by Nancy Finley
The franchise felt unappreciated in 1976 and 1977. After so many wins, there was the feeling we were still not loved. Far from it.
CHAPTER 33
THE LAST STRAW
1977–1978–1979
Three thousand miles east of the Coliseum, there was proof that Charlie had not lost his ability to spot a winner. The player was still just a teenager, but he combined brilliance on the diamond with the confidence and roguish eccentricity that the Finley boys loved. Ricky Henderson would become the greatest leadoff hitter of all time and Oakland’s next Hall of Famer. Charlie had drafted and signed him in 1976, weeks after his high school graduation. Now he was playing outfield for the Jersey City A’s, Oakland’s double-A farm team.
To the trained eye, there was hope on the horizon. Charlie was rebuilding the farm system, and all those young players—Henderson, Tony Armas, Dwayne Murphy, Rick Langford, Mike Norris, Brian Kingman, Mike Morgan, Matt Keough, Steve McCatty, Bob Lacey, and others—were raw, but their potential was undeniable.
Charlie wanted to remain owner, but certain realities had to be faced. Free agency had been around for nearly half a decade and was not going away. Neither was Aunt Shirley’s divorce judgment. If he sold the team now, with its fortunes at a low ebb, it would be a steal for the lucky buyer. No, if he was going to sell the franchise he needed to hire a manager who could resuscitate the franchise and do it quickly. He needed a manager to squeeze as many W’s as possible out of that roster of raw, young talent. He needed someone to stir up excitement with the fans and get them to the Coliseum.
But who?
As was his custom, Charlie sent Dad to represent him at the 1977 annual owners’ meeting in Chicago and to be his proxy for any votes. But this time Dad was there on a secret mission. During a break in the meeting, he invited some people over to the hotel bar. Joe DiMaggio was seated next to him, along with Whitey Ford and Billy Martin. Dad seems to have used the opportunity to suggest to Martin that he come to Oakland and manage the A’s. Martin was noncommittal but clearly interested. By the end of the meeting, Dad had convinced him to come to work for the A’s in 1980.
Despite this coup, Dad was getting burned out by this time. In his morning phone conferences with Charlie, he started suggesting that it was time to sell. But Charlie wasn’t ready, so Dad backed off and let Charlie’s subconscious work on him.
CHARLIE IN LOVE
In 1979, to almost everyone’s surprise, Charlie announced he had a new girlfriend. Her name was Susan, and he was clearly smitten with her, and she appeared smitten with him as well. He flew her on the Concorde to Europe for a month’s vacation. Charlie sent Dad and me a postcard from their hotel in Oslo: “Dear Carl & Nancy—Enjoying a good vacation. On my way to Stockholm. Love, Charlie.” For Charlie, that was the equivalent of giddy.
Charlie and Susan were an item for several months. Just knowing that he had someone to hug and kiss made all of us a little happier. But I don’t recall ever hearing her last name. When he brought her to visit us in Oakland, Charlie pulled me aside and asked me what I thought of her. I gave my usual reply to that question—very pretty, smart, and friendly. He beamed. Then he wandered over to Dad and asked the same question. I could see Dad give his little smile as they talked. Charlie beamed again.
Charlie’s romantic life was not without its risks. One evening in 1979, he was sitting with Susan at a bar in Chicago when a man came up and whispered in his ear, “How much is she per hour?” Charlie stood up and punched him in the face. The man told the police that he only asked Charlie if the empty chair next to him was available. But a witness came forward and said he overheard the man bragging that he was going to get Charlie to hit him and then sue him for a million dollars. No charges were filed against Charlie.
Despite the occasional drama, everyone in the front office in Oakland loved it when Charlie was in love. His calls were less stressful, and he was more courteous. One day Susan arrived at the Coliseum and showed off her one-carat engagement ring. We were all thrilled for her and Charlie. Alas, after a couple of months, Charlie stopped mentioning her name. We found out that he had found some love letters between her and a male Brazilian model. It broke Charlie’s heart.
THE LAST STRAW
The Oakland A’s compiled the worst record in the team’s history in 1979. Like a duck, the franchise appeared to be floating along placidly, while under the surface its legs were pumping like crazy. The rebuilding continued, and the next season the team scored 109 more runs than in ’79.
In March 1979, the City of Oakland and the County of Alameda filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that Charlie had broken his lease by failing to “maintain an American League baseball team of the character and standing required by Major League rules for the conduct of professional Major League baseball games. . . .” The suit was frivolous and amounted to harassment. Charlie denounced the suit as “bullshit” and moved the court to dismiss it. He explained what was obvious to anyone knowledgeable about baseball—that the rebuilding of the team was not aimed at 1979 but at 1980, an assertion that the results of the 1980 and ’81 seasons bore out. The lawsuit was promptly dismissed, but for Charlie, exhausted from years of costly divorce, repeated heart attacks, and unremitting media abuse, it was the last straw.
CHAPTER 34
BILLY CLUB
1980
The phone rang at our Alameda home after midnight. Dad opened one eye and, seeing that it was still pitch black outside, decided he was dreaming and went back to sleep. A minute of silence passed.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Dad was now fully awake. A phone call at this ungodly hour could be from only one person. Dad, well-practiced in the art of grabbing the phone in the wee hours, swung his arm around and picked it up in one graceful motion.
“Hi, Charlie,” he mumbled.
“Fix yourself a drink, Carl—we’ve done it again!” Charlie bellowed into the phone.
Carl could hear the ice cubes clinking against Charlie’s glass of J&B.
“Charlie, it’s not even eight in the morning in Chicago and you’re already celebrating. So, I can assume dinner went well?”
“Carl, my boy, if it went any better, I’d check myself into a hospital!” Charlie yelled.
“So, when do I pick up Billy from the airport?”
“Great question!” Charlie yelled even louder. “Know what’s a better one? What kind of beer should you bring him? You know he’ll want a few for the ten-minute ride from baggage claim to the Coliseum!”
Charlie took a sip, barely noticing the silence.
“That was a joke, Carl. C’mon, this is our latest coup! This is exactly what will get the A’s back on the front pages. Tell ya what, call me back when you find your sense of humor.”
And with that, Charlie hung up.
Dad was too tired to be angry.
Groggy and yawning, I strolled into the bedroom, rubbing my bleary eyes. “Who was that?” I whispered.
“Well, honey, who else calls at this hour?”
My face brightened. “Charlie.”
Dad gave his first smile of the day.
“I’ll make some coffee,” he said, patting me gently. “Today’s gonna be a long one.”
Carl was right. Charlie had done something nobody could have predicted just a half-dozen years earlier. He had hired a once bitter rival, Billy Martin. The same Billy Martin who ordered Lerrin LaGrow to throw intentionally at Campy Campaneris in Game Two of the 1972 ALCS. The same Billy Martin whom Charlie had publicly mocked with taunting messages on the Coliseum’s scoreboard. The same Billy Martin who had been banished from the Yankees in the late 1950s after a drunken nightclub brawl involving his buddy Mickey Mantle. And the same Billy Martin who had quickly worn out his welcome in Minnesota, Detroit, Texas, and, most famously, back with the Yankees in the Bronx Zoo, where he, George Steinbrenner, and ex-Oaklander Reggie Jackson all famously clashed with each other. Billy Martin was available because Steinbrenner had fired him—again—in
October of ’79, after Martin had gotten into a fight with a marshmallow salesman in a Minnesota bar.
The rebuilding A’s had young talent in the farm system and on the big-league club. Now, Charlie needed someone who was part manager and part miracle-worker to galvanize that young talent and build the new team. That someone, he hoped, was the erratic but inspiring Billy Martin. Billy came with a ton of baggage. He was known to bench, trade, demote, and release players because of personal grudges. His players called him a tyrant. But he was a great manager with a well-earned reputation for reviving struggling teams, taking them from worst to first almost overnight.
To fans and the press it looked like that meddling Charlie Finley was letting this great team fall apart. I resented the criticism, but I understood why it looked that way. Outsiders couldn’t look “under the hood” to see what was really going on. Charlie and Dad could see the first signs of revival in 1979, but the fruits of their work wouldn’t be apparent to the public until the 1980 season, so the criticism continued to pour down on the Finleys.
Dad found some welcome respect in one quarter, though. One day he was pulled over for by an Oakland traffic cop. The officer was getting ready to write up a citation, but when he realized who Dad was, he put his pad away, mounted his motorcycle, and escorted him to the stadium with lights flashing and siren blaring.
HURRICANE BILLY
Billy Martin had become the manager of the Minnesota Twins in 1969, eight years after his retirement as a player. The Twins had fallen on hard times just three years after nearly winning the 1965 World Series. But he was on borrowed time after a bar brawl in August, in which he beat up Dave Boswell, his star pitcher. Boswell was unable to play for two weeks, though he returned to win twenty games and lead the Twins to the playoffs. But the general manager, Calvin Griffith, and the rest of the front office were turned off by the Boswell brawl, and they fired Billy after his rookie season.
At every subsequent stop in his career—with the Detroit Tigers, the Texas Rangers, and the Yankees—Billy confirmed his reputation as a rascal, so it was only appropriate that he eventually landed with the Oakland A’s, whose roster of rascals was headed by Charlie O. Finley himself.
When Martin arrived at the Oakland airport, Dad found him wearing a black cowboy hat, sunglasses, and boots. He looked more like a NASCAR driver than baseball’s bad boy—a down-to-earth kind of guy. After years of working for Charlie, Dad knew how to handle mercurial personalities. Billy, he figured, would be a breeze.
After a few minutes of small talk with Billy, Dad noticed a pretty teenage girl with black hair and olive skin who seemed to be with him—presumably Billy’s daughter. When Billy realized he hadn’t introduced her, he said, “Carl, let me introduce you to my wife, Heather.” Shaking her hand, Dad thought, “Wife? He didn’t say ‘wife,’ did he?” After a few niceties, Billy and his young bride left to get a bite to eat.
When Dad came home that evening, he announced it was a done deal—Billy Martin would be working for us. He told me that Billy’s good friend, Mickey Morabito, would be coming with him—at Billy’s request—as our new traveling secretary. Billy was known for his loyalty to friends.
Then Dad told me about Heather. She was sixteen; Billy was in his fifties. Wow. I was twenty-one. Billy was close to Dad’s age. This was difficult to comprehend. Then it occurred to me I would have someone to pal around with and sit with during the games. Dad, however, had different ideas about that.
March 1980 was busy, as always, getting ready for opening day the first week of April.
I learned that some other A’s employees had already met Heather. “Have you seen the rock on her finger?” they were all asking. I was told to be sure and look at Heather’s left hand when we met. It was clear, though, that Dad really didn’t want me to get acquainted with Heather. She was in the area for about two months before I finally met her.
I usually left games before the ninth inning to avoid the traffic, but I had heard that Heather waited for Billy in one the front offices, and one night I decided to stay until the game was over and meet her. I found the office and went in. There was Heather, alone. She seemed more mature than her sixteen or seventeen years, and despite her reputation as a take-charge person when it came to Billy, she had a shy quality about her. I completely forgot to look at her ring finger. Our visit was pleasant but brief, since the Coliseum was closing.
Later, I learned Heather had a reserved seat for each home game behind the dugout. Billy wanted to be able to see her, and if she wasn’t in her seat when the game started, he freaked out and wouldn’t calm down until she arrived. Nevertheless, it was well known that Billy was not averse to a little hanky-panky with women. At the same time he was living with Heather, he was seen coming out of his office with a big smile followed by a woman named Jill. She was dating one of the players in the lineup, who asked the pitcher Brian Kingman how you complain to the manager who is hitting on your girlfriend. In the end, Martin married Jill and dropped Heather. It broke Heather’s heart, and we all felt sorry for her.
Brian Kingman might not have been the best source of advice about how to deal with Billy Martin, since his relationship with the temperamental manager was, shall we say, difficult. Billy insisted that players clear their plans to marry with him. When Kingman asked for permission to wed, Billy admonished him that his marriage had better not distract him from his pitching. Kingman married and lost the next nine games he pitched (en route to losing a record-setting twenty games that season).
Like many other players on the team, Kingman had a history of subtle, and not so subtle, conflict with Billy. In one game, Billy came to the mound and told him to walk the batter. Kingman threw three balls, but the batter reached out and smacked the fourth ball for a single. Billy came charging out of the dugout yelling “You mother-f—er! I told you to walk him!”—a correction that was clearly audible in the stands.
On another occasion Kingman threw a fastball that was promptly hit out of the park. Again, Billy stormed out to the mound, loudly berating Kingman for throwing a fastball. But it was Billy’s own rule that, under the circumstances in which Kingman had found himself, the pitcher was supposed to throw all fastballs. Kingman and Martin exchanged insults, and the next day the sports headlines read, “Kingman Rips Martin!” The pitcher says his relationship with Billy quickly “went south” and stayed there for his last two years with the team.
There’s no question that in his own, eccentric way Martin helped energize some of the new young recruits on the roster. Some books give Martin all the credit for lifting the team. But the team had been rebuilding since 1977. The team had already begun rising in the standings before Martin signed on. One could say Martin was the final ingredient.
CHAPTER 35
BILLY BALL
1980
In 1980 geologists detected signals that something big was about to happen. What they called “harmonic tremors” in the long-dormant volcano Mount St. Helens pointed to the catastrophic eruption that followed in May. That spring, seven hundred miles to the south, the Oakland A’s were giving off harmonic tremors of their own.
The antithesis of Ernie Mehl was the Oakland Tribune’s Ralph Wiley, a talented sportswriter with integrity who shilled for nobody. He didn’t have to. Respected as a consummate pro, he sprinkled his daily game coverage with creativity and wit. In March 1980, Wiley set up shop in Scottsdale, Arizona, with the A’s. And amid the relative anonymity of the Cactus League’s meaningless games under a punishing desert sun, Wiley recognized before anyone else that the A’s were about to perform a baseball miracle.
Billy Martin had been appointed GM as well as team manager. In Mesa, there was a sense that Charlie and Dad were handing him a whole new roster loaded with talent. Could he pull it all together? Wiley thought he could. He saw Martin take twenty-one-year-old Rickey Henderson under his wing, teaching him about the nuances of base-stealing, setting him on the road to the Hall of Fame.
The A’s opened the 198
0 season at the Coliseum against the first big-league team Billy ever managed: the Minnesota Twins. At first glance, they seemed to be the same old hapless A’s. The box score looked like the Twinkies roughed up Langford, Oakland’s opening night starter, and squeaked out a 9–7 win in extra innings.
But anyone among the 24,415 A’s die-hards could see this was a different team—flawed but hungry and full of fight. The Twins jumped out to a 5–0 lead that seemed insurmountable for a bad team, but the A’s were no longer a joke. In the seventh inning they stormed back, scoring seven runs on the hot bats of their young, talented outfield: Rickey Henderson, Dwayne Murphy and Tony Armas. In the end, they couldn’t overcome their biggest weakness, the bullpen. “Spacey” Bob Lacey, the A’s closer, blew the lead in the ninth, and the game went into extra innings before the A’s lost 9–7 in the twelfth. They lost a couple more, and after five games, they were an ordinary 2–3.
But then it started. Boosted by that stellar starting pitching, Billy’s A’s ripped off seven consecutive wins. Five weeks into the season, the Green and Gold was in first place, shocking the baseball world. But it wasn’t just the W’s they were hanging, it was how they were doing it. Martin was pulling out every trick he could think of, using Henderson’s all-world speed to steal bases, calling suicide squeezes, double steals—anything he could think of to steal a win. Martin was putting on a clinic on how a manager gets his team to overachieve. The controversies in other cities, especially in New York, had obscured the fact that he was one of the game’s best skippers. “They laughed when Charlie Finley hired Billy Martin,” wrote Wiley in the Tribune. “He has brought them respectability without a quality second baseman or shortstop and without a bullpen.”