Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9412070004
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY JOHN A. MONTGOMERY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Few baseball writers are as familiar with the late Billy Martin as Peter Golenbock. In the past 20 years, Golenbock has written a half-dozen full-length books that deal with assorted members of the New York Yankees, for whom Martin played and managed, and managed, and managed ...
Most Golenbock books are controversial, laced with smut. It seems that this author is an expert at this type of investigation.
Fifteen years ago, Golenbock collaborated with Martin on ""Number 1,'' his less-than-bashful autobiography. You would think that everything worth saying had already been said.
Alas, Martin's penchant for alcohol, extramarital sex, fighting, (and oh yes, baseball), have provided Golenbock with supplemental material. Furthermore, the fuzzy circumstances surrounding Martin's death, resulting from a truck accident, on Christmas Day 1989, are worth a few chapters in their own right.
This 545-page work is thorough in its depiction of Martin as a fiery and principled - but misguided - baseball man who knew how to win on the field. By most other standards, however, Martin was a loser. Of course, if you criticized Martin while he was alive, which many associates did, you were asking for a sucker punch.
As a Yankee rookie, Martin was convinced that he was management material. "I have all the credentials, you know,'' he told a columnist in 1950. ``I can really run a game, run a team. I'll do it some day, you'll see.''
Martin played for the legendary Casey Stengel until 1957, and New York won six pennants and five World Series with Martin holding down second base. During that period, the team was loaded with household names that included an aging Joe DiMaggio (who watched from the on-deck circle as Martin stepped to the plate for the first time), Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra and Martin's drinking buddies Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford.
But Martin was quick to point out that when he roomed with Rizzuto (1950), Berra (1951) and Mantle (1956), each of them won the American League's Most Valuable Player Award. Martin insisted that this was more than mere coincidence.
"It is difficult not to conclude that Martin is the most valuable as well as the damnedest Yankee now extant," Golenbock quotes from a 1956 Sports Illustrated article.
Martin was a cocky player and manager, who could back up his words with his fists. While his career statistics are modest (.257 batting average), he performed well in the clutch. His World Series numbers are particularly impressive (career .333 batting average, and a record 12 hits in 1953's six-game series). His best percentage, however, was in the ring. He seldom lost a scuffle, as his street-fighting talents were honed as a lower-class youngster in West Berkeley, Calif.
After leaving New York when his skills began to erode in 1957, he played for six teams in five seasons. Martin later managed Minnesota, Detroit, Texas and Oakland, not to mention five stints (another major league record) at the helm of the George Steinbrenner-owned Yankees.
With virtually every team that Martin had contact, the team's record improved after his arrival. But Martin's methods always begat trouble. Martin's move from city to city usually was precipitated by Martin either (a) fighting a player; (b) fighting a bar patron; or (c) fighting a player posing as a bar patron.
The Bronx Zoo - as the New York team was known in the late 1970s - had the Steinbrenner-Martin-Reggie Jackson triangle as its centerpiece. The trio provided the New York dailies with juicy quotes. Martin is credited with the best: "The two of them deserve each other. One's a born liar (Jackson) and the other's convicted,'' Martin said, the day before he left the Yankees manger post for the first time - in 1978.
Martin had little respect for the greats of the game. His put-downs of Hall of Famers Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, and Al Kaline are noteworthy more for gall than for anything else.
Golenbock's presentation is a good read - not only because of the outlandish behavior of Steinbrenner and Martin - but also because of his conclusion that Martin's problems were exacerbated by a handful of tragic flaws: alcoholism, a trashy upbringing, a complete lack of trust in people, and an inability to understand women.
Much of the book is devoted to Martin's infidelities (he was a league leader in this category) and marriage woes. Martin's fourth and last wife, Jill Guiver, is portrayed as a sinister, manipulative, gold-digging wench whose only redeeming value is her appearance. Guiver refused to allow Golenbock to interview her, but it's hard to imagine that she could have tarnished her image any further.
In fact, both Guiver and Steinbrenner emerge as despicable, conniving individuals.
The book is billed as more than a sports story. More aptly, it's a sordid story of a bunch of crumb bums. The dust-jacket photo of Martin's squinty glare topped by a cap with a gold cross above the Yankees logo is a sad irony.
Since we missed the World Series this fall, it's an appropriate time to read this book and experience a few vicariously. Yankee fans - and baseball fans in general - will learn something. Soap opera buffs will find it captivating.
John A. Montgomery is the sales manager of the Blue Ridge Regional Business Journal.
by CNB