The Boss and Billy Martin appear on Letterman, Billy tells a funny story about how he was punk'd by the great Mickey Mantle. During his day Mickey Mantle was to the Yankees what Derek Jeter is today..
I met Billy in the early 80's in an Arizona Restaurant during Spring Training when he was managing Oakland. I was a Sales Trainer for a major Grocery Manufacturer at the time & we were having a Planning meeting out there. Our group was seated close to his table (which included all of his A's coaches). They were all having cocktails, just like we were & Billy was obviously holding court & his coaches were laughing their asses off. One of my cohorts & I decided to head to his table to say hello and Billy could not have been nicer. We shot the shit for a few minutes, briefly talked to his coaching staff, thanked him for his hospitality & then headed back to our table. Within a few minutes, our waitress came over to our table to advise us that "Mr. Martin has picked up the next 2 rounds for your table". Both our parties left the Restaurant around the same time, so our group got to thank Billy & his staff for their generosity. Billy was quite a character & I always liked him, even though I rarely routed for the teams he managed. He is most definitely still missed by many Baseball fans!!
The story you told about Billy Martin typically has one of two endings. 99% of the time those stories ended the same as yours. It’s a shame that most people think they ended the other way.
I know what you mean. Baseball has moments and memories you just don't get anywhere else. They get recorded stronger. I'll give you a for instance I love baseball and football too but I can't remember all the big plays Tom Brady made in bringing the Pats back against the falcons in the Superbowl comeback. But I can remember Gibson's HR and how it won game one of the 1988 series.
One of our generation’s great partnerships. Billy and George built great Yankee teams and offered a ton of on field and off entertainment. RIP Billy and George.
Wow, that's a funny story! I just watched the George Brett pine tar incident and then stumbled upon this video. RU-vid is awesome. I spend too much time on it, but it,s kind of like panning for gold. Every now and then you come up with a nugget like this. How cool to be a talk show host. Letterman was awesome! Thanks for sharing, JWolfProductions.
The Brett vid is epic. Brett reminds me of the time when my girlfriend changes the channel on the tv and i come running out of the kitchen telling her to change it back....lol.
A flawed genius....Nice. The last week or so, have been glued to the Late Show.....Lettermans last show is this week......Another one very good at his job.
Billy was a man who had his flaws. Too often they were what the media swarmed on. When he managed the Athletics, I saw a side to him that you rarely heard about in New York. Unfortunately for Billy, he was his own worst enemy. When he managed the A's, he was right next to where he grew up.
One of the best things about that turnaround was the song "Billy Ball" lol...got a lot of play in Northern California at that time. I was a kid and my grandfather would take me to games and I got a Billy Ball tshirt...even as a Yankee fan those days were great
Apparently they tried having the real George Steinbrenner play himself on “Seinfeld”, but Larry David didn’t like the results and decided to play Steinbrenner himself, without showing his face. That’s why you only see “Steinbrenner” from behind.
Uh, the Red Sox are not a ‘nation’, they’re a regional ball team who don’t draw all that well in markets outside of the northeast…the couple times I’ve attended games at Fenway were not memorable, lousy seats, crummy rest rooms, stupid stadium dimensions, soda come with no ice, the beer was warm and compared to where I grew up the fans are as dumb as oxen…every time a fly ball heads to the outfield, the Boston sheeple all stand and cheer expecting a home run when it’s not even close to the warning track…
@@frankreedy6437 Tell that to ESPN who, once upon a time, called the Boston Red Sox "The Nation", but that was a long time ago. What Baseball Team are you a Fan on that you are putting down not only the Red Sox, but also Their Fans and also their legendary facility known as Fenway Park?
Your right, Billy Martin had fights with players in the dugout during games. Just imagine if social media, tv coverage back then was the way it is now.
+TheJWolfProductions Funny how you mention social media, I think cell phones and social media ruined baseball haha, you go to games these days nobody watches the games, they're on their phones.
Like before Ali , boxing was sort of boring... These two resurrected the game, making it dinner discussion...” Did you hear about what Billy said about George in the papers yesterday “???
Billy should be in the HOF had better winning percentage then 7 managers in the Hall of Fame Sparky & La Russa are 2 of them. Billy won the 1977 World Series as a manager!!!
Unfortunately for Martin, both LaRussa and Sparky won several titles with several iconic teams. The Red machine and 84 Tigers and the Bash Brothers of the Oakland A's and the Cards. Both powerhouse teams.
@@Joseph-lz5er Billy Martin represents over 50 years of managerial legacy and baseball strategy passed down by Casey Stengel, and before him John McGraw. Tony LaRussa is a great manager but in my mind he also represents steroids, both in Oakland and St Louis. Even after the steroid era ended, accusations continued flying at his players (Rick Ankiel, Allen Craig, Lance Berkman, etc).
Billy Martin the only manager to take bad teams from worst to first in today's baseball where everything is based on managing by the book Billy Martin would not be able to manage in today's baseball, this man managed by his gut.
Brilliant manager and team-builder....but eventually and sadly, too self-destructive. Almost like a great soldier in the trenches who couldn't quite adapt to times of peace. He and Bob Lemon really should have been a managing duo the whole time...Billy for the earlier part that needs whipping into shape, Lemon for when things got good and stabilized.
ALL TIME GREATEST MANAGER - read Rod Carew's book, he wrote that when he came up he was a lousy fielder but could hit - and his manager Billy Martin would personally work with him in the field and teach him how to really play second base - patient, super knowledgeable - Carew loved Billy - says a lot
Billy could never manage in today's culture. But in the 70's, he was my FAVORITE manager. The book #1 by Billy and a ghostwrite is STILL a FANTASTIC baseball read. Loved Billy. It was a said Christmas when he was killed in that crash.
Billy used the old Casey Stengel standard. Keep the five guys who hated you from the five who were undecided. Every manager has players who dislike him. Hard to have 25 guys all like you when you are making decisions that effect their livelihoods
Seems like a long time ago, ... both gone now. both very unique and difficult characters. rest in peace. Billy was, as they sometimes say, "a flawed genius" at what he did for a living.
While he was one of my favorite coaches in baseball, a quick review of facts doesn't really separate him from other great coaches. I'll say this, he was a million times the coach Torre was, just different situations.
Ahhh, those were the good old days . Back in the late 70’s, me grabbing a copy of the New York Post. I’d go right to the back page sports section to see how these two carried on and who called who what 😂
Billy Martin to me as a Reds fan was UNDERRATED. A great manager won a ring & took other clubs the A's Twins Rangers & Tigers to the door step. The 81 A's on a paper weren't as good as the Yankees. Yet Billy got them there with "Billy Ball." Billy was also a good 2nd baseman big in post season.
THANKS SO MUCH!!! First time Ive ever saw this. Ive always heard that story by Mickey. It was great to hear it from guy who got pranked. For those who questioned if that story was ever true. Seeing here how Martin is kinda of embarassed, tells me its authentic. If anything, Mickey mighta lied about how many cows Billy actually killed. With Martin's temper, it coulda been more like a dozen cows, instead of the 2-3 that's always told.
That 1980 Oakland team he managed had some good pitching that year. He was known to burn pitchers out though and that team had 94 complete games and all five starters logged over 210 innings. The year before they had terrible pitching.
210 innings for a starter was NOTHING back then. Check the stats on guys like Nolan Ryan, Jim Palmer, Tom Seaver (Mickey Lolich, Jim Kaat, any longtime successful starter) who might throw 300 or more innings and routinely threw more shutouts and complete games in a year than this era's best pitchers will in their entire careers. Why do so many good pitchers' arms burn out in the last few decades ? Pitchers from the 70's, 80's and previous decades would tell you...because they don't throw ENOUGH.
Does anyone know when this was filmed? I guess it had to be after the 1988 season when Billy got fired (again). He passed away at the end of 1989, so sometime in fall 88 or in 1989? The Letterman set looks like the end of the 1980s also.
No disrespect to Girardi and Boone but if Billy Martin was in charge of this generation of Yankees, the team would've won at the least the last 5 world series.
Billy was freedom. 4 World Series rings as a player, 1 as a manager. The 1957 Miwaukee Braves have to thank the Yankee's front office for trading him mid-season to KC that year.
He was a very mediocre player. Go look at his numbers. A solid role player on those great Yankees teams, no doubt. But hardly anyone to write home about.
Mickey Mantle was more to the Yankees than Jeter was. The Mick won the triple crown, the MVP 3 times and won, count em' the 1951,52,53,56,58, 61,62 world series. Seven World Championships! He had power, could switch hit and was the EXCLUSIVE face of NY Baseball in the late 50's to early 60's when the Giants and Dodgers left and before the Mets were born!
As much as I hated the Yankees.The personnel was classic. I couldn't hate Billy Martin George Steinbrenner or even Reggie Jackson but man did they make classic drama. Only in that big a****** city of New York..
Oh those were the good old days in NY mid to late 70s. Disco, sat nite live, the blackout, son of Sam, girls, nite clubs.. Zeppelin, pink Floyd, weed, Yankees! Every day the yanks were a headline. Billy was the best manager ever, and George the best owner.... But they won!
I'll never like Steinbrenner for moving in the fences at Yankee Stadium to increase home runs for his right-handed lineup such as Dave Winfield. Changed the history of the then renovated stadium. Whitey Ford would have objected.
