Boston. It got so bad that Martin and Jackson had to be stopped from fighting each other.

Even with all the problems they had, the Yankees managed to win the pennant with a really good record of 100 wins and 62 losses. And not only that, they also won the World Series, which was their first in 15 years. They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games to take the title.

In 1978, things were still pretty chaotic in the Bronx, similar to a zoo. The Yankees were not doing as well as Boston, and there were many issues. Jackson was not paying attention to the signs given by the team; Steinbrenner talked about trading Billy Martin to another team for someone else and claimed that the manager was drinking a lot. Everything fell apart around late July when Billy Martin told the reporters that Jackson and Steinbrenner deserved each other. He called Jackson a liar by nature and referred to Steinbrenner as someone who had been found guilty of something.

The day after, Billy Martin, with tears in his eyes, decided to step down from his position. However, shortly after that, during the Old-Timers Day event, it was announced that Lemon, who was taking over, would shift to a different role in the front office in 1980, and Billy Martin would be coming back to manage the team again.

That plan changed, and Billy Martin returned to manage the last 95 games of the 1979 season. In October, he got into a physical fight with a man named Joseph Cooper, who sold marshmallows. This was the second time Steinbrenner had fired Martin. Then, Billy Martin took a break in Oakland, where he improved a style of play known as Billyball, focusing on running. He succeeded in 1981 by leading his team to win the A.L. West in a split season.

However, things took a turn in 1982 when Billy Martin had problems with the management. The team’s performance dropped to 68 wins and 94 losses, and he was fired. Billy had overworked the young pitchers, causing them to develop arm problems. He later returned to manage the Yankees for the entire 1983 season, finishing third with a record of 91 wins and 71 losses. Billy Martin also managed most of the 1985 season and almost half of the 1988 season.

Billy Martin worked as a special consultant for Steinbrenner. Unfortunately, he passed away on Christmas Day in 1989 in a car accident near his home in Fenton, N.Y. Billy Martin was 61 years old when he died.

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