“See you tomorrow,” someone said.
Billy turned with a smile and replied, “I hope so.”
42
THE NEXT SERIES DID indeed start the next day. But things did not calm down. Volatile Eddie Lee Whitson was scheduled to start that night’s game. But Billy considered Whitson—with some justification—undependable under pressure. Billy announced that Whitson was being scratched from his start.
Billy had a reason for the switch. “Whatchamacallit,” as Billy tactlessly referred to Whitson that evening, had a tender arm. When approached by reporters, Whitson was stunned to discover that his arm was bothering him. He said he was healthy.
This turn of events did not sit well with either Billy or the high-strung Whitson. The two had had a touchy relationship to that point although there had been no outlandish disagreements. But privately, Whitson despised the way Billy wanted to call every pitch and routinely made every outing seem a do-or-die affair. Billy, meanwhile, distrusted Whitson after his horrible start to the season and wondered if Whitson had the stomach for the pressure of playing New York, which was an imperative attribute to Billy. Still, the two had coexisted under an uneasy, unspoken truce, and Billy kept Whitson in the rotation. Whitson responded by winning most of his decisions from June to late August.
But beginning with a start on August 31, Whitson’s pitching statistics had been alarming. In four starts, he had given up 31 hits and 19 runs in 19.2 innings pitched. His ERA in that period was 7.32.
With the Yankees in a death spiral, Billy was sure that Whitson was not the best choice to end the losing streak.
Instead, he gave the baseball to spot starter Rich Bordi for the first game in Baltimore. In the visitors’ clubhouse at Memorial Stadium, Whitson stomped around the room. His teammates ignored him.
Whitson was an odd fit on the 1985 Yankees. He was liked but he had few friends. His interests were hunting and fishing and he kept a pile of outdoor sports magazines in his locker. If he had ever talked at length with Billy about deer or quail hunting, they might have become friends. There is no evidence the two ever had that conversation or shared a beer.
But even the Yankees who did know Whitson never grew close to him. Few of the players in 1985 were outdoorsmen or had been raised in the country. Whitson’s was the only locker with a tape player regularly belting out country music. He was the rare voice with a southern drawl. The African American players were largely from urban areas. Most of the other Yankees—Pagliarulo, Mattingly, Hassey, Pasqua, Righetti, Wynegar, Dale Berra—were also from northern or West Coast cities or their close suburbs. The only truly rural compatriot of Whitson’s was the Louisianan Guidry, but Guidry was not gregarious. Guidry kept to himself and was usually either in the gym staying fit or working on his hobby, which was playing the drums (he had a kit under the stands at Yankee Stadium). On the road, Guidry tended to dine in his room, the king of room service.
The rest of the 1985 pitching staff was a rough-and-tumble group, almost a cult within the team. They were like fraternity brothers, and their favorite form of amusement was insulting each other with biting humor. Whitson, his teammates said, was thin-skinned and shied from the banter. He ended up isolated from the only group that would have him.
The Yankees fans, meanwhile, berated Whitson ceaselessly.
“Eddie couldn’t even go on the field during batting practice before a game at Yankee Stadium,” said his 1985 teammate and fellow pitcher Dennis Rasmussen. “If he did, people threw stuff at him. He developed a hatred of New York and eventually of Billy.
“The funny thing is that he and Billy were of the same mold, I think. They both liked to tip a few at the bar, and when they were drinking you knew you better not say the wrong thing to them because he’d want to fight everybody. It just wasn’t hard to get him riled up. That wasn’t the best personality to have on that 1985 team when everything that happened seemed just absolutely and totally crazy.”
Bordi, pitching for Whitson, did not end the losing streak. During the game, a key run scored when Billy mistakenly scratched his nose, which was the signal for a pitchout. Billy didn’t mean to call a pitchout; his nose was just itchy. The details of the gaffe did not get out to the press at the time, but the players knew of it. It seemed to fit a trend. The despair continued to build.
After the game, Billy was nearly speechless, mumbling barely audible answers.
“We just need a spark,” he said.
Losers of eight straight, the Yankees retired to their hotel, the Cross Keys Inn. Most went to bed. It was after midnight and there was a day game the next afternoon. At the Cross Keys, they did not have many choices at that hour anyway.
In the 1980s, most baseball teams stayed in large, luxury hotels in downtown areas where there was likely a plethora of restaurant and bar choices within walking distance. This kind of location scattered the postgame drinking, which is often a good idea. Cliques form on teams, so better to let different groups unwind in their own orbit. And, while Billy liked to drink with his players, an urban environment also made it easier for the players to not drink with Billy—as some of his players preferred.
But Cross Keys Inn was seven miles from downtown Baltimore. It was surrounded by parking lots and shrubbery and office buildings shuttered at night. Killer Kane, the Yankees’ traveling secretary, had vacationed at the property during the winter of 1984–85 when he was touring Baltimore with his family. Kane thought it would be a nice change of pace to bring the team to a leafy environment.
But on the Friday night after the game, Billy and several players—Righetti, Henderson, and Pagliarulo among them—congregated in the small bar just off the lobby of the Cross Keys. The players swilled beer and cocktails at a table along with some writers. Billy, as was often the case, was at the bar, which was parallel to a wall with a mirror facing back to the lounge and tables. A two-man band was playing in a corner.
As was also usually the case, Billy struck up a conversation with strangers at the bar. Near him were two young couples. Billy quickly learned that one of the couples had gotten married that day. He bought the newlyweds a bottle of champagne.
Later, he danced one song with the bride. The newlyweds eventually thanked Billy, got autographs, and retired to their room. No one, obviously, expected to see them again that night.
But within minutes, the groom, still in his tuxedo and weaving somewhat unsteadily, reappeared at Billy’s side at the bar.
“Hey, Billy, we’ve got to talk,” he said loudly. “You told my wife she has a potbelly.”
Everyone in the bar heard him. While it was hard to believe that Billy had ever heard such an accusation before, especially from a bridegroom, Billy nevertheless seemed unmoved.
“I did not say she had a potbelly,” Billy said flatly and without emotion. He pointed at the woman from the other couple at the bar and added, “I said this woman had a fat ass.”
Now there were two men upset at Billy. Some minor shoving ensued. Henderson and a couple of coaches intervened to separate the potential combatants. There was some yelling, but the bridegroom and the other couple departed and nothing else became of the tussle. The whole thing lasted about twenty-five seconds.
The scuffle with the bridegroom—which was hard to imagine—and the equally unfathomable “potbelly” and “fat ass” quotes would be all but forgotten. In the history of the team, they are lost in the recounting of more momentous events.
The Yankees finally snapped their losing streak Saturday afternoon when Cowley and Fisher combined for a five-hitter in a 5–2 victory (maybe Cowley and Fisher did need a change of scenery). The Yankees trailed the Blue Jays by 6.5 games. Whitson had still not pitched and he was not happy about it. Several reporters who approached his locker before the game heard all about how he had already instructed his agent to get him out of New York as soon as the season ended.
At about 6:00 p.m. Whitson perched at the bar, his hand wrapped around a bottle of Budweiser. A reporter asked if he had he
ard about the little fracas with the bridegroom.
“Oh, yeah,” Whitson said with a smile. “I’m having a beer now, then getting out of here before the real festivities start.”
Like most of the Yankees’ traveling party that night, Whitson was leaving the hotel by cab to eat dinner downtown. The Cross Keys cleared out. But by 11:00 p.m. various parties returned to the hotel, and by 11:45 the bar was packed again. Billy had also gone to dinner downtown, stopping at the same crab restaurant he always visited, but as midnight approached, he was at the Cross Keys Inn bar, too, talking with announcer Frank Messer as well as Dale Berra and his wife, Leigh. Billy’s tranquillity coach, Willie Horton, was asleep. Horton did not go to bars because he did not drink. Another coach, Doug Holmquist, who had become Billy’s unofficial barroom bodyguard in 1985, was in Toronto scouting the Blue Jays in advance of what the Yankees hoped would be the final weekend three-game showdown in Toronto.
The lounge of the bar—an area Billy could see easily by looking at the mirror above him—was busy. In it, seated at a booth, was Eddie Lee Whitson, who, like Billy, had been drinking most of the night.
Sitting next to Whitson, only a few feet away, was Albert Millus, an attorney from Binghamton, New York, who came down to watch the Yankees games in Baltimore. Millus did not know any of the Yankees, although he would later befriend Billy briefly when Billy moved to the Binghamton area in 1988. (Millus was by then the town attorney for Fenton.)
“Whitson was agitated and talking loudly about Billy Martin; he was upset with him,” Millus said in an interview years later. “A woman, I think Dale Berra’s wife, came over to Whitson and was trying to calm him, I think. But Whitson kept saying things like, ‘That man won’t pitch me’ or ‘That SOB won’t play me.’”
In a sworn affidavit he provided to Eddie Sapir several days later, Millus described what happened next:
At this point I deduced that Mr. Whitson was a ballplayer . . . I turned to look at him. When Mr. Whitson saw me looking at him, he focused his attention on me, and loudly demanded to know why I was eavesdropping on his conversation. I do not remember the words he used, but I believe it was something like, “Who do you think you are to stick your nose into my business?” I told him in words or substance that I did not know who he was, and had no interest in his business.
Several Yankees had been privately worried that Whitson was going to snap soon and fight someone before the season ended, and they feared it would not be a small-time scrap. In addition to being tall and barrel-chested (six foot three and 200 pounds), Whitson had also taken martial arts training.
As Whitson and Millus were having their contentious exchange, someone, perhaps Leigh Berra, told Billy that Whitson was arguing with a stranger in the lounge a few feet away. Billy later said he looked at the mirror and saw Whitson face-to-face with Millus. Billy jumped up and moved in Whitson’s direction.
At some point, Millus scolded Whitson. “I told him in words or substance that he was misbehaving,” Millus said in the affidavit.
Whitson responded by grabbing Millus by the throat.
“I looked up and saw Billy Martin between us,” said Millus, who added in his statement that he did not think that Billy or Whitson was drunk.
But, with most of the bar patrons now watching, Billy said to Whitson, “Eddie, you’re drunk, you don’t need this.”
Those were not the words Whitson wanted to hear, and Billy was probably the last person on Earth that he wanted to hear them from. Whitson’s eyes were wild and his face contorted as he started yelling at Billy to get away.
“What’s the matter with you—you’re crazy,” Billy said. “I’m trying to help you. What’s wrong with you?”
The two were squaring off. Dale Berra and a few coaches were sprinting toward the confrontation. Whitson could be heard calling Billy a “motherfucker,” and according to several witnesses, he then swung at Billy.
Billy had come over as a peacemaker, but in an instant that was no longer his intent. Billy and Whitson were furiously wrestling in a dark bar at about 12:20 a.m. Punches were thrown, and according to Billy, Whitson kicked at him several times, with Billy blocking one of the blows with his forearm. The two men tumbled to the floor after about twenty seconds and then they were separated by various Yankees personnel.
Whitson was now yelling at Billy for starting the fight.
If the details of the first punch remain murky, the rest of this four-round brawl is not in dispute. All but a couple of the beat writers watched it blow by blow and took notes.
When Billy and Whitson were initially separated, Billy appeared to compose himself quickly.
He kept saying, “What’s wrong with that guy? Can’t he hold his liquor?”
Whitson, however, was not composed. He was enraged and kept screaming insults at Billy. A yelling Whitson was pushed and half-dragged out of the bar. Billy followed after him.
In the lobby, Whitson was being held from behind with his arms pinned to his sides, but he was still able to lunge at Billy. Billy met that aggression with a charge of his own, but Whitson was quicker. Though his arms were being held, Whitson powerfully swung his leg and kicked Billy squarely in the groin.
The kick seemed to lift Billy off the ground, and everyone watching seemed to either gasp or wince. The crowd parted for a second, waiting most likely for Billy to drop to the floor. Billy was doubled over in pain. But then he stood up straight and took a deep breath, like something a character in an action movie would do. It was as if he suddenly found new strength. And then, in a firm, defiant voice he said to Whitson, “Now I’m going to have to kill you.”
Billy stormed at Whitson. But cooler heads interceded and summarily pushed Whitson out of the lobby toward the entranceway to the hotel, which included a circular driveway. Two or three Yankees players and coaches, including Gene Michael, tried to corral and appease Whitson outside while another one or two Yankees employees desperately scurried around the hotel lobby in an effort to keep Billy from going outside. No one had his hands on Billy; it was more like a game of tag or dodge ball with multiple people darting around trying to block Billy’s path. Billy was making evasive countermoves, like a football running back hoping to evade a linebacker.
Near the sliding-glass door entrance, at one point the catcher Ron Hassey played cat-and-mouse with Billy. With his back to the door, Hassey tried to stay in Billy’s way, periodically stepping on the sensor that opened the door. As the doors opened and shut, Billy would back away and try to get around Hassey some other way.
Finally, Billy faked left and went right, which got Hassey to step on the door sensor but also left him out of position.
Once outside, Billy threw himself at the group enveloping Whitson. It became like a four-man scrum, almost like a group hug except Billy and Whitson were snarling at each other and trying to throw punches.
Eventually, some legs in the group got tangled and the whole mass of men fell over with Billy on the bottom of the pile. Billy hit the ground with a thud, the back of his head loudly smacking the pavement.
That confrontation brought more bodies out into the hotel entranceway, and this time Whitson was pushed in the direction of the hotel parking garage, a multilevel structure maybe two hundred feet from the hotel, though attached to it.
Whitson yelled at Billy, “You’ve tried to bury me here; you’re trying to ruin me.”
Billy, looking dazed, was guided back into the hotel lobby. Lou Piniella and Killer Kane had arrived. They had gone to dinner in Baltimore’s Little Italy and come back to the hotel just behind police cars making their way to the Cross Keys Inn.
“My first thought was that I hoped Billy wasn’t involved in a fight,” said Piniella, who came into the lobby to see Billy being attended to by trainer Gene Monahan. Billy’s arm had swelled precipitously.
Piniella, Kane, and Monahan talked Billy into going to his room, and the four men got on an elevator to head to Billy’s third-floor room. Reporters dashed up the stairs a
fter them.
Unbeknownst to those escorting Billy, the group shepherding Whitson had circled around to the parking garage’s basement elevator. They were taking Whitson to his third-floor room.
When Billy’s elevator doors opened on the third floor, so did Whitson’s just a few feet away. Billy and Whitson were suddenly face-to-face and charged at each other for a fourth time. It had been about twenty-five minutes since the first punch or kick.
This last confrontation was the most benign—mostly shouting and incriminations.
“You’re gutless,” Whitson yelled as multiple people separated him from Billy.
“You’re the gutless one, they told me you were in trouble,” Billy said. “I was just trying to help, Eddie.”
Billy was ultimately led down a hallway to the right while Whitson went to his room down a different hallway.
Kane went with Whitson, who dabbed at a cut lip and a few abrasions on his arms. Kane arranged for Whitson to be driven to New York early the next morning. Then Kane called Steinbrenner to give him the news.
Kane described the opening tussle, then the part where Billy was kicked in the crotch.
“George was saying, ‘Wait, they fought again, and what happened then?’” Kane explained years later with a laugh. “And I said, ‘Wait, George, there’s more.’ And he goes, ‘More? Whattaya mean more?’”
The whole story left Steinbrenner’s head spinning.
Piniella and Monahan went with Billy to his room.
“I was checking out the arm and you could feel the bones moving and cracking,” Monahan said. “I told Billy I was pretty sure it was broken.”
Monahan also thought it was likely that Billy cracked a couple of ribs. There were a few lacerations on his face and back, too.
“Just wrap my arm up, I’m fine,” Billy told Monahan.
Piniella recalled that he was worried for Billy.
“He looked terrible; he was really beat up,” Piniella said. “But, you know, Billy is one tough guy. He said to me, ‘Do me a favor and go knock on Whitson’s room. Tell him I’ll meet him in the parking lot in five minutes.’
Billy Martin Page 52
