Steinbrenner

by Bill Madden

“All right,” said Steinbrenner, “but I want you to understand, Billy, there’s a reason why I take these spring training games as seriously as I do. I have to be concerned with ticket sales up north.”

  “Fine, George,” said Martin. “From here on out I’ll be playing the

  regulars longer anyway.”

  Gabe Paul could see that Steinbrenner’s meddling was already wearing on Martin, and the regular season hadn’t even begun. Paul felt the same way—and had for the past two years. His latest headache derived from a phone call he had received from Steinbrenner in which the owner told him he was signing Hopalong Cassady, the Heisman Trophy winner he knew from his days at Ohio State (who was already on the payroll as a conditioning consultant), to a three-year contract as a scout.

  “This is just another example of George paying off his obligations at the club’s expense,” Paul complained in his recorded diary. “This guy is supposed to be a scout? He asked Yogi Berra what the sign was for the sacrifice fly!”

  Paul’s exasperation with Steinbrenner nearly reached the breaking point at the end of spring training, when he was trying to complete an important trade with the Chicago White Sox for shortstop Bucky Dent. At the winter meetings the previous December, Steinbrenner had heard that White Sox owner Bill Veeck was looking to trade Dent, who was a year away from becoming a free agent.

  “We need to get back on this, Gabe,” he told Paul. “The shortstops we have here in camp aren’t going to cut it. Find out what Veeck wants for Dent and make a deal.”

  Paul, however, found Veeck and his general manager, Roland Hemond, to be hard bargainers despite their eagerness to move a shortstop they were not going to be able to afford after the ’77 season. In addition to Oscar Gamble, a left-handed hitter the Yankees deemed expendable, Hemond kept asking for a parcel of the Yankees’ top pitching prospects for Dent, particularly Ron Guidry, the lithe, hard-throwing left-hander from the Cajun country of Louisiana. Though he had been slow to find a niche as either a starter or reliever in five years in the farm system, Guidry had nevertheless impressed Paul in two brief stints with the Yankees in ’75 and ’76, and the Yankees’ scouts and minor league coaches agreed that it would be a grievous mistake to give up on him. Steinbrenner, however, wasn’t hearing it.

  The previous spring he had witnessed a rough outing by Guidry and, within earshot of the 25-year-old lefty, had grumbled, “He’ll never be more than a Triple A pitcher!” Guidry was so upset that he packed his bags, got in his car, and began driving home to Lafayette, Louisiana. Only at the urging of his wife, Bonnie, did he change his mind about quitting and turn the car around to head back to Fort Lauderdale.

  Now, however, Steinbrenner was even more adamant about Guidry’s expendability.

  “We’ve got to have the shortstop, Gabe,” he said after Paul reported back to him about the White Sox’ demands. “They want Guidry? Well, goddammit, then give him to ’em!”

  “Over my dead body,” Paul shot back. “I won’t do it. If you want to do it, then you do it yourself.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not getting involved,” Steinbrenner said. “You handle it. I want Dent. This deal is on you to get it done.”

  Despite his boss’s impatience, Paul held out, and on the last day of spring training he was able to secure Dent from the White Sox for Gamble, two minor league pitchers and $250,000. One of the pitchers, LaMarr Hoyt, would go on to win a Cy Young Award for the White Sox in 1983. But by that point Guidry would win 122 games for the Yankees and his own Cy Young Award for going 25-3 in 1978, and compile a 3-1 record and 1.69 ERA in four World Series starts.

  When the ’77 season began, with Jackson in right field and Dent at shortstop, the growing friction between Martin and Steinbrenner was exacerbated by the Yankees’ 2-7 record in their first nine games. They would win 14 of their next 16, but the atmosphere continued to be uneasy all around as tension remained, and not just between the manager and the owner.

  From the first time he walked into the Yankee clubhouse in Fort Lauderdale, Jackson realized that his “magnitude of me” press conference back in November had not sat well with a lot of the Yankee players, who viewed Munson as their leader and felt the need to remind Jackson that they’d been American League champions the year before without him. When he arrived that first day, he sat at his locker for five tense minutes, unacknowledged, before Catfish Hunter, his old Oakland A’s teammate, walked over to Jackson, put out his hand and said, “Welcome to camp, Buck.”

  Munson himself was no longer quite so enamored with the addition of Jackson either, once he learned the details of the right fielder’s contract. Minus the $400,000 signing bonus, Jackson’s annual salary was $332,000. Munson, under the terms of the four-year contract he’d signed in the spring of ’76, was to earn $155,000 in 1977, $165,000 in ’78 and $195,000 in ’79, which meant he’d be making barely half as much as Jackson in any given year—and that didn’t include the extra $60,000 for the Rolls-Royce. But when Munson went to Steinbrenner at the beginning of the ’77 season to remind him of their verbal agreement, the Yankees owner put him off, arguing that $132,000 of Jackson’s annual salary was deferred and that his actual take-home pay amounted to $200,000. As such, he said, there was no reason to make any adjustment in Munson’s salary. Munson was outraged at his callous disregard for what they’d agreed to and stormed out of Steinbrenner’s office.

  “Killer” Kane was working on his travel budget in the solitude of his basement office, just down the corridor from the Yankee clubhouse, when Munson burst through the door, grabbed a chair and hurled it against the wall. “That lying, no good sonofabitch!” the burly catcher shrieked. “Fuck him! I’m not gonna forget this! I’m done here!”

  “I never saw Thurman as mad as he was that day,” Kane said in a 2009 interview. “He scared me, to be honest. There was nothing I could say to him. But it was right after he felt George betrayed him that he started making a real big deal about family and wanting to be closer to home. And then he bought that damn plane.”

  As for Reggie Jackson, the cold reception from his new teammates left him feeling like an outsider, and Martin’s refusal to bat him in his accustomed cleanup spot—using him instead as the number-five hitter—was only making him more miserable. Then, on May 23, the new issue of Sport magazine hit the newsstands. In an article titled “Reggie Jackson in No-Man’s Land,” writer Robert Ward quoted Jackson saying, “ ‘this team . . . it all flows from me . . . I’m the straw that stirs the drink. . . . Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink but he can only stir it bad.’ ” Copies of the magazine were all over the Yankees clubhouse, and the players reacted to the story with predictable disgust, their initial feelings about Jackson now confirmed.

  It would take a whole season, and one glorious October night at Yankee Stadium, for Reggie to heal the rift and finally win their admiration. In the meantime, he could not seem to avoid controversy during that summer of ’77, even though competing for column inches in the tabloids were the Son of Sam murders, a citywide blackout, the riots in Bushwick and a contentious four-way mayor’s race.

  On June 18 in Boston, the simmering hostility between Martin and Jackson broke out into a full-blown conflagration. In the sixth inning of the game between the Yankees and the Red Sox, which was being played before a national TV audience, Jackson was slow to retrieve a ball hit to right field by the Red Sox’ Jim Rice. Rice made it to second for a double, and directly after the play, as he walked to the mound to make a pitching change, Martin could be heard shouting, “I’ve had enough of this shit!” He brought in Sparky Lyle to relieve Mike Torrez and sent reserve outfielder Paul Blair to replace Jackson in right field. As Blair trotted past the mound, Lyle asked him where he was going.

  “The manager told me to go to right field,” Blair said.

  Lyle, who detested Jackson, couldn’t contain his glee. “Hooo, boy!” he exclaimed. “I can’t wait to see this!”

  Stunned by Blair’s arrival in right field, Jackson threw
up his hands as if to say “Are you kidding?” and when he reached the Yankees dugout he immediately confronted Martin. The cameras showed them jawing at each other, nose to nose.

  “You want to show me up by loafing on me?” Martin seethed. “Fine, then I’m gonna show your ass up. I ought to kick your fucking ass!”

  “Who the fuck are you talking to, old man?” Jackson shot back.

  That remark brought the veins popping out of Martin’s neck, and he charged at Jackson as Yogi Berra and Elston Howard moved in quickly to restrain him. Jackson, who was being held back by outfielder Jimmy Wynn, had the last word as he was shuffled down the runway to the clubhouse:

  “You never wanted me on this team,” he shouted. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

  Realizing that the scuffle was being picked up on the NBC telecast, Martin ordered one of the batboys to throw a towel over the dugout camera. But at his farm in Ocala, Florida, Steinbrenner had watched the entire ugly scene, and now he was on the phone to Paul in just as much of a rage as Martin and Jackson.

  “We’ve been embarrassed on national TV!” Steinbrenner railed. “Billy’s out of control. I want you to set up a meeting with them tomorrow morning, straighten them both out and get this under control. I can’t have this!”

  He then told Paul to expect him in Detroit, where the team was going next, so he could speak to Martin in person.

  Jackson and Martin, who was hungover, met at 9 o’clock the next morning for breakfast in Paul’s suite at the Boston Sheraton, where each man gave his version of the events of the previous afternoon. Martin insisted that Jackson hadn’t hustled on the ball, which is why he had pulled him from the game. Jackson adamantly maintained that he had not loafed on the ball, his agitation rising at having to defend himself again. Martin, on the other hand, was getting even angrier as he listened to Reggie giving his version of the events. Finally he stood up and yelled at the outfielder, “You’re a fucking liar! Get up, boy. I’m gonna kick your ass right here!”

  Paul sternly told Martin to sit down. Jackson turned to Paul and said, “You’re a Jew, Gabe. How do you think I should feel after being called that name?”

  “ ‘Boy’ is just an expression,” Martin said.

  “Just everyone calm down here,” Paul sighed before concluding the meeting by informing both of them that he’d be reporting everything they’d discussed to Steinbrenner, who would meet them in Detroit. After Martin and Jackson departed for Fenway Park (where Jackson would be back in the lineup and the Red Sox would complete a three-game sweep by thumping the Yankees, 11–1), Paul telephoned Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner was even angrier at Martin than he’d been the night before and told Paul that he wanted to fire the manager. What he didn’t mention was that he had just talked to Milton Richman of UPI and informed him that this was precisely the reason for his trip to Detroit: to fire Billy Martin.

  Richman’s story was all over the airwaves and the newspapers Monday morning when Steinbrenner arrived at the Pontchartrain Hotel, in Detroit, and ran into Jackson in the lobby. While he didn’t know what Steinbrenner’s actual intentions were, Jackson realized that if the owner fired his popular manager, the fans would see him as the villain.

  Steinbrenner listened as Jackson explained that the team was already split wide open and that if he fired Martin for what had happened in Boston, the season would likely be lost. It was enough to convince Steinbrenner that perhaps the timing and circumstances dictated against making a change. A few hours later, he met in his room with Jackson and Martin, demanding assurances from both that they could coexist on the Yankees. Before dismissing them, Steinbrenner warned Martin that he’d “better shape up” and get control of himself, and he told Jackson, who had complained to him about other players making remarks about blacks and Jews, that he had to “stop being consumed with racial prejudice.”

  After being swept in Boston, the Yankees’ woes continued as they lost two out of three in Detroit. The first game in Detroit was televised nationally on ABC, and Paul was forced to hike up three levels of old Tiger Stadium to do an interview with Howard Cosell because the press elevator was broken. Paul’s was face was flushed and sweat was pouring through his shirt as he explained to Cosell and the assembled reporters that he and Steinbrenner had met with Jackson and Martin, and that Billy would remain as manager.

  The team returned home to play the annual Mayor’s Trophy Game for New York charities with the crosstown Mets on Thursday. With the Red Sox coming in for a big weekend series, Paul figured the exhibition game would be a welcome respite from a season that seemed to be getting crazier by the day. But reading the newspaper stories, he became further aggravated, especially by one in the Daily News, written by backup baseball writer Bill Verigan, that had obviously been a direct feed from Steinbrenner.

  “George Steinbrenner has taken charge of the Yankees,” Verigan wrote. “When he came riding into Detroit this week, he took a good look at his team, and what he saw appalled and saddened him. But he seemed saddened the most by what was happening to the team president, Gabe Paul, who is supposed to be Billy Martin’s superior and the team’s general manager.”

  The article went on to say Steinbrenner had made the decision to retain Martin and that Paul was “too indecisive and weak” to deal with Billy.

  Paul was outraged by what he viewed as a blatant undermining of his credibility by Steinbrenner. And when Steinbrenner called him from Tampa later that morning, Paul was ready to unload.

  “I’m a little worried about your health, Gabe, after all this,” Steinbrenner said. “Are you okay?”

  “My health,” said Paul angrily, “is not bothered by Martin. It’s bothered by the things you do! I’m sick and tired of you getting credit for saving Billy’s job. That Verigan article today, which demeans me, is all bullshit and you know it! Why would you say something like that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Gabe,” Steinbrenner snapped back. “I never said any of that. Do you believe me?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” said Steinbrenner, “then I’ll write a statement refuting everything in the story.”

  “Fine.”

  After hanging up, Paul was more disgusted than ever. “This guy takes full credit for all the trades, but never says he was under suspension when we got Randolph, Ellis and Brett,” he muttered into his tape recorder, “or that he wanted Guidry out of there in Fort Lauderdale when he said Guidry didn’t have any guts, and then wouldn’t take the responsibility for trading him.”

  Further irritating to Paul was a $50,000 salary advance Steinbrenner had given to Mickey Rivers—after Paul had strongly advised him against it. “Rivers is now just going to keep going back to the Big Rock Candy Mountain Man for more money!”

  Steinbrenner’s sudden concern for Paul’s health might have been piqued by an episode involving one of the Yankees execs, a few weeks earlier. The exec, who was a bit of a gadfly, was always coming up with bizarre promotion ideas, such as “Polaroid Camera Day.” A guy named Bill Press had come to him with 40 Polaroid cameras and the idea of having ushers at locations all around the stadium take pictures of every fan in the ballpark alongside a Yankee player. Not surprisingly, the promotion ended up an exercise in chaos, as there was no way they could accommodate every single fan. But as the exec explained to Steinbrenner a few days later, at least the Yankees would not have to pay Press his fee—he’d just been found in the trunk of a car at Kennedy Airport, his severed testicles stuffed in his mouth. The day after being berated by Steinbrenner for another of his promotions gone wrong, the exec came to work and collapsed from a heart attack. Yankees officials frantically attended to him until the paramedics arrived and rushed him to the hospital.

  When informed of the heart attack, a shaken Steinbrenner flew up from Tampa to make a personal hospital visit to his stricken exec, assuring him that all his needs would be taken care of. Later that day, Dave Weidler, the team comptroller, who was the exec’s closest friend in the fro
nt office, also paid a visit to the hospital and smiled in amusement at the mountains of fruit baskets and floral arrangements with Yankees logos filling the room. Steinbrenner obviously felt guilty over his tirade, but as Weidler found out, the heart attack wasn’t his fault. It seemed the exec had been living a double life, alternately cohabitating with a wife and kids in the suburbs and a mistress in Manhattan.

  “As I sat there next to him in the hospital,” Weidler said in a 2007 interview, “He leaned over and whispered to me with a sense of pride that, before he’d come to work that day, he’d had a ménage à trois downtown.”

  THE TRUCE BETWEEN Martin and Jackson remained an uneasy one as the Yankees stayed barely above .500 through June and into July while the manager continued to resist batting Jackson in the cleanup spot. After a 9–8 loss to the Brewers in Milwaukee on July 13, Munson and Lou Piniella decided to take matters into their own hands. Steinbrenner had accompanied the team on the road trip and, after the game that night, the two players went to his room at the Pfister Hotel to talk about the state of the ball club. In particular, they said, Billy had to be persuaded to restore Jackson to the cleanup spot. As the three were talking, Martin, who had been downstairs in the bar, passed in the hallway. Upon hearing the voices coming out of Steinbrenner’s suite, he pounded on the door and demanded to be let in. According to Piniella, he and Munson had spontaneously asked Steinbrenner to meet with them; they hadn’t planned it behind Martin’s back. When Martin was let into the room by Steinbrenner, he was upset at the sight of the three of them together. After a tense couple of minutes, Steinbrenner was able to assure his manager that they were only talking about what needed to be done for the team’s best interests. By the end of the meeting, Martin had agreed to restore Jackson to the cleanup spot and Steinbrenner had agreed to back off his public criticisms of him.

  When Paul heard about the meeting, he was incredulous.

  “George actually invited the players up there!” he said in his tape diary. “And then he lays the law down to Martin about the batting order. How can the manager be overruled by his players?”