Remembering Ex-Athletics Manager Billy Martin, Born on this Day in 1928
Billy Martin, who was one of the most influential men in the history of the A’s franchise in Oakland, was born on this day in 1928.
We wrote about Martin weeks ago just after East Bay author Dale Tafoya’s book, “Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s” had come out.
At the time, there was supposed to be an in-person panel discussion at the Oakland Public Library about the man who managed the A’s from 1980-82 and did more than a little to make the A’s into a commodity that then-owner Charlie Finley could sell to Walter A. Haas Jr. and his family.
The in-person part had to be scratched because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, so the library tried its first-ever virtual author chat.
They were expecting maybe 200 people to log in with Tafoya, Billy Martin Jr, former Oakland Tribune columnist Dave Newhouse and former A’s pitcher Mike Norris open to questions. Instead, they got an attendance of more than 1,000.
Billy Martin, obviously, continues to be an object of considerable interest in the Bay Area.
The Berkeley-born Martin was hired only 48 hours before the 1980 team was schedule to report to spring training. They were coming off a 108-loss season and the job seemed daunting, if not impossible.
Martin never got a hit for the A’s, never threw a pitch. But he turned the entire franchise around, bringing the East Bay, the Bay Area and eventually much of MLB with him. They’d be competitive, over .500 in 1980, then would go to the new Haas ownership late in the season before landing in the post-season in 1981. The A’s set an Oakland attendance record in 1981, then a franchise attendance record in 1982.
Along the way, Oakland Tribune columnist Ralph Wiley called the all-hands-on-deck style the A’s were showing “BillyBall.” The name stuck, even if Martin wouldn’t. He flamed out in Oakland in 1982 after memorably trashing his office in the bowels of the Coliseum.
“Billy’s overall impact was good in terms of the significance of the renaissance he brought to Oakland,” Tafoya said. “He created enough excitement to create interest for a local buyer. The Haas family fell in love with Billy and Billy Ball.”
Nationally, Martin is best known for his time with the Yankees. Owner George Steinbrenner famously hired and fired Martin five times, both before and after Martin’s managerial stint with the A’s.
Although Martin was just a career .257 hitter, his No. 1 is one of the numbers retired by the Yankees, mostly for his managerial work, although his four World Series rings figured into the equation. Before that, Martin was a scrappy second baseman with New York, buddies with Hall of Fame starting pitcher Whitey Ford and Hall of Fame center fielder Mickey Mantle.
In the 1953 World Series, Martin just missed being named the MVP after hitting .500 with eight RBIs as the Yankees beat up the Dodgers. The reason he just missed that MVP award is that it wasn’t handed out for the first time until 1955.
After he was done play, Martin did great turnaround work as a manager with the Twins and the Tigers and the Rangers and the Yankees before landing in Oakland. He had at least one first place team with each of those franchises except the Rangers, who finished second and third in his last two seasons at the helm.
Tafoya, who writes when he’s not working in law enforcement in the East Bay, describes himself as “a 10-year-old kid sitting in the second deck” in the Oakland Coliseum watching those Martin-managed A’s teams. He fell in love with them, too.
There were demons driving Martin, who finished 240 games over .500 as a manger but could never stay in one place for long. He had no problem getting hired, but he never lasted four full seasons anywhere, and the Yankees would famously hire him five times.
“My fascination was not so much with him; it’s with the story sounding the A’s history,” Tafoya said. “He came in when the A’s farm system was broke. There was talk of moving the club to Denver. And then almost overnight, the attendance spiked, the team kept winning and by his second season they were in the playoffs.
“For me, it was an incredible story I wanted to tackle.”
After Martin’s star soured in Oakland, he made three more stops in the Bronx working for Steinbrenner, in 1983, 1985 and 1988. The first two times he made it through the entire season. In 1988 he was fired even though the team was 12 games over .500 at 40-29. They’d just lost four straight games to fall 2 1/2 games behind the Tigers.
He wouldn’t manage again in the big leagues. On Dec. 25, 1989, he was killed in a car crash in Johnson City in upstate New York.
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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