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The Ballad of Billy and George: The Tempestuous Baseball Marriage of Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner | 
 enlarge | Author: Phil Pepe
Publisher: The Lyons Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 256375
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 159921282X
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3570922
EAN: 9781599212821
ASIN: 159921282X
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The peculiar, often tempestuous, and always entertaining baseball relationship between manager Billy Martin and owner George Steinbrenner.
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| Customer Reviews:
Baseball's Odd Couple April 2, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Boxing had Cosell and Ali. In an earlier age baseball had McGraw and Mathewson. The 1970's and 1980's brought us Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner. Phil Pepe is certainly qualified to write about this Yankee twosome. The book briefly covers the careers of both George and Billy leading up to their togetherness with the Yankees. If you lived through this period as a baseball fan you will undoubtedly remember the numerous confrontations that took place involving the Yankees' manager and owner. If you have read several of the books written on the Yankees you will find that many of the anecdotes told in this volume are to be found in other books as well. This book does include comments from Martin's son, Billy Jr., which add something new. Despite their differences both Martin and Steinbrenner shared a burning desire to win, each had strong personalities, a very generous side that people often weren't aware of, and egos that matched their combativeness. Had Martin lived there apparently were no plans for Billy to return to manage the Yankees for a 6th time. The book is a quick read, and you will find yourself reliving this time period in baseball history. Be prepared, however, to be told several stories you may have read in other books on the Yankees.
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "THE HATFIELD'S & THE McCOY'S BOTH WORE YANKEE PINSTRIPES!" March 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
On August 2, 1975 Yankee owner George Steinbrenner fired team manager Bill Virdon and hired Billy Martin to replace him. When Martin had played for the Yankees he was known as a scrappy regular season player, but in the World Series, which he and the Yankees were in almost every year, he rose to heroic levels, especially in the 1953 series when he hit 500 and set the record (12) for hits in a six game series. Prior to being hired to manage the Yankees, Billy had been hired by the Minnesota Twins in 1969 and transformed a team that had won 79 games the year before, into a juggernaut that won 97 games and along with it won the American League West. Despite such instant managerial success, off the field problems including an altercation with the Twin's traveling secretary, Howard Fox, on a chartered flight, and a brawl in a Detroit bar with one of his best pitchers, Dave Boswell, which landed Boswell in the hospital with a concussion, led to Billy being fired after one season. In 1970 the Detroit Tigers won 79 games finished in fourth place and their attendance dropped by 500,000 fans. In 1971 Detroit hired Billy Martin as their manager and with the fiery Martin at the helm they won 91 games, and finished in second place. In 1972 Detroit won 86 games finished in first place in the American League East and attendance increased over 300,000 fans. In 1973 the Tigers were 71 wins and 63 losses when Billy had a disagreement with upper management about disciplining players who didn't operate by his rules. He also told management he didn't agree with their assessment about some of their players, and Billy also picked this less than ideal time to ask for a 3 year contract, so with 28 games left in the season he was fired. Martin was out of work for six days when the Texas Rangers hired him for the last 23 games of the season. In 1974 Billy led a Texas team that had won 57 games the year before to 84 wins and second place. Midway through the 1975 season the Ranger ownership who hired Billy sold the team and Billy clashed with the new owners on personnel, and among other things, slapped the Ranger's 60-year-old traveling secretary. With 67 games left in the season Billy got fired.
Those were the "stable" years leading up to the nationwide soap opera that began on August 2, 1975, 2 years after George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees, the most famous sports franchise in the world from CBS. That fateful day was when "The Boss", George Steinbrenner hired Billy Martin to manage the Yankees. From 1975 to 1988 "The Boss" would hire and fire Billy on the nation's biggest stage FIVE-TIMES! They were polar opposites: Billy came from a poor broken home, while Steinbrenner came from a family of privilege. Everywhere Billy went growing up they said he was too small, and because of that he carried a chip on his shoulder bigger than his body. Add to this combustible mixture, ego's like Reggie Jackson's, along with Steinbrenner interfering in the locker room with "RAH-RAH" speeches, with Billy's drinking and brawling, and you have a script playing out on the nations stage, that an Academy Award winning writer couldn't create!
One of the most famous quotes during this period was right before the end of one of Billy's many tenures with the Yankees, referring to Reggie Jackson and Steinbrenner: "HE'S A BORN LIAR," (Jackson) "THE OTHER'S CONVICTED!" (Steinbrenner) This was a reference to Steinbrenner's 1974 felony conviction for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's reelection campaign. If you lived through this time period you'll understand why the author compresses a lot of the data. Interspersed throughout the book are comments from Billy Martin Jr. looking back at his Father's life, since Billy (Sr.) died in a DUI accident on December 25, 1989.
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