But after all these years, some saw consistency in Billy’s actions. As his son, Billy Joe, said of his father, “Sometimes it was as if he almost manufactured excuses to get out of a situation.”
After the final game, Billy left the Toronto ballpark heading for Southern California where he was to meet Jill. He stopped for a beer at the airport bar. Four stools down was Ed Whitson, waiting for a flight to Tennessee. There was a conciliatory conversation. They bought each other drinks.
Billy twisted in the wind in mid- to late October as rumors swirled that Piniella was going to replace him.
“That was a tough time for Billy,” said Killer Kane, who kept in touch with Billy. “With the cast, he couldn’t play golf. He couldn’t hunt. He couldn’t fish. He sat at home. He told me he took walks.”
Kane laughed.
“He told me he was sick of taking walks,” Kane added. “It’s driving him crazy, just him and Jill.”
There was one other significant development—Billy did not make any attempt to go back to Blackhawk. He had essentially stopped communicating with Heather. When Heather filed for divorce about three months later, the court papers said she did so because her husband did not come home after the 1985 season. Heather was living in the Blackhawk house with her mother, grandmother, and brother.
At the Yankees’ small compound in Tampa, there were meetings about what to do with the existing manager. There were new voices in the room, including Hank Steinbrenner, George’s eldest son, who was in his late twenties. A new consensus was developing in the Yankees’ meetings about Billy. Everyone agreed he had done a spectacular job with the 1985 team on the field. But there was also the business image of the Yankees, which was being increasingly threatened by the fresh-faced, more dynamic crosstown Mets.
There was a feeling among the Yankees’ brain trust that the better marketing and public relations choice for manager was Lou Piniella, a younger, good-looking, and popular player from the Yankees’ glory years of the late 1970s. Piniella, like Billy, was a fiery, emotional player and a bad loser who promised to bring the same feet-to-the-fire intensity into the dugout. He might counteract the youthful, increasingly trendy Mets.
It was time to turn a new leaf. It might help reshape the Yankees’ image in the late stages of the twentieth century.
On October 27, the Yankees announced in a statement that Piniella would be the Yankees manager in 1986. Billy would remain on the payroll as an assistant to the principal owner. His role was not defined.
There was no real effort made to explain why Billy was relieved of his duties. The details did not seem highly important at the time. In New York, Billy being dismissed as Yankees manager was starting to be accepted as a formality. The newspapers were now labeling Billy’s managerial terms with the Yankees with roman numerals, and so this was just another chapter. Billy IV had ended. The page turned.
“I think we were all surprised,” Mattingly said. “I mean, 97 wins and you’re fired? But at the same time, we weren’t surprised. It was getting pretty hard to be surprised by anything.”
George did something privately that went unreported. He gave Billy a big raise and tore up a loan of about $150,000 he had given Billy two years earlier. The Chicago White Sox needed a manager. George made sure Billy was being paid almost twice what the White Sox were likely to offer. With the IRS on his back, Billy could not afford to manage elsewhere.
He may not have wanted to go somewhere else anyway. Many in his circle of friends and acquaintances believed he did not want to start over in another town. He was fifty-seven years old and getting more set in his ways.
“By then, Billy didn’t really want to manage except in New York,” said Ron Guidry, who in 1985 had known Billy for nearly a decade. “Those other places were jobs. But managing the Yankees was a love to him. So, yeah, he had to leave. But that was his fault. Billy’s biggest enemy was his mouth and everybody knew that.”
Morabito wondered if his friend sensed that he was teetering out of control.
“He was kind of beat up physically and mentally,” Morabito said. “He hated getting fired but he almost needed to hit the reset button. He stepped back. He was very resilient in that way. He wouldn’t stay down for long.”
He would take the punch, retreat a bit, and wait to charge again.
For 1986, Steinbrenner’s new job for Billy was as a television broadcaster. Billy would appear in a pregame show and occasionally during games. With his old double-play partner, Phil Rizzuto, guiding him, Billy could be funny and charming on the air. But overall, his work was pedestrian. Billy and Rizzuto had amusing repartee about baseball in general and about the “old” Yankees, even if it was the 1970s Yankees. But worried about second-guessing Piniella, Billy was overly careful about commenting on the 1986 Yankees. Before the camera, Billy was a milquetoast, almost unrecognizable.
But to some people, the television appearances were an accomplishment because he did not go on television inebriated, as some had feared. The telecast producers had made it clear to Billy that he was not allowed to have any alcohol of any kind before games or during games since he was going on TV afterward.
John Moore, a young TV producer just beginning a decades-long career directing Yankees broadcasts, was assigned to shepherd Billy. In 2014, Moore said he did not recall any time that Billy appeared under the influence while working. During games, he tended to watch the Yankees on television at the press box level. He would not watch the game itself from the press box.
“Then I might start thinking like you guys,” he told the writers with a snicker.
Billy also did not work at more than about a third of the games. That left him plenty of time for bringing in extra money on the side with public appearances. And Billy was actively working at recruiting such income. Or, more accurately, Jill was trying to be sure it happened.
In early 1986, Billy had asked Jill to marry him—at some indefinite date. It had been a spontaneous decision by Billy, and later, when he informed his family and friends, many of them were aghast. For one thing, Billy and Heather were separated but the divorce papers had not yet been filed. And second, a host of Billy’s closest pals did not like being around Jill.
“I wasn’t shocked like some people,” Morabito said. “They were just so attracted to each other in a way you couldn’t describe. They had a lot of passion for each other and Billy clearly loved her. But they fought like crazy, too. The fact is, they couldn’t live with each other but they couldn’t live without each other.
“Billy would say, ‘She can be such a bitch.’ But then he would always go back to her. It happened every time.”
Whatever the tenor of the relationship, Jill was now in a position to wield her influence. The daughter of a prosperous businessman, Jill began by surveying Billy’s financial misfortune and decided that she could clean up the mess. One way to start was to maximize Billy’s name, fame, and appeal. Jill started a public relations effort to get Billy to more outings, and not just the usual rounds of golf or dinner speeches. She had Billy speaking at schools, doing work for the Salvation Army, and helping out at kids’ summer camps. She wanted Billy to elevate his scope of influence. She had him reading the poem “Billy the Kid” as part of a symphony orchestra performance.
Jill also accompanied Billy so that she could take possession of the checks for the appearances—and pay the taxes. On his own, Billy might do anything.
Bobby Richardson, Billy’s teammate in the 1950s, tells the story of Billy’s appearance at Coastal Carolina University, where Richardson was the baseball coach and athletic director in 1986. Richardson had asked Billy to come down to the university’s major fundraising event, which was a one-day golf tournament followed by a luncheon and auction the next day. Billy agreed to come without charging a fee so long as Richardson paid for his expenses. Jill did not make the trip.
“Billy came and played golf with all our big donors,” Richardson said. “He charmed all the bigwigs. I got him a suite by the oc
ean and I’m not sure he ever checked into it. He might have been out all night. But the next day he was back and hobnobbed with everyone. He talked to people, spoke at the luncheon, and was so charismatic.
“Then we had the auction and he outbid everyone for everything. He paid in cash, and when the event was over, he gave all the stuff back to the university and told us to auction it off again at our next fundraiser. That was Billy, always so giving.”
The number of people who wanted the newly available Billy to help with causes was limitless. It included several umpires, who tended to have foundations or charitable groups for which they helped raise money with dinners.
“Umpires loved having Billy come to their events—he was the best draw for them,” Morabito said. “And Billy never turned them down. Here they were supposed to be his mortal enemy. But I remember Billy would do Larry Barnett’s dinner all the time.”
Barnett was an umpire for thirty-one seasons.
While Billy was on the dinner circuit, the 1986 Yankees got off to a fast start, taking over first place by winning twelve of their first eighteen games. The White Sox lost twelve of their first eighteen, reigniting the rumors that Billy was going to replace Chicago manager Tony La Russa.
“Nobody likes to hear about their own firing, but I couldn’t blame them if the replacement was Billy,” said La Russa when he was asked to recall 1986. “Billy was the most brilliant manager I knew. No one worked a game better.”
At baseball’s winter meetings in 1979, through some mutual acquaintances, a dinner and several get-togethers had been arranged between Billy and La Russa.
“He just gave me a schooling and it ran the gamut,” La Russa said in 2013. “Every manager has his own way, usually molded by others. But Billy’s way was like no one else. It was a magnificent combination of learned baseball knowledge and intuitive logic mixed with incredible guts.
“Lots of managers think of things to do but they don’t have the guts to try it. Risk didn’t worry Billy. His genius is really not properly understood.”
The White Sox were not the only team interested in Billy. The Seattle Mariners were in the hunt, too. But a deal with either team was never struck. La Russa’s Hall of Fame managerial career continued.
In May, Heather filed for divorce and shortly after that sued Billy for $500,000, saying that Billy was trying to evict her, her mother, brother, and seventy-five-year-old grandmother from the Blackhawk house. In the court papers, Heather gives her birthday as being in 1959. She states that she began living with Billy in 1980.
“No one is throwing anyone out of the house,” Billy told the New York Daily News. “Once again, I’m being made out to look like the bad guy.”
The 1986 Yankees continued to win. Piniella indeed proved to be a fierce, passionate manager.
“He was a carbon copy of Billy—that’s what he was,” Michael said. “He did everything Billy did, every little thing, big thing, and technical thing. Some managers would send a base runner at first base on a 3–2 pitch to stay out of a double play. But Billy always said it made no sense if a left-handed pitcher was on the mound. He said the runner never got a good jump on the pitch because of the leftie on the mound and then he usually got thrown out at second base. You would run into a double play if the batter struck out. And, if the batter did hit a ground ball, the runner wouldn’t get a good enough jump to stay out of a double play anyway. It just made no sense.
“But Billy was probably the only guy who thought that way. As soon as Lou took over, no Yankee base runner ran on a 3–2 pitch against a left-hander.
“And Lou handled the umpires the same as Billy. He’d run out there and put on a show. He argued and kicked dirt and threw bases. He did it because he had a temper, but just like Billy, he did it to get the players riled up, too. Lou the manager was Billy the manager.”
But things started to go sour for Piniella’s Yankees in June when they lost ten consecutive times at home. By the Fourth of July—Steinbrenner’s birthday—the surging Boston Red Sox had an eight-game lead on the Yankees. The Yankees would not seriously challenge the Red Sox for the rest of the year.
For Billy, the highlight of the season was Billy Martin Day on Sunday, August 10. As usual, Steinbrenner felt bad about the relative exile in which he had placed Billy, so in a grand pregame ceremony, he retired Billy’s number 1 jersey and showered him with gifts.
It was the only time Billy’s mother and his sisters came to Yankee Stadium. They came for the weekend and enjoyed the festivities, but behind the scenes, there was considerable arguing going on with Jill about who got to do what and when. The quarreling went on unabated for days. During the ceremony, Billy’s mother, in a wheelchair after falling and breaking her hip, was brought onto the field. So were his sisters and brothers. Billy, wearing a light beige suit with a boutonniere affixed to his lapel, beamed as various speeches were made in his honor. The crowd gave him long ovations multiple times, and most of the current Yankees stood on the top step of the dugout during the ceremony. Billy also received a bevy of gifts, including a boat and a car.
The highlight of the celebration was the retiring of Billy’s number and a plaque in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park alongside those for Billy’s friends Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio. It was Billy’s lifelong dream come true to be immortalized at Yankee Stadium.
Presented with a framed replica of his number 1 jersey, Billy made a short but emotional speech, thanking many coaches, players, family, and mentors. He was eloquent in thanking the fans, saying that they accepted him when he showed up as a brash kid in 1950.
“The fans always lifted me up no matter the circumstances,” Billy said. “If I ran faster and hit the ball farther, it was because you gave me the strength. I know you were always rooting me on. I wanted to make you proud and I hope I did.”
He closed with a sentence that has become part of his legacy: “I may not have been the best Yankee to put on the pinstripes, but I am the proudest.”
Talking with a couple of writers afterward, Billy said he marked the occasion by sending flowers to Casey Stengel’s grave in Glendale, California.
“I actually wanted to end the speech with a thank you to Casey,” Billy said. “But I couldn’t get anything else out. I started crying after I said I was the proudest Yankee. I had to stop.”
Billy’s enshrinement alongside other Yankees greats was not greeted by all as heartwarming news. Several columnists scorned Steinbrenner for recognizing a manager known for kicking dirt on umpires and slugging people in saloons. Others defended Billy. Howard Cosell had a nationally syndicated column at the time. He wrote:
Why is it when Billy fights with an umpire it is further proof of his “instability and unsportsmanlike conduct,” when the same behavior by Tommy Lasorda and Earl Weaver is somehow portrayed as amusing or even charming?
The fact is that no one plays Weaver Ball or Lasorda Ball but they do play Billy Ball. That phrase alone sums up a whole style, an era if you will, of baseball that has contributed as much to baseball history and tradition as home run records or a perfect game. That’s why Billy is out there at Yankee Stadium with Ruth.
Like all of us, Billy is not without flaws. But perfection, idolatry and canonization are not the point—although there are those who would insist that they are. George Steinbrenner was not conferring sainthood, but recognizing the contributions of a talented man in the field of baseball. He was right to do so.
The 1986 season moved on, and Billy moved on with it. The Yankees rallied in September and finished with a 90-win season, only 5.5 games back of Boston. On the Yankees’ final television broadcast of the season, Billy sat between Rizzuto and announcer Bill White. White pointedly wanted to know if Billy was going to manage next year.
“We’ll see,” Billy, looking tanned and rested, said.
“Do you want to manage?” White asked.
“I believe I will again—yes,” Billy said.
In the winter of 1986–87, there was ample constern
ation over Piniella’s future and whether Billy V was about to begin. But Steinbrenner stuck with Piniella for another season.
Billy had a quiet off-season. His divorce from Heather was finalized. In time, Heather and her family would depart the Blackhawk house. She quickly remarried and started a family. She continues to live in the Bay Area and regularly attends Oakland A’s games.
Contacted in 2014, Heather said of Billy, “He was a very loyal person who had a lot of compassion. That’s what I will remember.”
By 1987, most of Billy’s friends agree that his drinking had been reined in noticeably.
“His drinking was under control most of the time,” Jill said. “He developed some healthier habits. There were days and weeks when he did not drink at all. Other times, he would drink much more than he should but it was not constant.”
Jill’s campaign to raise the quality of Billy’s appearances seemed to be working. Billy went on David Letterman’s show with George Steinbrenner in the spring of 1987. They traded jokes and barbs. With Letterman’s urging, Billy told the hunting-with-Mickey story when he mistakenly shoots two of the Texas farmer’s cows. The audience roared with laughter.
Dressed in a gray suit with well-coiffed, stylishly longer hair framing a tanned face, Billy appeared at ease. Gone were the hollow features of a man worn out by managing. Later in the same month, Billy sat for an extensive magazine interview. In it, he was asked if he had ever seen a psychiatrist. Billy said he had not.
“All a psychiatrist knows is what you tell him,” he said. “You know what direction you’re going in. And you know what direction you want to go in. So what can a psychiatrist tell you that you don’t already know?”
Billy said he was mentally strong because he knew how to release any tension in his life.
“Having a temper is a release,” Billy said. “That’s right. Didn’t Jesus get angry and whip the moneychangers?”
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