Billy Martin

by Bill Pennington

  Guidry said the feuds of the past, with Reggie, with the writers, or with George, were long gone in their minds. The players didn’t care so much about Billy’s drinking or what was going on between games.

  “Some guys grumbled about him but every team has guys grumbling,” Guidry said. “Every team has guys who don’t play as much as they want to and they don’t like the manager. Billy lost some guys that way or because of something he said or did.

  “But to the core of the team, the starting players, it was about whether he could help us get wins. We had gotten to the point where that’s all that mattered.”

  If Billy did come into the clubhouse looking wan and unsteady from a late night of boozing, which happened sporadically in the beginning of the season and a little more often toward the end of the season, Monahan had a ready remedy. He used it to perk up players, too, several of whom were also heavy drinkers.

  Monahan periodically gave Billy a vitamin B12 shot in those circumstances. He also mixed up a concoction that he said was a recipe passed down from the 1920s when Yankees trainers had to work on a hung-over Babe Ruth almost daily.

  “We’d mix seltzer with some extra-strength Bufferin and add a little peppermint,” Monahan, now retired, said. “We’d put some coloring in it to make it look more appealing and some fruit for the nutrition. We’d shake it to make it foam and bubble and then quietly take it over to Billy or a player and say, ‘OK, this worked for the Babe all those years ago and only our team knows about it. It’s been passed down through the decades.’

  “And you know, I do think it worked most of the time. More often than not, Billy would come to me in about twenty minutes and say, ‘You know, Geno, I feel pretty good.’”

  Gene Michael’s golf strategy inhibited some of the late-night carousing, and there was another frequent presence at Billy’s side after games that curbed his drinking. Jill was at many home games as well as on the road. Jill did not like to sit at a bar for two hours and she got Billy to turn in earlier because of it.

  “Jill was good for him,” Morabito said. “Obviously, you’ll get different opinions about that from his other friends. But I remember going to a bar one time when the Yankees were in Oakland and he ordered a club soda. I turned and said, ‘What’s this?’

  “And he said, ‘Jill has convinced me to not drink a couple days a week and this is one of them.’ And he was fine with that.”

  For the most part, the 1985 season unfolded without controversy or incident for Billy. There were the usual squabbles with umpires, but off the field Billy made no extracurricular news.

  By August, the team was winning 59 percent of the time, which was a higher rate than all but three teams in Major League Baseball, including the Mets, which pleased Steinbrenner. The attendance numbers were climbing.

  A typical Yankees game started like this in the 1985 season: Henderson would rap a single or draw a walk. He would steal second, after which Randolph would bunt him to third base. Mattingly would either get a run-scoring hit or hit an RBI sacrifice fly. Winfield would come up and perhaps drive in Mattingly with an extra-base hit. And if Winfield failed, Don Baylor usually did not.

  “We went into the second inning of so many games that year ahead 1–0 or 2–0,” Piniella said. “It seemed like all we needed was five minutes to get a lead. It wears on the opposition to be behind all the time.”

  Winfield said the players also believed that their manager would win some games for them.

  “He had the other teams all jumpy and nervous and you don’t play well when you’re like that,” Winfield said many years later. “You could see the pitcher, catcher, and the other manager were saying to themselves, ‘What’s Billy going to do now?’

  “We would be in the dugout laughing. Rickey Henderson had a saying, ‘We’ve Billy-blitzed another team.’”

  There were some Yankees hiccups but the 1985 team was resilient.

  Guidry was on his way to 22 victories and the ageless Phil Niekro would win 16 games. Mattingly was flirting with his second successive batting title but instead would settle for winning the AL Most Valuable Player award with a .324 average, 35 homers, and 145 runs batted in, the most RBIs for a Yankee since Joe DiMaggio in 1948. Winfield would drive in 114 runs. Henderson would steal 80 bases, score 146 runs, and hit 24 homers while driving in 72 runs. Pagliarulo hit 19 homers and Randolph and Meacham combined to turn 207 double plays.

  On September 12, when the Yankees defeated the Blue Jays in the first of four games at Yankee Stadium, they trailed Toronto by only 1.5 games.

  The Mets were in first place in the National League East, the first time the Mets and the Yankees were in serious contention for the postseason at the same time. In New York, there was talk of the first Subway Series since 1956.

  Pitching the next game for the Yankees would be Niekro, who would be seeking his 300th career victory. The forty-six-year-old Niekro had won each of his five previous decisions.

  A big crowd was expected at Yankee Stadium to watch both the AL East pennant race and Niekro’s achievement. Everything was looking up for Billy’s team. Nothing would have predicted what happened next. The Yankees had no idea how turbulent the next week and a half would be. In the more than 110-year history of the franchise, no ten-day period compares for on- and the off-the-field dramatics and histrionics.

  On Friday, the thirteenth day of September 1985, in front of 53,303 fans, Niekro did not win his 300th game although he pitched a complete game in a 3–2 loss.

  The next day, before another crowd in excess of fifty-two thousand, the Yankees lost 7–4 and Winfield was 0-for-4 with four groundouts that stranded two base runners.

  Late in that game, Steinbrenner suddenly appeared at the back of the Yankee Stadium press box. The owner made these appearances only when he wanted to make a proclamation for print. Steinbrenner had a sheet in his hand on Yankees stationery that contained the batting statistics of several Yankees during the three recent games with Toronto. He read them aloud: Griffey was 0-for-8, Baylor 0-for-7, and Winfield 3-for-11 with only 2 runs batted in.

  “Where is Reggie Jackson?” George said in a loud voice as if he were trying to shout to the dugout two levels below. “We need a Mr. October or a Mr. September. Winfield is Mr. May. My big guys are not coming through. The guys who are supposed to carry the team are not carrying the team.”

  What became known as Steinbrenner’s “Mr. May speech” was big news, and it brought shock waves to the Yankees’ clubhouse where Winfield had many allies, including Billy. Winfield was one of the team’s spiritual leaders, a freakish athletic talent who had been taken in the Major League Baseball draft as well as the NFL and NBA drafts.

  The six-foot-six Winfield always played hard and was a respected teammate who deflected attention from his locker. Other players made fun of his parsimonious ways—he collected the free soaps, shampoos, and mouthwash from hotels and took them home in his suitcase on every road trip for years—but he was also admired for a fearsome, attacking style of play. He terrorized opposing infielders when he roared around the bases, and he routinely gave up his body, saving a pitcher’s mistake with a diving catch or a full-speed crash into an outfield barrier. As the number-four hitter, Winfield protected Mattingly, the team’s other foremost leader, in the batting order, ensuring that Mattingly got good pitches to swing at since walking Mattingly meant facing the hard-swinging future Hall of Famer Winfield.

  So in the midst of a two-game losing streak—and a pennant race—no one on the Yankees wanted to hear about Winfield being singled out for not being more like Reggie Jackson because of a few ill-timed groundouts.

  When George’s words were repeated to Billy in his office after the game, he slammed his hat on his desk and walked out of the room without comment.

  Winfield, who had driven in his 101st run in the game, declined to address Steinbrenner’s remarks after the game. Mattingly was not as circumspect.

  “He may think he’s helping, but as usual, he’s only
making things worse,” Mattingly said of Steinbrenner. “Nobody in their right mind would criticize Dave Winfield. We need to band together in a tough stretch and the man upstairs is picking us apart.”

  When the game was played that Sunday, Whitson started for the Yankees and did not survive the third inning, leaving the mound with Toronto on its way to an 8–5 rout. Whitson, whose relationship with Yankees fans had been toxic since he lost six of his first seven decisions to start the season, was booed mercilessly as he left the field. Yankees fans reached for whatever they could throw at Whitson. A torrent of rolled-up paper, beer cups, popcorn, and Cracker Jack boxes rained down on him.

  The Yankees lost again. More than 214,000 fans had come to Yankee Stadium for the four-game series, a Major League record for 1985. But the Yankees were now 4.5 games behind the Blue Jays.

  “I’m not going to get on ’em today,” Steinbrenner said afterward. “If they’re not embarrassed, they should take the uniform off and walk away from the pay window.”

  The Yankees were more shocked than embarrassed. Years later, it is easy to see that the Blue Jays were a team on the rise. At the time, in front of a packed Yankee Stadium day after day, the Yankees believed they could impose their will on the youngsters from Toronto. They were wrong.

  But Billy’s team left the stadium quickly on that Sunday. The next day they had to play an odd afternoon makeup game with lowly Cleveland at Yankee Stadium. Then the Yankees would fly to Detroit for three games followed by three games in Baltimore.

  The aura of doom enveloping the Yankees did not lift the next afternoon. For eight innings things appeared routine. The Yankees went into the top of the ninth with a 5–3 lead over the Indians, who started the day forty games out of first place. Fisher was in the game to get the final three outs to preserve the victory. Righetti was warming up in the bullpen as insurance against an unlikely occurrence in 1985, a Cleveland rally.

  The first three batters facing Fisher singled, loading the bases. Billy walked to the mound, presumably to replace the right-handed Fisher with the left-handed Righetti since the next hitter, Brett Butler, was left-handed. But Fisher had not given up more than two hits in his last fifteen appearances—and had a victory and seven saves. Righetti had been hit hard in his last appearance. Billy left Fisher in. It did not prove to be the right move.

  Fisher got Butler to ground out (one run scored) but the next batter, Julio Franco, a right-hander, tripled to put Cleveland ahead, 6–5.

  Now everyone expected Billy to go to the more experienced Righetti. But Billy’s logic was that the Yankees were now losing and he wasn’t going to use two young bullpen arms in pursuit of a comeback victory. He wanted to save Righetti for the tough road trip coming up.

  In this case, trying to preserve an arm got Billy in trouble when Andre Thornton hit the next Fisher pitch into the stands for a two-run homer. At this point, Billy wasn’t backing down. Fisher remained in the game even as Cleveland rapped another single, stole a base, and scored a final run in a 9–5 victory. The twenty-three-year-old Fisher had given up six hits and six runs. The Yankees were now five games back.

  After the game, Billy was being grilled for leaving the young Fisher on the mound to take a relentless beating. Billy did not take the second-guessing well. To him, he had rolled the dice with Fisher, which did not work, but he had saved Righetti for another day.

  In a voice that kept rising and gaining volume, Billy confronted reporters: “Hasn’t Fisher done a good job against right-handers and left-handers? Come on, he’s been sensational. I’m not gonna burn up two pitchers in one losing ball game. I’m not gonna do that to please you guys or the fans. Fisher’s only mistake was when he shook off the catcher and threw the slider to Thornton.”

  The Yankees hustled for the bus that would take them to Newark airport for a flight to Detroit.

  “Maybe we just need to get out of here for a while,” said Joe Cowley, the good-humored starting pitcher who had handed the baseball and a lead to Fisher. “A change of scenery might do us good.”

  The next night in hitter-friendly Tiger Stadium, Guidry, going for his twentieth win, gave up five home runs in a 9–1 rout. The following evening about seventy members of the Niekro family drove up from Ohio in hopes of seeing forty-six-year-old Phil capture victory number 300. The game was tied 2–2 in the sixth inning when the Yankees seemed on the verge of getting to Detroit pitcher Mickey Mahler, a journeyman left-handed reliever. The Yankees had runners at third and first base with two outs. The left-handed-hitting Mike Pagliarulo was due up next.

  Pagliarulo was not usually pinch-hit for against lefties. But Mahler had yielded only one hit since coming on in the first inning for Detroit’s starter, Juan Berenguer, who gave up both Yankees runs. Mahler also had a history with Pagliarulo.

  “He was very tough on me,” Pagliarulo said.

  Before he could get to home plate, Pagliarulo was called over to the Yankees’ dugout. Billy could have chosen to substitute right-handed infielder Andre Robertson, who hit .328 in 125 at-bats in 1985. Billy Sample, who hit .288 that year, was another possibility.

  There was a third option. Pagliarulo had been a switch hitter in high school and college. He still hit right-handed in the Yankees’ intrasquad games and during informal workouts.

  In fact, a week earlier, the Yankees had played a simulated game to get extra work for one of their pitchers, Marty Bystrom, who was coming off the disabled list. In it, Pagliarulo batted right-handed and had four hits including a double off the left-field wall.

  Billy left that day convinced that Pags should try to return to switch hitting once the season ended when he had a winter to work on it. Piniella, the hitting coach, was impressed with Pagliarulo’s right-handed stroke, too.

  But the off-season plan got an accelerated start at that moment inside Tiger Stadium. Billy told Pagliarulo to go to the plate right-handed. Piniella agreed with the strategy.

  Pagliarulo did what he was told but his heart wasn’t in it. As he dug into the dirt of the right-handed batter’s box, Detroit catcher Bob Melvin asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

  Said Pags, “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to get a hit.”

  Years later, Pagliarulo’s perspective had not changed much.

  “I hadn’t hit right-handed in a real game since I was in the minors in 1981,” he said. “But I would do anything Billy told me. In general, Billy didn’t like to take me out of games because he felt our team defense was much better with me at third base.

  “I honestly didn’t want to bat rightie because I didn’t feel I was prepared but I didn’t want to get taken out of the game either.”

  In the press box and among most of the players in the Yankees’ dugout, the consensus was that Billy had asked the impossible. Pagliarulo looked overmatched and struck out. The Yankees lost, 5–2, but the Pagliarulo move was a prominent tabloid story back in New York.

  Had Billy lost his mind? The Yankees had lost six successive games and now the players were batting from the wrong side of the plate?

  One New York columnist compared Billy to Captain Queeg from The Caine Mutiny.

  Said Piniella, “It certainly backfired but you know it was a tied game. That’s not why we lost. But Billy drew attention to himself with those chances. That’s why other managers never try them. If it goes wrong, you get hammered. It was certainly unorthodox in the middle of a Major League game.”

  The Yankees lost the next night as well, 10–3, then packed up and boarded their charter flight to Baltimore. On the flight, Billy appeared especially drained, withdrawn, and disheartened, not an uncommon reaction for a manager in the midst of a seven-game losing streak. Billy sat apart from his coaches, who knew enough to leave him alone. Only traveling secretary Bill Kane remained seated near Billy. Kane was always welcome.

  A baseball team on a chartered jet in the 1980s reserved the first-class section for the manager, coaches, trainers, and traveling secretary. The next few rows were
set aside for the writers and broadcasters. The rest of the cabin was for the players. In general, coaches, writers, broadcasters, and other non-players did not go back to the players’ area, even to use a restroom. It became the players’ sanctuary, a place where they could do whatever they wanted—and the jet usually became something of a flying casino with the liquor cart left in the aisle and card games breaking out everywhere. Flight attendants usually ventured to the back of the cabin sparingly, and at their risk.

  Everyone else mostly stayed in the front of the jet. After takeoff, the cockpit door would often be open and the pilots never minded if they had visitors sit with them as they flew.

  On the flight from Detroit to Baltimore, nearly all the coaches and trainers cleared out of first class and crowded into the little area reserved for the media at the front of the jet. Piniella played cards with the writers. The broadcasters were either asleep or in the cockpit.

  It was a short but tense flight with Billy quietly talking to Kane. The pilots, usually excited to see Billy onboard and eager to talk to him, took one look at his dispirited countenance in the first row of first class and walked past him silently. The pall of defeat was profound. It felt as if the Yankees would never win another game.

  Two buses greeted the team on the airport tarmac for the short drive to the Cross Keys Inn, a low-slung hotel plunked in the midst of a suburban commercial park.

  The Yankees players, coaches, and media grabbed their room keys. Billy got in the back of an elevator that quickly filled up. No one said a word as the floor buttons were pushed and the elevator began to ascend in an awkward hush. Then, from the back, Billy said, “For Christ sake, nobody’s died. Let’s just play the next series.”

  The elevator stopped at the third floor and Billy got off.