Billy Martin Biography

1928-1989

American baseball player

Billy Martin

Billy Martin was known as a "scrapper" for his tendency toward fist fights and arguments, but he was a spirited and brilliant baseball manager who brought his teams to the top of their league every time he took the helm. He was inclined to express his opinions, a trait that got him into trouble more than once. Martin began playing semiprofessional baseball in his teens, and by age twenty-two he was with the New York Yankees, where he was a protégé of manager Casey Stengel and was befriended by teammates Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, and Mickey Mantle. His term with the Yankees ended, however, soon after his twenty-ninth birthday, when he was accused of instigating a brawl at a Manhattan nightclub. He was traded to six different ball clubs in five years following the incident. In 1965 he began coaching, and by 1968 he was offered his first managerial job. In 1975, he came full circle as manager of the New York Yankees. Over the next twelve years, Martin was fired and rehired five times by Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, with whom he had a "love-hate" relationship. Martin's successes with the Yankees, as well as his misbehavior on and off the field, became baseball legend.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY MARTIN:

(With Peter Golenbock) Number One (autobiography), Delacorte Press, 1980.

(With Phil Pepe) Billyball, Doubleday, 1987.