Billy Martin

From an award-winning New York Times sports columnist, the definitive biography of one of baseball's most celebrated, mercurial, and misunderstood figures--legendary manager and baseball genius, Billy Martin

A biography of Billy Martin, the controversial manager who has been hired and fired more than anyone else in major league baseball.

In the early 1970s, the Oakland Athletics became only the second team in major-league baseball history to win three consecutive World Series championships. But as the decade came to a close, the A's were in free fall, having lost 108 games in 1979 while drawing just 307,000 fans. Free agency had decimated the A’s, and the team’s colorful owner, Charlie Finley, was looking for a buyer. First, though, he had to bring fans back to the Oakland Coliseum. Enter Billy Martin, the hometown boy from West Berkeley. In Billy Ball, sportswriter Dale Tafoya describes what, at the time, seemed like a match made in baseball heaven. The A’s needed a fiery leader to re-ignite interest in the team. Martin needed a job after his second stint as manager of the New York Yankees came to an abrupt end. Based largely on interviews with former players, team executives, and journalists, Billy Ball captures Martin’s homecoming to the Bay area in 1980, his immediate embrace by Oakland fans, and the A’s return to playoff baseball. Tafoya describes the reputation that had preceded Martin—one that he fully lived up to—as the brawling, hard-drinking baseball savant with a knack for turning bad teams around. In Oakland, his aggressive style of play came to be known as Billy Ball. A’s fans and the media loved it. But, in life and in baseball, all good things must come to an end. Tafoya chronicles Martin’s clash with the new A’s management and the siren song of the Yankees that lured the manager back to New York in 1983. Still, as the book makes clear, the magical turnaround of the A’s has never been forgotten in Oakland. Neither have Billy Martin and Billy Ball. During a time of economic uncertainty and waning baseball interest in Oakland, Billy Ball filled the stands, rejuvenated fans, and saved professional baseball in the city.

My ten stories link the American scene and baseball. There are stories about the last African-American major league baseball player before Jackie Robinson, a fiendish umpire, the House of David baseball team, the Unibomber and little league baseball, the Womens All-American Baseball League, Rocky Colavito, Moe Berg and Charlie Finley, the miracle Mets of 1969, Billy Martin and Pope John Paul, and a boy born with the head of a Rooster. Sometimes funny and sometimes just plain strange, BILLYMARTIN MEETS THE PONTIFF will bring a smile to your face. For more information and description of my book, and how to order, please go to my website: www.angelfire.com/sports/jimmorningstar

Description: David Falkner, highly acclaimed author of The Short Season, pens the first full biography of one of the most controversial baseball figures to date, Billy Martin. Falkner uncovers the real Billy Martin as those who loved, hated, hired, and fired him knew him to be, revealing how Martin cam to be a larger-than-life figure.

Sit on the bench with Yogi and Casey, in the locker room with Mickey and the Babe, and in the bullpen with Whitey and Sparky. Tales from the Yankee Dugout is a compilation of the funniest, strangest, and most unique stories, anecdotes, and tall tales that have been attributed to the former personalities from baseball's legendary New York Yankees. Includes more than two dozen caricatures by noted sports illustrator Robert Jackson.

 In 1967, in the midst of a nail-biting six-week pennant race, the Red Sox, Tigers, Twins and White Sox stood deadlocked atop the American League. Never before or since have four teams tied for the lead in baseball’s final month. The stakes were high—there were no playoffs, the pennant winner went directly to the World Series. Here, for the first time, all four teams are treated as equals. The author describes their contrasting skill sets, leadership and temperament. The stress of such stiff and sustained competition was constant, and there were overt psychological and physical intimidations playing a major role throughout the season. The standings were volatile and so were emotions. The players and managers varied: some wilted or broke, others responded heroically.