Billy Martin

by Bill Pennington

  Weiss summoned Billy to his office as the 1957 season approached to warn him.

  “It was the same old bullshit,” Billy said. “Mr. Weiss said, ‘You better not stay out late once, you better not make one false move, because if you do, you’ve had it.’”

  Bobby Richardson was in the 1957 spring training camp. He did not see any of the turmoil he read about years later and was completely unaware Billy was on a short leash.

  “Billy was the unquestioned leader of the team and everyone listened to him, including Mickey and Casey,” Richardson said.

  Sports Illustrated put Billy on its cover, and the story included this sentence: “Billy is the bee which stings the Yankee rump, the battery which fires the Yankee engine, the fellow who makes the Yankees go.”

  By May, the Yankees had won nearly two-thirds of their games. Billy, Mickey, and Whitey had not changed their ways, but they had not gotten into any off-the-field trouble either. The team was scheduled for consecutive days off on May 15 and 16. The latter was Billy’s birthday, and Berra’s birthday was May 12. Several Yankees thought it would be fun to take the two Yankees out on the town. A week in advance a dinner was arranged at Danny’s Hideaway, a large, famed restaurant on East 45th Street, which was then known as Steak Row. The dinner was planned for the fifteenth because the players figured they could stay out late knowing there was no game the next day. It was a big group. Former teammates Bob Cerv and Irv Noren, in town with the Kansas City Athletics, were invited, as was pitcher Johnny Kucks and Berra, Ford, Bauer, and Mantle and their wives. When a rainout from earlier in the year was unexpectedly scheduled for the sixteenth, the dinner went on as scheduled because the wives had already arranged for babysitters.

  Danny’s Hideaway was packed and the service was a bit slow. The Yankees and their guests did not mind. They passed the time drinking. None in that group needed encouragement. After dinner, the party, minus Cerv and Noren, moved to the Waldorf Astoria, where Johnny Ray was singing. The Waldorf baked a birthday cake. After Ray’s show, the group climbed into three cabs and were driven the ten blocks to the Copacabana at 10 East 60th Street. They got there twenty minutes before the 2:00 a.m. show of Sammy Davis Jr.

  This was Billy’s neighborhood, just a few blocks from the St. Moritz. The Copa, known as “the hottest club north of Havana,” was an incongruous fit for a neighborhood so close to posh Fifth Avenue. But it had a fantasy atmosphere. Descending into the Copa’s basement location was like flying south to the Caribbean, with tropical plants, pink gardenias, and a Latin-style décor. Seeing the Yankees early that morning, the Copa manager quickly set up a new table right next to the stage, a large, semicircular banquette. The party was in full swing.

  Even though the next hour or so was the subject of dozens of newspaper stories (there were newspaper reporters in the room at the time), and even though the events of the next hour led to a court case with testimony taken from several witnesses, including the Yankees, it has never been established exactly what happened next. There is one central established fact: Edwin Jones, forty, a delicatessen owner who lived at 600 West 188th Street in northern Manhattan and one of nineteen members of a bowling club out for a night on the town, ended up unconscious in the cloakroom with a broken nose and bruises on his ribs, scalp, and chin.

  The other established fact: George Weiss blamed Billy for it. Billy was there and it occurred on his birthday.

  Jones’s bowling party, which had been drinking heavily as well, was seated near the Yankees’ table. At some point, words were exchanged between the two groups. The Yankees said that one of the bowlers had called Davis “a little sambo.” Davis interrupted his show to protest the insult. Bauer, other Yankees said, told the bowlers to shut up. Jones in particular jawed back at Bauer and wanted to fight.

  Billy always maintained that at this juncture Jones’s brother, Leonard, approached him and asked to talk in private. They went to an anteroom and the brother told Billy that he would calm down Edwin if Billy calmed Bauer. Billy agreed, and as they left the room he heard a commotion toward the back of the nightclub, near the cloakroom and kitchen. He ran over to see Jones knocked out cold.

  Mickey came running over shouting Billy’s name—“Billy, Billy, Billy!”—because Billy had been missing for a few minutes as he talked with Leonard Jones.

  “I said: ‘Mick, I’m over here.’ But when the reporters came snooping around, everyone had heard Mickey call my name and as a result some of the people evidently thought I hit the guy,” Billy said.

  Every Yankee denied hitting the man. As Berra said, “Nobody did nothing to nobody.”

  Bauer, the most likely suspect then and now, said he went to the back of the room with Edwin Jones. He said he wanted to throw a punch but couldn’t because Berra and Kucks rushed up behind him and held his arms. Bauer also said the bouncers told him they would take care of things.

  The combination of newsy elements—famous Yankees, Sammy Davis Jr., a nightclub of note and esteem, and a punched-out patron—made front-page headlines in the afternoon papers.

  IT WASN’T A NO-HITTER, screamed the bold text of the Journal-American.

  The Yankees’ clubhouse was mobbed with reporters before the May 16 game. Yankees owner Dan Topping summoned the Copa Six—as they were already being called in media reports—into his office and fined each of them $1,000 (which he rescinded after they won the pennant). At the time, he was livid.

  “I warned you sons of bitches,” Topping screamed.

  Afterward, Bauer asked Mantle when they had been warned.

  “You wasn’t at that party,” Mantle answered.

  Stengel benched Berra, Ford, and Billy for that day’s game and dropped Bauer to eighth in the order. Mantle still hit third. Stengel said he was mad at Mickey too but he had a pennant to win.

  The New York tabloids piled on the coverage: WHICH YANKEE SLUGGER DOLED OUT THE BIG HIT?

  Another headline read: INSIDE BAD BOY BILLY’S BIRTHDAY BRAWL.

  Weiss issued a statement: “The Yankees have made a preliminary examination of the facts surrounding Billy Martin’s birthday party, which was attended by certain players, all with their wives with the exception of Martin.” Weiss then said that the team was going to let the courts settle any culpability.

  After the game, Billy told Mickey that he was returning to his hotel so he could start packing. “I’m gone, pard,” he said.

  “But you didn’t do anything,” Mickey said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Billy answered.

  The next day, an item in the Washington Post said that Senators manager Charlie Dressen was weighing a trade offer from the Yankees—Martin and infielder Andy Carey for Washington third baseman Eddie Yost and either pitcher Camilo Pascual or Pete Ramos.

  Edwin Jones pressed charges against Bauer, who was charged with felonious assault. Asked by his lawyer if he hit Edwin Jones, Bauer, who was hitting .203 at the time, said, “Hit him? I haven’t hit anybody all year.” Among the other Yankees who testified was Mantle, who took the stand and removed gum from his mouth.

  “I was so drunk I didn’t know who threw the first punch,” Mickey said. “A body came flying out and landed at my feet. At first I thought it was Billy, so I picked him up. But when I saw it wasn’t, I dropped him back down. It looked like Roy Rogers rode through the Copa on Trigger and Trigger kicked the guy in the face.”

  The jurors laughed heartily. A little while later, they absolved Bauer of guilt. It did not help that Edwin Jones’s memory of the night was sketchy and unconvincing. And no one else came forward who said they saw Jones being hit. Billy testified, denying he hit anyone. That night.

  Jones, who lived to be eighty-two, died in 1985. His son, Edwin Jr., became a bar owner in Meriden, Connecticut. In 2011, he told his local newspaper that his father told him that Bauer jumped him in the bathroom.

  The elder Jones remained a Yankees fan to his death.

  “He loved the Yankees, even Bauer,” Ed Jr. said. “He wouldn’t tal
k about the Copa fight. If he did, he’d say, ‘What happened, happened.’”

  If the Yankees’ Copa Six went on with their lives unscathed, Billy felt certain he was going to be the enduring victim. But as the June 15 trading deadline approached, Billy was still a Yankee.

  However, with each succeeding day, he was playing less and less. Richardson was being installed as the everyday second baseman—and playing well.

  On Monday, June 3, the Yankees had an off day. Whitey Ford arranged to rent a boat and invited Mickey, Billy, and pitcher Bob Grim to spend the day deep-sea fishing off Long Island. Ozzie Sweet, often called “the Babe Ruth of sports photographers,” had an assignment to take pictures of Mantle for a story being prepared by Sports Illustrated. Sweet accompanied the four Yankees and offered to bring the beer and a bucket of fried chicken.

  At one juncture in the journey Sweet captured the four in the back of the boat with Mickey and Billy sitting in chairs bolted to the deck. Grim and Ford are perched on the port railing. Grim has stripped down to a sleeveless undershirt and is looking toward the bow. Mickey, who was dressed in a golf shirt and plain gray pants rolled up at the cuffs, and Billy, who wore a print shirt with short sleeves and brown pants, are half turned away from the photographer. Only Ford, in a white T-shirt and beige khakis, is looking at the camera. Seeing it all, the man they called “Slick” is smiling broadly. No one is speaking. No one is making eye contact.

  Billy and Mickey are holding bottles of Coca-Cola, which may be what Whitey is smiling about. It was a setup. Sweet later said the four drank only beer that day.

  But that’s not what makes the scene one of the most memorable sports photos of the 1950s. It is a picture of an era, a portrait in time. The four are gathered in repose, idle and calm even as they are surrounded by furious ocean waves. It’s a scene of young men in the prime of their lives, separated from their other world but together and at ease in their own. It’s a photo of friendship with Billy positioned in the middle. He is something he rarely seemed to be: motionless.

  Years later, Sweet commented on the picture.

  “Those guys were great friends,” he said.

  In the photo, Billy has removed his right foot from one of his loafers and propped that foot on his chair. His left foot is half in and half out of the other loafer, which he has raised in the air, leaving it dangling from his toes. It is the other shoe waiting to drop.

  Eight days later in Chicago, after Yankees pitcher Art Ditmar nearly hit White Sox hitter Larry Doby, a nasty brawl ensued. It took thirty minutes to restore order. Four suspensions, including one to Billy, were handed out. That was Tuesday, June 11. The trading deadline was Saturday, when the Yankees would be in Kansas City, where George Weiss had established the Yankees’ first farm system team in 1932. Kansas City was like a second hometown to Weiss, and he would be on the trip with the team.

  On Friday, June 14, Billy played third base and in the sixth inning lined a single to left field that scored two runs and put the Yankees up 6–0. In the ninth inning, Billy grounded out to second base.

  Billy was not in the lineup for the next night’s game. He hid out in the bullpen, hoping that if they couldn’t find him, maybe they couldn’t trade him. But by the seventh inning, only an hour before the trading deadline, Stengel sent for Billy, telling him to come to the visitors’ clubhouse.

  Casey had first set eyes on Billy as an unkempt, skinny infielder with a torn and soiled uniform. Since then, they had been on five championship teams, including the 1948 Oakland Oaks. Billy was and always had been Casey’s boy.

  When Billy reached the visitors’ clubhouse, Casey said, “You’re gone.”

  It was later learned that Casey had protected Billy from the Senators trade and two other trades. But Weiss was not to be dissuaded this time. Not with this player in these circumstances. Not when he wanted to send a message to the rest of the team. Besides, Kubek was already in New York, ready to play shortstop. For the Yankees’ youth movement in the middle infield to be complete, Richardson had to take over at second base.

  Casey, his eyes welling with tears, told Billy that the Kansas City owner, Arnold Johnson, was coming to the clubhouse in a few minutes.

  “I’m going to tell him what a great person and player you are,” Casey said.

  Billy interrupted.

  “Don’t you say shit, Casey,” he said. “When I needed you to protect me, you let me down. So don’t say shit.”

  Johnson walked in seconds later.

  “Mr. Johnson, don’t listen to him,” Billy said, near tears. “I’ll play my best for you. That’s what you want, right?”

  Johnson nodded uncomfortably.

  “OK, thank you,” Billy said, and walked toward the showers.

  Despite a 9–2 Yankees win, Richardson recalled the scene in the clubhouse afterward as gloomy.

  “Billy was the most popular guy on that team,” Richardson said. “People had heard the trade rumors but it never seemed real until it was official.

  “Whitey and Mickey were crying in the locker room. Other players, too. I remember that I showered quickly and quietly, dressed, and boarded the bus that would take us back to our hotel in downtown Kansas City. The entire team was on the bus except Casey and Billy.”

  Richardson, who was twenty-one years old, said the wait on the bus was nearly an hour. Finally, Stengel emerged from the ballpark alone. He sat in the first-row seat reserved for the manager.

  “I was wondering if we would see Billy at all,” Richardson said. “Then he came out and got on the bus. He walked by Casey and came up the aisle. The seat next to me was empty and he sat down next to me. He said, ‘OK, kid, it’s all yours now.’

  “I’ll never forget it. He told me I was going to be a great player. He said I was good enough and to just take my time and to listen to Casey. We talked a little baseball but not for too long. Then we sat there in silence for a while. When we got to the hotel, everybody got off the bus and walked into the lobby. Billy walked off down the sidewalk by himself.”

  Two weeks later, in an interview with the New York Times, Billy recalled the night he was traded: “I can’t explain how I felt. I heard Casey say, ‘You’re gone,’ and yet I was sort of numb, unable to think, hear or feel. He told me how much I had meant to the ball club and to him. At least that’s what I think I heard.”

  More than twenty years later, Billy was more succinct: “My heart was broken.”

  16

  BILLY DID NOT WANDER the streets of Kansas City alone for long. He was joined by Whitey and Mickey, and the three alternately laughed and cried and lamented and celebrated on through the night. It was a late night even by their standards. Billy never did go to sleep.

  The next day, wearing his new Athletics uniform for the first time, Billy met with reporters.

  “I will miss the Yankees but I play hard all the time,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what uniform I’m wearing.”

  It was the right thing to say. It also proved to be anything but the truth.

  In his first Kansas City at-bat, he singled off the wall in left field. He led off the eighth inning with a home run that tied the game. In several books about Billy published in the 1980s and 1990s, it was written that Ford pitched in the game the day after the trade, and that he signaled to Billy that he was going to throw a slow curve so Billy could hit a home run. It is an oft-told story to this day. Billy would tell it himself. But in the Internet age of websites like Retrosheet, it takes only seconds to check box scores of any game on any day in baseball history. It was Johnny Kucks on the mound for the Yankees that day, not Ford.

  Two months later, Ford did give up a home run to Billy at Yankee Stadium. Perhaps that was when one friend tipped off another. History has apparently made those two months disappear for the sake of a better story.

  In that first game as an Athletic, Billy’s game-tying home run only delayed the inevitable when the Yankees scored three runs in the tenth inning to win the game. Billy visited with hi
s ex-teammates in the hallway outside the visitors’ clubhouse after the game. There were teary hugs and handshakes.

  Then the Yankees got on their bus, heading to the airport for a flight back to New York. The Athletics, who were already thirteen games out of first place, were heading to play the only team they were ahead of in the American League, perennial doormat Washington.

  One person Billy did not hug or greet after his first game as an Athletic was Casey Stengel. Billy would not talk to Stengel again for nearly seven years, an estrangement that disheartened both men. It was a rift driven by Billy, who not only avoided Casey when the two were at the same ballparks but generally did not talk about Casey to reporters either.

  Casey stewed in silence, still praising his former protégé when his name came up. Casey also sent missives to Billy asking for a reunion or at least a phone conversation. Billy ignored the invitations.

  Years later, Billy explained his frame of mind, as if it needed to be explained.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to be the same way with him—to act like nothing happened,” Billy said. “I thought we had a pact, like two members of the same family. I thought he would protect me forever. And I could not forgive him. At least not for many years.”

  When Billy finally made an effort to reconcile with Stengel in 1964, he conceded Casey was not to blame for the falling-out. But he did not apologize for his reaction to the trade from the Yankees. The hurt ran too deep.

  “I wasn’t the same for quite a stretch there,” he said. “Loyalty is everything to me and I felt betrayed. I was bitter that I had given the Yankees everything I had and they had cut me loose. And being mad at Casey was part of that.”

  Billy hit .360 during his first 10 games with the Athletics. It did not matter. The Athletics lost 9 of those games. For the season, his batting average with Kansas City was .257, up from the .241 he batted in the 43 games before the trade. He finished the season with 10 home runs and 39 RBIs.

  But for Billy, to whom winning was everything, Kansas City was baseball’s Alcatraz. Kansas City was a prison where the punishment was irrelevance. The Athletics would end up losing 94 games and finish 38.5 games behind the first-place Yankees.