Told that Jesus did not use a whip but overturned the tables in the temple when he was angry, Billy replied, “What’s the difference, he got his anger out.”
The 1987 Yankees were very similar to the 1986 and 1985 teams from the Bronx: a good team but not good enough in the toughest division in baseball in the era before wild card teams. Several players did not like Piniella’s intense managerial style and complained behind his back. Piniella was also accused of mismanaging the pitching staff and overusing the relievers. He raged after tough losses, shattering water coolers with bats in the dugout and lashing out with angry outbursts in the clubhouse. Those displays of temper were said to be distracting to the team and contributing to its inconsistency.
It had a familiar ring.
Billy stayed conspicuously distant from the ’87 team. As he had the previous year, he never stayed in the team hotel on the road. Throughout 1987 there was talk of Piniella being fired and Billy returning to manage, but Piniella survived. Before the last game of the season, Piniella had dinner with several writers, and when the meal was over he lit up a cigarette and ordered a snifter of cognac. Leaning back in his chair, Piniella talked about how he knew Steinbrenner would fire him.
“George doesn’t think I did a bad job,” Piniella said. “He just can’t stand not being in the playoffs. And he keeps saying Billy is tanned and rested. I think we all know what that means.”
Piniella, who has a loud, contagious laugh, cackled.
“And you know what the funniest part is?” he asked. “Son of a bitch if Billy isn’t tanned and rested.”
On October 19, during the World Series, Steinbrenner announced that Billy was returning as manager and Piniella was promoted to general manager.
There were no words from Billy, Steinbrenner, or Piniella in the announcement, which was made by the Yankees’ public relations chief, Harvey Greene. For several days, the Yankees said nothing. There was finally a news conference in Gallaghers Steakhouse restaurant in Manhattan. George posed for pictures with one arm around Piniella and the other arm around Billy. Everyone smiled.
Billy and Lou agreed they had to remake the team.
“We’ve got a lot of big plans during this off-season,” Piniella said.
“You bet,” Billy added.
44
BILLY’S OFF-SEASON DID INCLUDE some big plans. His wedding to Jill was by far his biggest, most extravagant, and boisterous. It was January 25, 1988, at the Blackhawk Country Club not far from the house in Blackhawk, which Billy and Jill had made their home after the divorce from Heather was finalized.
An elaborate video of the wedding day begins with Billy and Jill getting ready for the ceremony, dressing in separate bedrooms but together in the house. Mickey Mantle, the best man, flits in and out of the video, telling jokes in his syrupy drawl. He always has a glass in his hand with some kind of brown liquor. With each appearance in the video, Mantle appears less and less sure on his feet.
Just before Billy and Jill leave the house for their wedding, the camera pans on a fancy, ornate door with raised panels. The door is not a part of the house and rests against a wall. It is a wedding present, and its most prominent feature is a pronounced blemish—one of the panels has a large hole, a gouge that has splintered the wood.
As Billy explains, a friend who owned the Manhattan hotel where the door originated had sent it to the wedding couple.
“I’m mild-mannered Billy Martin,” Billy says to the camera.
He then explains that he and Jill were having a big fight and she kicked in the door. Billy laughs.
The wedding was lavish. Jill arrived in a white Rolls-Royce and walked through a corridor of male attendants dressed in Yankees pinstripes. There were a multitude of bridesmaids in flowing dresses. Billy and Mantle wore light gray striped tuxedos. Hundreds attended the wedding.
The night before the wedding, some of Billy’s friends were still trying to talk him out of marrying Jill.
“Aw, come on,” Billy said. “She’s all right.”
After the ceremony, Mantle decided to make his best man’s toast with the newlyweds still at the altar.
Perhaps Mickey knew he would not make it to the reception. He passed out soon after and had to be brought back to the Blackhawk house.
Weaving noticeably, Mickey said, “I’m Mickey and I’ve been Billy’s friend since 1950. This is the fourth one of these I’ve been to. It’s getting to be an everyday deal.”
Billy grinned but made a pained face at his friend. Mickey had been Billy’s friend during every marriage, but he had, in fact, not been to any of Billy’s previous weddings.
“Well, everyone knows that Billy is number one on your scorecard,” Mickey continued. “And I know he’s number one in everybody’s hearts. I wish the both of you the best and I hope I don’t ever have to go to another one of these Billy weddings.”
Billy and Jill walked down the aisle to applause, passing a variety of baseball personalities, including the White Sox manager, Tony La Russa.
At the reception, the dance floor was busy. At one point, Billy’s mother, Jenny, serenaded Billy with one song, “My Man.”
In the video, Billy seems to be holding Jill’s hand or dancing with her throughout the reception, at one point cheek to cheek. Toward the video’s conclusion, Billy is singing along to “New York” as he dances. The camera zooms in on Billy as he intones the words: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”
On the eve of the Yankees’ 1988 spring training camp, Don Mattingly, one of the most soft-spoken Yankees, guaranteed that the 1988 team would win the American League East. The Yankees had signed Jack Clark, who had driven in 106 runs and had a league-leading .459 on-base percentage in the National League the previous season. They had traded for or signed three new starting pitchers, including left-hander John Candelaria, who had already won 151 Major League games.
“We’ll definitely win it,” Mattingly said. “It’s a good time for Billy to come back.”
Spring training was a tranquil place, especially since the Yankees won twenty-one of thirty exhibition games. One of the new coaches working under Billy was thirty-one-year-old Buck Showalter, who had already won two championships as a Yankees minor league manager.
Billy had met Showalter while he was touring the team’s minor league system in 1987, and he took a liking to the plucky, precocious Showalter, who had been a career Yankees minor leaguer as a player. Steinbrenner also had plans for Showalter and told Billy to take him under his wing.
Showalter, an All-American in college and a future two-time American League Manager of the Year, got an education in Billy Ball in February and March of 1988.
“After talking with Billy for a couple of weeks, I felt like I had never seen a baseball game before,” Showalter said in 2013. “It opened my eyes to everything I wasn’t seeing from the dugout.”
The lessons came at Showalter in a steady stream.
“I remember he had me walk around the spring training complex with him, which was an experience in itself,” Showalter said. “We came out of the dugout for practice, and the crowd of five or six thousand watching started buzzing. They got real quiet, then they all started cheering. Winfield, Mattingly, Henderson—all those guys were already on the field. But the fans didn’t cheer until Billy came out.
“Then he showed me a thousand things like how to read the pitcher’s front foot and arm angle so a runner can know when to break for second base on a steal. There’s a point when you know it’s safe. He talked about how he stole signs. It was watching the other manager and the catcher but the opposing batter too.
“Every team has the batter give a return signal to the third-base coach that acknowledges that a bunt or a hit-and-run is on. If you watch, you can pick up the return signal—the batter taps his cleats or touches the brim of his cap. The key is to watch closely early in the game when they’re not doing any of those things, then notice the differences later in the game when more of those kinds of pla
ys are going on.
“He instructed the infielders in all these intricacies—how you should make tags with a V motion, not a U motion, because a V is quicker. How you should never reach for a throw and never catch it in front of the base. Instead, let it come to you; a thrown ball travels faster to the base than your hands can. He was a stickler for how to perform a rundown, and his big thing was not to catch and chase the runner with the ball in a rundown. The runner has got to go back to some base; let him come to you. Be patient and don’t panic.
“He taught me to have my eyes darting everywhere, looking for something to use later in a game. Take a ball that one of your guys hits into the right-center-field gap. Billy said don’t watch the ball; you know it’s going to be a double or a triple. Watch to see if the pitcher is backing up third. Is the left fielder moving? Are the relay guys in the proper order? How are the outfielders’ and infielders’ arms? You have a checklist of things to look for that might tell you something that you can use later.
“He had a saying: Preparation always shows itself in the spontaneity of the moment. Watch what the opposition is doing. Billy said you’ll learn something. You might not use it in that game but some future game you will.”
But Billy’s tutoring of Showalter was only beginning. In March, the Yankees made a weeklong trip to the west coast of Florida, hundreds of miles from Fort Lauderdale—and a respite from the peaceful condo where Billy was living with Jill during spring training. This was not a family trip. This was for the boys only.
“I was the left-handed coach pitching batting practice so they took me with them,” Showalter said.
Showalter saw that the road version of Billy Ball was another level of education.
During the first game of the trip in Sarasota, Showalter did something that put him permanently in Billy’s good graces. The Yankees were tied with the White Sox in a game that went into the tenth inning. The Yankees’ Bobby Meacham was at first base when Chicago brought in a young reliever and former Yankees farmhand, Ken Patterson.
“Billy starts screaming in the dugout, ‘Does anybody know this guy?’” Showalter said. “He meant Patterson. I’m sitting there and I just want to keep my mouth shut and stay with the big-league team. I’m thirty-one years old and I don’t want to piss off any of the veteran coaches. I just want to keep getting the $65 a day in big-league meal money, which was huge to me at the time.
“But I had coached Patterson the previous year and I started to think that if Billy finds out I had him last year and didn’t say anything he’ll be livid.”
So Showalter mentioned that he knew Patterson from the previous year. Billy raced over to ask what Patterson’s move to first base was like.
Said Showalter, “I told Billy that Patterson actually has a phobia about throwing to first base. He can’t do it. It’s like the yips in golf. He will step off and fake, but he won’t throw it. He does it again and again. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I thought, ‘What have you done?’”
Billy turned and ran to the top step of the dugout and yelled to first-base coach Mike Ferraro, “Make the pitcher throw over.”
Meacham took a four-foot lead, then a six-foot lead. Patterson only faked to first base.
Billy yelled, “Take a bigger lead.”
Meacham moved eight feet off the base.
“Bigger,” Billy yelled.
Meacham was twelve feet off the base and Patterson was still only stepping off and faking a throw.
“You could have rolled the ball to first base and picked Meacham off first base,” Showalter said. “Billy is loving this now because he knows he’s showing up the other manager. Finally, Patterson throws it but it’s ten feet over the head of the first baseman and Meacham goes from first to third base. Somebody hit a sac fly and we won.”
Billy hugged Showalter, who retreated to the locker room and showered. He was getting ready to pocket most of his meal money after a quick trip to McDonald’s. Instead, third-base coach Clete Boyer walked over.
“Clete says to me, ‘You think you did pretty good today, don’t you, kid? Well, you screwed up,’” Showalter said. “Then he flipped me the keys to the car and told me Billy wants me to be part of that night’s dinner with the coaches. I was the designated driver. We were to leave at 7:00 p.m.”
Then Boyer gave Showalter some other instructions.
“He told me to go to the deli across from the team hotel at 6:30,” Showalter said. “He said that I should order a club sandwich and I should eat it right then.”
Said Showalter, “But we’re going to dinner at 7:00?”
Answered Boyer, “Just do what I tell you.”
Showalter did as he was told, then drove the coaches to dinner and watched as round after round of drinks were ordered. No one ordered any food until almost 10:00 p.m.
“The Scotch was flowing like crazy,” Showalter said. “I had never seen anything like it. I was dumping my drinks in the potted plants to stay upright. At maybe 10:00 p.m., we got appetizers. I don’t know if we ever got dinner, and if we did it wasn’t until 11:00. Thank God for that club sandwich.”
There was a lot of baseball talk at the dinner table—for a while at least.
“Billy was holding court, moving the salt and pepper shakers around on the table to explain a trick play or something,” Showalter said. “He talked about how to attack another team—always attack, he said, don’t let them relax. And he talked about how to identify smart players because he said to me, ‘Buck, dumb players will get you fired.’ He never stopped teaching and you could learn a lot before the fourth or fifth drink. But after that, things deteriorated. You saw the other side of things, which was a lot less fascinating and darker.
“I remember we eventually left the restaurant and went to a bar and then I was driving everyone home at 3:00 a.m. Art Fowler made me stop at a 7-Eleven to get ice cream and a six-pack of beer. But the next day, and I don’t know how, those guys were as fresh as a daisy. I was half their age and I remember telling my wife that I wasn’t going to survive the trip.”
Billy’s Yankees sprinted into the regular season, winning nine of their first ten games. A fast start was always Billy’s goal, and those who had played for him before expected the intensity of the first two weeks.
“Some of the new guys to the team, like Jack Clark and Candelaria, were shocked at how different Billy was once the regular season started,” Mattingly said. “They were telling me in spring training how relaxed and easygoing Billy was. And I told them to just wait.
“Once the regular season started, they came to me and said, ‘Man, every game is intense. He never sits down in the dugout. He’s pacing and yelling even when we’re leading 8–0 in the ninth inning.’ And that was true. That was Billy.”
With the Yankees’ brilliant start, they had a stranglehold on first place that lasted for months. They were a potent offensive club, with Henderson playing hard for Billy as he always did and Randolph slashing singles and drawing walks. The steady Mattingly anchored a formidable middle of the order that also featured Clark and Winfield. The pitching staff was a little aged, but in the opening parts of the season, it got more than enough outs to buttress an explosive, productive batting order.
There were bumps in the road. Billy’s issues with umpires continued, and he had some temperamental players, too, which led Billy to have more on-field arguments.
Candelaria was ejected from two of his first six starts. Billy was thrown out of two other games. His old nemesis, Durwood Merrill, tossed him one of those times. Billy accused the umpires of targeting the Yankees.
“They can’t stand all the winning we’re doing,” Billy said.
Trouble was brewing.
On May 6, the Yankees and their gleaming 20–8 record went to Texas for a three-game series with the lowly sixth-place Rangers. Texas was leading 7–1, but the Yankees began the ninth inning by loading the bases with no outs. Mattingly was called out on strikes and did something he almost never did—he turned on
home plate umpire Tim Welke and disputed the third strike call.
Welke immediately expelled Mattingly, who was so incensed, he got in a chest-to-chest beef with Welke. Spit was flying and the normally placid Mattingly was getting more riled with each passing second. Cincinnati manager Pete Rose had just been suspended thirty games for shoving an umpire, a penalty the umpires thought was inadequate. In general, umpires were feeling defensive in 1988. There seemed to be a lot of abuse directed at them and they did not think the commissioner’s office had their back.
When Billy ran onto the field after Welke and Mattingly, he was mostly trying to keep one of his most valuable players from doing something untoward and debilitating to the team. But Welke wasn’t happy to see the Yankees manager either and quickly threw Billy out of the game, too. Billy was enraged and later said he had barely opened his mouth before Welke tossed him. Billy reached into his full arsenal of umpire mistreatment tactics, throwing his hat and kicking dirt on the umpire with a flourish.
Billy was even more upset when his Yankees rallied for five runs but fell short, leaving two runners as the game ended with a 7–6 defeat.
After the game, Billy retired to the bar at the team hotel, the Arlington Hilton, where he had planned to meet Mickey Mantle and Mantle’s son, Danny. Coach Mike Ferraro joined Billy and the Mantles at the bar and the crew had a few drinks. But the hotel bar was packed with Yankees fans trying to spot a player, or even better, the manager.
“Isn’t there somewhere quiet we can go drink?” Billy asked Mantle, who said he knew just the place.
The four men took a cab one mile down the road to Lace, Arlington’s only topless club. Set back from Majesty Drive and surrounded by parking spaces, Lace was a large, windowless building with stucco exterior walls and pay phones positioned outside. Inside, it featured hundreds of strobe lights that illuminated a smoky haze, with a throbbing music beat and a squad of dancers gyrating on the long rectangular bar. It was filled with local men, many of them in cowboy hats and boots. Some had come to Lace from the Yankees-Rangers game.
Billy Martin Page 55
