The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 491 - Billy Martin - Part 1

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine baseball great Billy Martin.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble Merch

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bicycle podcast where each week I lunatic online shoe kicker offer shower have taken her. Dave Anthony reads a story from American history to my best best best best best best guy the best thing that ever happened to me before him I was in a closet shouting alone. Gareth Reynolds who not know story about. That's like we held the same microphone at the same time and body swapped. I mean that was like have you ever seen Freaky Friday? I've read a lot about it. Have you read the novels? I've read the books. Yeah there's 19 Freaky Weekies. I've read Freaky Weekies. Freaky Seeky. Freaky Leaky. Really that's what's horrible.

The nipple thing is terrible. But yeah no I've read all those I've read the series of the Freakies. Yeah I mean I'm gonna start a podcast a Freaky Friday podcast just about the whole Freaky Friday series. You know when you should put it out. Thursdays. We work together so well. Badly. Oh sorry I thought we were gonna. We're good. This is action. I'm not right. Yes. Okay take it to the band. But the music just ended. You said. I started over. His jam patch. Jam patch. I'm the fucking hippo guy. Dave okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna come to Tickly podcast. Okay. This is like an. And a five part coefficient. My room's a place. Now hit him

with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. No sleep though hippo. That's like a hippo. Action partner. Hi Gary. No. Has he done my friend? No. No. May 16th, 1928. Year of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes. Jesus Christ. Yes. Alfred Emmanuel Martin was born in Berkeley, California. His birth was delayed because the doctor would not. Birth was delayed. Can he wait 45 minutes to come out? Sure absolutely. When this lights up and vibrates we have an area for him. So just have him bring it up to the host stand. Push it back in. My uncle. I'm the hospital's kicker. My uncle was pushed back in because the doctor wasn't there yet. Oh my god. He's always been a little slow. Oh my god. Can you have a rejecting nature on that level? No. No. You don't get to play earth

bouncer. Well the nurse did. The door of the vagina. Sorry we're at capacity. Can you come back maybe around and come back tomorrow? I don't think they called the door of the vagina. The vaginal door. Hello. Hello. There's walls. Yes. So the birth was delayed because the doctor would not come to the house unless it was wired for electricity. Okay. So they quickly arranged for the house to be wired for electricity. That's the route you go? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Okay fine. We'll remodel. I really like there's an arm. You know what I'm saying? I love the doctors. I'm going to need a smoking room. Yeah. Some strobe lights. I was told there'd be billiards. I'm afraid I can't do the birth until there's a billiard table please. So Alfred was born. There's no art in here. I mean

it's just a little drab isn't it? That's all there is. That's it. I really asked for a number of things. Well this is just a birth. So we're just going to have the baby come out. Fresh milk in the fridge and things of that nature. Maybe some pastries. No we don't have pastries now. Kitchen's yellow, huh? I'd love to see it white before we did this. I just, at least the cabin. The baby's coming like we can't. Can I see the cabin it's white? Do you have any swatches? No. No. Okay. Okay. I mean it's fine. It's just, there's no party sub or anything. No. So I should have come having had. Yeah you're a doctor. I'm aware. You've done some good stuff. I like that there's electricity now. It's just, you know, I'm going to get very hungry and I just didn't know whether to, okay

that's fine. And you're, we're no way on the cabinets. We haven't even. No we can't. Have you ever done a kitchen remodel? It takes forever. I'm a doctor. There's a baby coming right now. That's my department. You don't need to tell me that. Okay. What I'm asking about is have you even gotten some estimates on the cabinets in the kitchen? No the baby. It's going to be yellow. It's going to be yellow. You're sticking to, okay. Alright. Even if we had a contractor there wouldn't be time to get it done. Do this. Start breaking ground on it and I'll go do the baby thing. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Let's update each other in 15 minutes. Okay. Until I see some swatches though I don't think it's right to bring a child into this house. A yellow kitchen? It's rather embarrassing. I mean the fridge is

white. No boy. Well, I should get moving. It seems like my job did it so for me. That's the thing about my job. More of a monitor. I don't really force much. Alright. Good. Thank you. Alright. That'll be thousand dollars. Came all the way over here. It's actually cheap. So a baby's born upstairs and then they circumcised him on the kitchen table. Oh yum. Perfect. Yes. We'll be eating here tomorrow. Isn't it weird? We'll never be able to eat here without thinking of the tip of his cock. Isn't that funny? So his grandmother cooed bello at him at time for beautiful and from that day forward they called him Billy. Billy Martin. Okay. Okay. See Aaron? Yeah. Yeah. His mother Jenny was known to fly into a rage if anyone says said she was shorter than five feet

tall. She would lose her mind if anyone said she was under five feet. Yes. Okay. She was actually four eleven. Okay. So she's fighting reality is really where her beef lies. That's right. She's a sex worker. Okay. Married. Okay. Her husband Al would go out and drag her off the streets. She's working the streets. He'd drag off the streets and make her come home. Okay. That seems like a really fine marriage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A pretty volatile relationship. When Billy was just a baby she held a knife to baby Billy's neck and said if Al didn't leave she'd kill Billy. So Al left. Hmm. Because that's a red flag. Yeah. Oh no. That's not okay. You can't do that. Every mother has their different techniques. I'm putting him back in. He's going back in. That's it. He's out of here.

So Billy liked baseball and pro baseball players would train at a park near their house in the offseason. Okay. It's near Billy's house. Okay. So he started hanging out there. Okay. And so they started helping the kid out showing him things. Sure. And he learned if he wasn't good enough to always do more and to hustle. Okay. He's also a huge fighter. He loves to fight. I feel like he's come up in other baseball episodes. Yeah. I'm sure he has. He's definitely been. He was definitely in. Oh I forgot to put that in here but he was in the. Was he in Tencent beer night. He was in Tencent beer night and he's also in Glen. Oh right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But I didn't put that in. I forgot to put that in. But this could have been a five parter. Okay. Sure.

Like this is this. Usually my scripts are five to seven pages. Sure. This was 34. Okay. That's good. That's good. That's great. We sleep here tonight. So I cut it way down. But anyway. Okay. So he learned to hustle. He learns to hustle. He's also a big fighter. He's on the streets of Berkeley. He's fighting all the time. And then he's the best fighter. He's in a boxing club but he's the best street fighter. So other kids always want to fight him. Okay. He's that guy that he's the guy you want to take out. Which is not a great position to be in if you're the guy. No. That's like what killed Houdini. Yeah. It was just like some of us just as the guy you could punch. Like it's not like you know what I mean. Like I need a little time. I need a green

room. It's the whole thing. That's it. I got a whole thing I do beforehand. Yeah. But he like he had a big nose so people would always make fun of his nose. So that's easy. That's it. You know the fists are flying immediately. You know. So Jenny's advice to him was the main advice for life was quote don't take shit from nobody. Wow. Jesus. It's not. I mean. Okay. It's just that's quite like if you think you get to put a bumper sticker on your child early. Do you want to go with that? Yeah. Don't take shit from nobody. You know. Maybe just like. I mean I'm not saying we slap the coexist one on because that seems also fairly vacuous. That's also not great. But don't take shit from nobody. Okay. And he usually threw the first punch. He was a first punch

guy. Okay. He's a very good baseball player. Right. In high school. Very good. He did get suspended for a whole season in high school because he fought during a game. He got into a whole season suspension in high school. I can only imagine how bad the fight was. But I also don't think you there was fighting in the majors and the minors but you didn't fight in high school. You know. Right. You still don't. I mean you're not supposed to. But so after graduating he tried off a bunch of different pro teams while he worked in a slaughterhouse. God. It's a rocky. It's a rocky thing. I'm sure. Well it's that's a scene I've always loved in Rocky. We're like oh cool. She's got a bunch of cow bodies for the shoot. Huh. Their lives were worthwhile. Thank you for

that. I'm sure someone ate them afterwards. Do you think they were like that was what they were doing? Like after the business loan is fucking wailing on it for three. Yeah. Who was a ribeye. Yeah. Yeah. Who was a some of the rump roast. What. Who that was a rump roast or something. What. Yeah. I've been punching all. Do you see that a punch on a cow today. The punch. I punched on the cows today. Well I was doing a scene earlier today. I punched on the cows. What. Yeah. Do you want to eat those now. I don't know what you're saying. Let's eat those. And the chicken I chased. Is that English. We are going to eat them now. You don't know. So. He's in the slaughter. I was working. He's trying out for different teams. And then Casey Stengel is the manager

of the Oakland Oaks. And he if Casey Stengel goes on to be one of the greatest. Yeah. Okay. It's better than Oakland A's I think. It's close to Oakland Oaks. It's not great. Oaks. Well there's a California's oak tree state. Okay. Oakland Oaks. Yeah. Dumb. Do we really want to do this. Yeah. I'm ready. You're real Billy Martin. I don't care. So Casey Stengel he's going to go on to be one of the greatest managers of all time. Casey Stengel. So he's right now he's with the Oaks and he comes by and Casey Stengel is like this guy is just fucking ridiculous. Like his one pants legs up and he's just filthy and he doesn't fit. He's like I've never seen anything like this guy. Okay. And then he ends up signing him. Wow. To the Oakland Oaks. They immediately

try to put a no fighting clause in his contract because he has a reputation. Right. Smart. And Billy refused to sign the contract with a no. I mean so that's not like a great admission. Right. You're like I feel like this guy's going to get us in a lot of trouble. I love that he all he wants to do is play baseball. And then they're negotiating like those deals like all the concessions you have to make along the way to get more money or whatever it is. But to have that be one of your sticking points. Like yeah. So Billy is not going to first of all the money. We finally got it where we need it. Again just that nagging clause that Billy just doesn't feel comfortable. He's not saying he wants to fight. He just won't remove it from the option list. So

well that seems a little giving him the option. Just the option. He wants the option and I'll be honest. The guy doesn't want to fight. He's fought a lot already. He's got it out of his system. So we just need this in there. He should sign it. It's a sign of good faith. It's a sign of good faith that you trust him to not fight. Yeah. It doesn't really just to trust him to not fight. He wants the freedom to do it and not to do it. You know. That's what he wants. And he wants he wants to know that you have his back in that way. I'm more confused. Fighting isn't what he wants to do. He's a ball player. All the time. He's a ball player. But he's a ball player. He hits meat in a warehouse where he gets it out of his system. It's all in this. It's all in the stakes. That's

all in the that's that's behind him now. That's in the stakes. He put all that into those stakes. Okay. Yeah. I mean you make I guess it makes sense. Okay. Great. I've never been this confused in the yeah. Well he's going to fight a lot of people. All right. So let's get in here for the signing. So he refused to sign it and they they've got so many injuries they need shortstop and second baseman and infielders so they they agree to it. They give in. Okay. He he he is you know he's in a really bad brawl in his first season. It's kind of like every player just basically already has like the no fighting thing like you're just like it should yeah. So you gather that someone's like like hey don't fight. It's obviously not what we're here for. So he plays in the minors. He is named

the league's MVP in 1947. He's a good player. He doesn't look like a baseball player. He looks like just like a scrawny dude. Okay. So the next year he gets brought up to the Oakland Oaks the majors and he's playing for Casey Stangle and they they quickly form like a father son bond. Okay. But Billy doesn't play much. Sure. What Casey had him do what it's almost his role on the team was he he would just stand on the steps of the dugout and scream at the opposing team. Oh so he was just like he's just like all-time fighter. He was there to just fuck with them. Okay. Because Casey starting agitator is your dick starting agitator and tonight's fuck face is Billy Martin laying at 140 with one pant on one pant leg off. The only guy who is allowed to

technically fight on the team. Shit talking Martin. What's that? First DH dickhead. Yes. So wait the reason Casey did this because he he wanted the intensity level of the game to be taken up. He wanted everyone to be on edge intense. Right. And like that was his style. That's how we like to manage. Billy's also a big drinker which Casey Stangle really liked. Casey did not like sober players. Right. Of course not. He thought when he comes to athletes you want them a little off. You want them dull. He didn't trust anybody who didn't drink. It's a red flag. You know they're focused purely on the sport. Like you imagine in athletics like being like looking for the players who like to drink. It's just so counter to what you're doing now. But back then

it was normal. It's just like yeah. It's just how we dealt with everything. You got a bad heart. You shouldn't move. No I'm good. Okay. So around this time he meets Lois Burnt who becomes his girlfriend. Like first really big. I never seen anyone yell like you. I can scream. I can fuck you Lois. Fuck you you dumb woman. Look at your nose. Not at me. I like when you do to others. The hell are you doing. Direct turn off stop. You can't get a grounder. I don't want to get a grounder. Catch the ball. I like it when you do it to other people. Are we going to make love now. Well I would be rewarding you for bad behavior so no. Be rude to other people but to me be sweet. When I'm inside of you I'm going to yell you gave up another home run. Billy. Read the room.

In 1949 Casey became the Yankees manager. Okay. So he trades for Billy. Who's your starting shout out. It's he trades for Billy on October 13th 1949. So right away that's the guy he wants. But Billy is not really is he playing. He's not really playing. Okay. So he's pretty much just there to shout and so he's because Billy is a bit of a likes the drink and is an all-time agitator. He's like who you think of a shortstop. He's like that doesn't matter. I need to figure out who's going to be yelling. It's like sign him. And also this guy can't have a no fight clause in his contract. Yeah. It was like Phil Jackson always had a dick. Right. Right. Some guys like a dick on the team. Yeah. So when he got traded for the New York writers are like what the fuck. Why

would you want this guy never plays. The Yankees already had a second baseman shortstop. So they're like what are you having a shot worth of shit. So his mom Jenny gives him advice when he's leaving quote don't let any of those fucking New York big shots give you any fucking bullshit. You know how to fucking play baseball just as fucking good as they do. Jesus Christ. I love you mom. Yeah. You don't have much of a shot to be like a calm person when that's like the person who's been in your corner your whole life. Yeah. So yeah. That's that's the person that was in his corner. I definitely like to picture the music swelling. Billy just one more thing. Yeah. Ma don't take no shit from those fucking New York pieces of shit. You know how to play ball

better than any of those fuckwits. Fuck them and fuck you. He's OK. OK. Mommy get on that bus. So he got the he's scared shit list because you know it's the Yankees. This is a solid team of amazing player. You know DiMaggio and all these amazing players. Yeah. There's no. Oh yeah. He doesn't really look like much of a ball player. He doesn't at all. No. He's so he looks like the guy who like grabs the bats when the players are done. The bad boy. Yeah. So he's like he's scared shitless when he gets there. But he becomes the first player in MLB MLB history to get two hits in the first two of bats. OK. He becomes really good friends with Yankee great Joe DiMaggio who you know if you don't know Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe like set a record that

will never be broken like really amazing player. Yeah. And he takes Billy. Marrying most out of his league. Yes. Right. So he takes Billy around Manhattan and just introduces him to all the celebrities and all the you know right the elite people and women of course. But he still doesn't play much. Casey has him just screaming at the other team. Wow. It's weird that Joe DiMaggio is like yeah this guy's great. So he must have been like very he must have been charismatic to some extent like there must be. Yeah he must have been. Deering draw of some kind. Yeah. Billy does have a magnetic quality about him. It's also there's like those people who like I've been friends with over the years were people like why are you friends like I just am like there's good good

friends bad enemies. I'm right here. I know. Yeah I didn't want to say your name. You were really ruined by your day. So he gets sent to the minors. The GM of the team is like what the fuck. It's not Casey's call. He sends him down. He cries. He's so upset. And Casey when he's crying says look it was the GM's decision. So Billy storms up to the general manager's office. Jesus. Who's the guy if you don't know. He's the guy who runs the team. He picks all the players. Big boss. He runs up to the team and screams at him and says quote you'll be sorry for this. Oh God. Which is what his mom told him to do. Yeah but it's still in practice. It's really means a lot more. He goes down to the minors. He tears it up. He's back in a month. Like he's too good to keep in the minors.

Okay. Yankees win the World Series that year. Wow. Like they average they average about 13,000 dollars a year as salary. But then if they won the World Series they everybody got fifty seven hundred. So it was a really big deal. Right. Right. Like they would they would yell stuff like if a guy wasn't hustling they'd be like don't fuck with my money. Right. Like it like really. I want to get back to that. That direct version of it where it's like you're all playing for your box now. Literally. So. Oh. Right. So the Yankees win the World Series. Okay. Billy did not play at all but he gets the cash. Sure. And then he marries Lois. Okay. So he shows up to the wedding in baseball cleats. Like if you're Joe DiMaggio maybe. But he's not playing baseball. He's

not playing. He loves baseball. But he's not playing. That's like what a child does. It's like when a kid dresses up like the garbage man. Like he's just shouting. He doesn't need cleats to shout. Yeah. I mean it's not. He loves baseball. Sure. But he's not playing baseball. Well Lois made him change before the wedding. He used someone else's shoes. Okay. Good. So he really was like this will happen. He didn't bring a backup pair. No. So he gets. So the Korean War is on this draft and he gets a hardship discharge to get out of the draft. I can't. I'm have cleat foot. I got. Someone's got to take care of the cleats and the woman. Only take these. So people are mad at. Okay. Because it doesn't look good. You're Yankee. You get out of the draft. It's

not. Yeah. This is before like everybody you know tried to dodge combat service. Like you know. Well I mean people always did. But yeah. But he says he's the sole family earner which works. People are upset by that. Right. Like oh it's a Yankee boy in the draft. Right. But he becomes a starting second baseman because the other one goes. Well he got drafted. The other one got drafted. Pretty great. I mean. I'm working out great. Yeah. Yeah. It's so good. I mean I'm sure I didn't read but that must have made people even more mad. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well I guess I'll have to play because the other one's serving. So is that crazy. So Casey thinks the team is soft and they don't have a leaner because Joe DiMaggio's retired and he's like this is just soft. Who's

a firecracker in house. So in May at the beginning of the season they're in Boston which is their big rival and a rookie on Boston starts mouthing off to the Yankees before the game while they're warming up. Sure. And the Yankees as professional World Series champions just focus lock in and play the game. That's right. Well the rookie ends up calling Billy a quote Dago Busher. Okay. He's Italian and then Bush or Bush League. Okay. Bush League meaning you're you know. You're like not for here. You're not for her. You're lame. You do bullshit stuff. So Billy is like let's fight. You want to fucking fight. Okay. Let's go under the grandstands and beat the shit out of each other. Sure. Yeah. Let's that's that's where I'd be like no I'm not looking for

like a private fight. I'd rather do it in front of these guys who can break it up. Well they all go down there. The team the teams go to watch professional baseball teams go under the bleachers to watch these two fight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Billy just beats a little shit out of him. Like just he's barely conscious blood is pouring out of his nose and mouth like he's just and so when Casey hears I think reporters tell him or something all he did was smile and he told reporters well Billy's fire is going to spread on this team. Oh my god. That's not a good fire when we're going to beat up on the whole Boston Red Sox organization from top to bottom space ball you beat the fuck out of another guy under the grandstand. That's good. I want I'm

looking for a bunch of violent guys. That's what I'm really violent really really psychotically violent gentlemen. I mean I basically have you seen rollerball. I want to combine rollerball and baseball. I wish I could take all of Billy's bad habits and put it in each one of my guys. So here's what I'm doing. I am he's going to have a sock full of marbles when he's out on the we're going to call the marbles. We're leaning in as Jersey is going to say it. You come at second base Billy is going to he's not even going to have a glove. He's just going to have a satchel of marbles. He's just beating anyone with crack. Yep. I want to see blood. I'm going to see brains on the dirt. We are going to bury bodies in the mound. Anyway that's our plan for this year. All

right. So after that I mean right after the fight they go on a winning streak. Okay. Now the rookie turned out the one that Billy Barton beat up. He turned out to actually have mental issues. Oh okay. Cool. All right. That's cool. Well that ages really well. Great. Okay. And Billy felt really bad when he heard that. So for the rest of his life Billy would always give him jobs to help him. He became friends with him and he would always take care of him. Okay. All right. Yeah. You brought it back. You won me back. So Lois Lois gets pregnant but he's not paying attention to her because he's hanging out. Hold it in. That's what they did with me. Go 11 months but I'll be back by then. He's hanging out with Mickey Mantle now. Mickey

Mantle is a notorious loser. I don't know why I thought you were going to say Mickey Mouse. He's hanging out with Mickey Mouse. I was just like what is he doing? Yeah. Come on Billy let's pick the shit out of these cunts. Fuck these punks. I'm hammered. I can't drive. Can you drive? Wait is my dick out? I got arrested for jerking off in public. You ever see a mouse? I saw I tried to sell angel dust to a cop. I fought a cop's horse. I would pay to watch Mickey Mouse fight a cop's horse. Yeah. Here they are. Oh yeah. So there's Demacia. Sorry. There's Billy and Mickey. Now so these guys are these guys two gentlemen like to drink. Mickey Mantle is notorious boozer.

Okay. Notorious. Okay. So they're hanging out together. So both of their wives are like feeling neglected and they move back home. I don't know where Lois's home was but she goes back to her like her hometown and is like okay well if you're not going to pay attention to me I'm going to go back to my family. So when the war ends fights in Major League Baseball increase dramatically. So it's all these guys coming back with PTSD. Oh wow. And then they're just fucking brawling on the field. Right. Jesus. And the Yankees are huge drinkers and huge fighters. Right. Well I mean their coach basically wanted both. Yeah. No he's no problem with it. Right. During one I mean not just on the field they would go into town and get into fights in bars

like they were. Sure. Bar brawlers. Sure. During one fight a Yankee held a broken bottle to a bouncer's neck as they all escaped out the back door. Good Lord. So they're not fucking around. No. No. In the 1952 season a player Billy had fought in the minors came sliding in with his spikes up. So right he's got his cleats on he's trying to hurt the guy who's at second base and Billy retaliates the next time he tries it and hits him in the face with his glove really hard knocking him down. Okay. The player then charges Billy and Billy punches him twice in the face. Oh my god. And then a massive brawl breaks out between both teams. Okay. And at the end Billy had to be pulled off quote like a madman. Oh god. And then his pictures the pictures of this fight you can see him like

like doing an uppercut you can actually see it they're in papers nationwide and now he's labeled a brawler. Yes. Well yeah. Yeah. Justifiably so. Oh of course. Yeah. Yeah. That move just clocking a guy. The picture is just amazing. Yeah. So after that he's now a leader on the team. Sure. And he signs a really lucrative contract. So now he's a really good player. So really and now it was was everyone rewarding this level of it wasn't frowned upon fighting. Yeah. No it's assault. Fighting is not frowned upon. Okay. So yeah. So they don't care. I mean the truth is when you think about like hockey like that's basically what hockey has. Yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of this like yeah guess what if you go to a hockey game you're probably going to see dudes

fight each other at the game. Yeah. That's right. So it's just kind of that. It's that sort of thing like there's just a lot of brawls. It is weird that hockey is like we we've never tried to figure that. I know. Yeah. Wayne Gretzky. People love it. Wayne Gretzky would always be like we shouldn't have this and they'd be like no. Hey come on Wayne line up. You just don't fight if you don't want to. I mean they had to have a bodyguard for Wayne Gretzky on the ice. They McSorley was his body guard. They every team who's on had a bodyguard. If you went and hit Wayne Gretzky you were going to know they were they were the kings but they actually had every monarchy like they had a whole echelon of power. Yeah. There was the Duke. I don't believe. So so he signs a contract. They win

the World Series. Billy's the hero for a catch he makes in the World Series. So he's now a household name across the country. Right. He's now a household baseball player. And also since bad precedent for coaches you were like you just got to beat the shit out of each other. It's not great. Yeah. So this all causes him a loss to drift even further apart. Six weeks after she gives birth. Good. She gives him divorce papers. Good. That's good. And baby's love. That's good stuff. That's good. Babies love that. That's good. That's the age when you're supposed to do it. Yeah. Yeah. No. The best time to separate as a parent is before your trauma doesn't affect a child till four. That's right. So Whitey Ford joins the Yankees. Whitey Ford is a notorious drinker. Okay. Came up

in the. Oh God. What's his name? Bertie the minor league guy that we did the baseball episode on the minor league guy. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was a big. Okay. He was a big buddy for. So. Is he just like a super white dude. I don't know why his name is Whitey Ford. I guess he's super white. Okay. He's got to be crazy. He was a coach. Really. Your team. Right. Same thing. So Whitey's just. I mean we're all white but he's super white. So Whitey Billy and Mickey Mantle just spent drunken nights in New York and the media would follow them and just write about their antics. Okay. Billy refused to open any letters from Lois's lawyer because he is a Catholic and he's a practicing Catholic. He goes to church all the

time. He's a practicing Catholic and he doesn't believe in divorce. Catholic such a it's a there's just you really can get away with a lot a lot of really play it nice and loose. Look don't get divorced. Like can I beat the fuck out of people and be drunk all the time. Yeah. Do not get divorced. Do you understand me. His grandmother dies. Very upsetting. So that day in a game he gets into a fight. Sure. But the same guy got into the fight with before. Oh that's cool. Kind of full circle. This one's for you Nana. This is for my grams. She was the best. The League report said it took quote several minutes and multiple umpires to subdue Billy Martin. Man several minutes in fight time is an hour forty five. Yeah it's crazy different time. Yeah. Like minutes. He would have

been an amazing UFC fighter. Oh God. Whitey. Oh that's it. That's the fight. That's the very first guy. That's the very first punch. That's the newspaper shot that went around the country. It feels like that guy already has a black eye and looks a lot like Zepo Marks. I mean he just he's it's he it is him decking the guy. He just decked it. Yeah I figured he was. But wait wait with that punch his feet left the ground. Yeah. So he's doing like a Mike Tyson's punch up. He gives it all and he will fight guys bigger than him. He doesn't give a shit. So opposing opposing fans start heckling Billy about his divorce. Oh okay. So he's getting shit. The Catholic Church no longer recognizes you. Your wife doesn't want to be married to you. You have bent one of the

lead roles of Catholicism. Yo the Pope hates you now dude. The Pope hates you. You're gonna get kicked out of your church. Chodnals won't even take your call. So a Chicago newspaper reports that he was a dead beat dad and not paying any money to Lois and the which is a total lie. Right. They just made it up. Okay. It goes national. Sure. It's a huge story. You know it got so people are giving him shit. It got so bad that he was in St. Patrick's Cathedral praying and another guy in the parish walks by and said quote if you're a member of this parish then I quit. Wow. He beat the snot out of him with like the crucifix or something. I know I mean I think I think it's uh yeah you want to go in that

holy water you piece of shit. It's neutral ground. So Casey then set the record straight and he told reporters the Yankees actually sent his part of his paycheck to Lois so it's all bullshit. Okay. So Billy's having his best season ever. He's just playing great baseball. They win the World Series again. Jesus Christ. Oh yeah they were machines. Is this year back to back to back? They won a few in a row. I mean the Yankees back then were a machine. Sure. So after they win the World Series. I can't believe you're being like validated in the fact that your players should be alcoholics and fighters. It's going great. That's really crazy. You know it's like a build through the draft philosophy but it's like yeah these guys are psychos. So after uh after

wins the World Series he goes to Mickey Mannell lives on a uh in a small town somewhere. Sure. And uh he goes to visit him and they go to a local farm because they want to hunt and the Mickey's going to ask the goes to ask the farmer. He goes can we hunt on your land. Just a random farmer. I think he knows him. Okay. So the farmer goes yes but he tells Mickey can you shoot my mule because it's gone blind in the lane and I can't I can't bring myself to shoot it. Oh wow. And so Mickey's like sure. Can we hunt it? Kind of meet in the middle. I mean you can hunt it with a bat. It's just not. Great. It's it's blind in the lane. Great. That's what we'll do. Let it loose and we'll go in the forest and beat it with a bat today. There's no loose

like it's blind in lane like it's not. We'll push it into a field somewhere and then we'll try to find it. It's not I mean it's laying. Come on let's make a day of it. No I mean you're literally to hunt it you can just walk up. I don't even want to hear this. Don't give me any insights into it. I just want to find it. It's right there it's in the it's it's laying down over there. I can't see anything it's laying. All right we're going to blow it up with dynamite. So Mickey decides to do a prank and he runs out of the house furious yelling that the farmer had said no they can't hunt. Oh Jesus Christ. And then he shoots the mule. Jesus Christ is that some dark shit. And then he hears two shots and turns around and Billy has shot two cows and Billy says

quote that bastard should we shoot more. Wait wait wait why why oh no oh no oh I just don't prank him in that way oh my god you imagine the farmer the fuck what's going on that'll teach you to insult Mickey Mantle. I thought that one was blind also the other one and the other one is sorry sir I didn't explain to my friend here that I was pulling a prank and he's a lunatic so now you have four dead cows the one you wanted in three newbies. On January 15th. Let's go kill that farmer Billy Billy Billy. Let's go. On January 15th. So I skin the farmer. I assume they're both shit faced when that happened. Okay. I mean that's just I mean you'd assume that for most Billy Martin Mickey Mantle stories. Sure. On January and Mickey Mantle is the home run king. Oh like yeah it's like

he had a record for years so he's like a big player. So on January 15th 1954 Billy's hardship deferral was withdrawn so I'm not sure if he withdrew it or if the the military was like oh you're gonna get drafted. He won the purple hardship. Yes he won the purple he goes and he serves 18 months all in the U.S. he doesn't have to go overseas that's and the Yankees. What an exotic place to end up. Oh my god could you imagine. Wow. I mean just you and Virginia. San Diego. Yankees are terrible without them they immediately turn to shit. Wow. When he comes back they go on a run and they make it. Is he hitting a lot of home runs and stuff or he this is just a real role playing pulse of the team player. He I think that he has an energy that he drives the

team. Right. You know but he's not like Mickey like he's very good. Especially on defense but he hits well. He's a good okay. He's a very good baseball. He's just not a home runner. Okay. But there's the guys who get on base. Sure. Yeah. For as long as he's one of those guys otherwise it's just it's so crazy. No no he's a he's a very good baseball player. Okay. And so so he comes back and they immediately go on a run and go to the World Series. They lose but that's what that's what he brings. Like he's he finally signs the divorce papers. So what's it been like two years or something. Fucking crazy. Oh god must have been furious. Oh god. I'm trading you. This is not what I plan. You're going to the Jew team. So now he's an older player

on the team. He's been around a while. He's a vet. He's hanging out with celebrities. Rocky Marciano, Sinatra. Oh so like the good influence guys who like are going to teach him about temperament and yeah the sweet yeah the guys who are sweet pacifist right right right. Yo Billy cut his nose off. All right Frank. Billy's a ladies man. Now back then there is booze in every locker room. Of course. No these are professional athletes. There's like a bar and like it's a baseball. You know like most athletes now they play better after they've had a few. Man you know great it would be to have your like the other team believing in drinking when you had like none you'd be like this is going to be great. I years ago preseason game I went to see the Rangers

the Scotland Rangers played the LA Galaxy and I was in a suite with some fancy people and one of the guys is like I was like why are the Rangers so bad and he goes oh no their shit face they were out drinking in a pub all day. That must be that's totally what you would do if you were like an English club or any like any other clubs coming to the States and remember your boys have to have three drinks before my team will play them. It's so crazy. So look there's booze in the locker room free drinks in the stadium press lounges so the journalists are booze pretty much players coach reporters they all drink they drink together everyone drinks it's just drinky time except the Yankees GM the general manager who Billy yelled at. Yeah he's like I gotta stay sober a man's trying

to kill me. So he still hates Billy Martin and anytime any Yankee gets in trouble he blames Billy. Okay. And he thinks Billy is a bad influence on Mickey Mantle. Sure. I doubt it like Mickey Mantle fine on his own. Right. He hires private detectives to follow Billy Martin around. Okay wow this is and how about you talk to him guy. And he keeps leaking to the press that Billy's a bad influence so it's trying he's trying to get the fans to turn against Billy but the fans fucking hard love Billy Martin right like Billy Martin is well he's that guy you look at him you're like oh I can play baseball like he has the physicality of you but he's just tenacious right guy that just hustles doesn't give up right right. So they win the World Series again

Jesus and this guy's trying to get him off the team but they're still doing well because I want to lose and it doesn't help that when he was gone they were shit yeah right he's made of the good again but he's trying to undermine him and Billy is still one of the big New York celebrities right he's one of the biggest celebrities in New York his his drinking partner becomes Jackie Gleason. Okey dokey I was I don't know much about Jackie Gleason big drinker honeymooners yeah big drinker they became known for bar dares around New York they would balance shot glasses on their heads while jumping or leaping from the floor to a bar stool without spilling the drink what what kind of could you so this is from the perspective of if it if it was today right right so you go into

you go into a bar and Mike trout and uh who's the biggest comedian today um gosh Dave Anthony and Dave Anthony no you want a big comic name you need a big comedian Dave Dave Chappelle okay Dave Chappelle and well people would believe it if it was Chappelle okay so you want a more a big comedian I guess Chappelle's fine so Brian Regan so you yeah you go into a bar you go to a bar and Mike trout and Brian Regan are putting shot glasses on their heads and jumping up and down from bar stools I would be a bit problematic you'd see it on Instagram I mean Tom Brady got drunk after the Super Bowl and it was like big news that you should get drunk you're supposed to get drunk after the Super Bowl yeah but it's still weird to see like a great

athlete like I can't talk but yeah so so Jackie so and that and that again is okay Billy is this is kind of just like oh celebrities did you ever watch madman it's that period right where it's just all bets are off there's booze in everyone's office like everyone's just fucking drinking right right we gotta I mean don't you think with all the the culminating problems coming our way that it's we're gonna be opening up the booze like the hours of boozing are gonna get a little fudgy it might get you know what I mean I'd open the door you'd like just be like yeah I started drinking in the mornings anyway what's up do I need to stay sober today no it's just okay cool yeah so the GM brings Billy into the office and he says one more bad move and you're gone

because this stuff's getting one more world series you're out of here Martin but Billy's like seriously I'm Billy Martin like what the fuck you're gonna get rid of me good fucking luck on May 16th the Yankees are celebrating Billy's 29th birthday at the Copa Club and oh boy and it's there's gangsters there it's like a it's a thing so a group of drunk bowlers from Washington Heights come in and and Billy's there with all his friends bowlers bowlers okay bowling group great sure just wanted to make sure that we're our bad guys are a group of bowlers a lead bowling squad walked in and then things escalated when a group of bowlers came by Sammy Davis Jr is performing and one of them calls him a little Sambo he yells it oh good okay

so Martin and another Yankee stand up and they're like hey shut the fuck up right that's fucking Sammy Davis Jr and then an enormous brawl breaks out between the the Yankees and the bowlers and also the the bouncers who are fighting the bowlers also sure one bowler gets hit so hard he has a concussion a broken jaw and a broken nose front page news right it turns out it was actually a bouncer who punched the the guy but the Yankee right that guy Yankees uniform the Yankee right fielders arrested and put on trial okay so during the trial mickey takes the stand quote I was so drunk I didn't know who threw the first punch a body came flying and landed on my feet at first I thought it was Billy so I picked him up but when I saw it wasn't I dropped

him back down it looked like Roy Rogers rode through the copa on a trick on trigger and trigger kicked the guy in the face the jury laughed everybody laughed man almost died another drill tail in a line of great ones mickey god bless you you are the heart of new york you're the epitome of what this city stands today I heard my favorite baseball player describe a man being beaten almost dead fair he was estimating he was too drunk to really remember the scene for the love of god our pro sports heroes the Yankee was acquitted a month later that's my one-act play by the way yeah a month later the Yankees get into a 30-minute brawl at the white socks oh my god exhausting a 30-minute fight yeah what are you doing could you imagine watching that no can we get back to

the baseball guys he's dead he's dead already who fights for 30 minutes Jesus how exhausting is that all right we're gonna take a break the final be coming back part two when we come back the bottom of the fight uh billy was suspended uh blame for the fight and the gm traded him three days later okay now he's he bleeds Yankees right he is a Yankee and he's devastated he cries he tells kasey you let him down his heart he's just heartbroken yeah whitey and mickey cried in the locker room like everyone's just bawling you know um other players cried too and billy billy feels betrayed and bitter also you know because the Yankees got rid of him and he has to go to Kansas City which is oh so they were just like from New York go to the cornfield yeah from New

York to Kansas City and also Kansas City sucks well this here is the city that always sleeps a little bit different oh we got celebrities uh uh we got uh jimmy the cow we uh for a couple days had a dog he was the mayor he was not allowed to enact any actual policies but pretty much you and that dog are going to be the a-list in this town oh he'll fight too he's fighting dog he's a I know you think we probably don't get crazy here but we've been known to put blueberries in our pancakes so buckle up martin you ain't seen it all yet why's you crying Kansas City had lost 94 games so it's the opposite of the world series winning Yankees he starts drinking differently oh I by the way my one note is is this guy drinking the right way

his sister's quote it wasn't like he was drunk a lot but a drink was more important to him him so yeah so he's uh depressed and because he's been kind of allowed to just be debauchery all the time now he doesn't really want to play ball anymore so you're just kind of seeing like since he's comfortable like he's drinking at home now but that's just a base yeah basically and there's no no jackie leason's not coming to Kansas City right so he is it's now a depressive drink he's escaping he's escaping which again is what you want in one of your athletes on your team and I'm the pain with booze yeah uh he was never the same player after getting traded he he gets traded from team to team and one point he dates a flight attendant

Gretchen Winkler and the press is all over it so TWA he just wanted to get out of there he's like put me in the plane so TWA executives make sure that she's on all of his flights and and in towns he's staying in because the press will cover it and then that's that's coverage for TWA great and it worked out too they end up getting married in 1959 okay in Detroit fans didn't like him when he was on the team there in Cleveland he has problems with the manager he got and then in Cleveland he got hit in the face with a fastball a teammate quote I never saw a man look so dead he didn't flutter or move his face swelled up like a beehive in five minutes his face was crushed there's bees in here guys that's why they have his face the queens in his nose um I never saw a man

look so dead yeah so so but but probably like you know it's a conflation of a few things really like he's depressed wow he did he did get hit oh he's saying he looks dead because he got hit in the baseball and he's sad yeah I mean he probably is like oh fuck it what's the point well like because normally I'd be like that guy would get up and fight the guy through the fast yeah but unless he got hit so hard I mean he's probably just out but no I think it was sad talk to the doctor and now I can't tell if he got hit by a fastball if he's just sad you could see from these x-rays he's just pretty down that's there's a I mean you could see obviously the cheekbone is shattered and that'll be need to be redone but I'll tell you there's something these x-rays aren't showing

his emotional state he's low gentlemen well this is a guy who plays in Kansas City yeah yeah uh his jaw and cheekbone are broken sure he's out for two months sure and then when he is reinstated to the team they immediately trade him to the Cincinnati Ritz okay but now he's scared to bat yeah I get that for sure so all pitchers quickly realize that and they throw up and inside at him and he just keeps flinching away from the ball yeah and that's he knows like it's Billy right and he knows he's not the tough old Billy and and it goes on for a while but then it's spring training the next year right they take a summer or they take the winter break and he comes back and in spring training he gets into a bar fight so it's like the old Billy's

coming back right all right all right he's still got some highlights in him yeah yeah I got into a fight last night all right I better beat the guy up so uh after a Chicago pitcher threw inside Billy pretended to lose his grip on the next pitch and threw the bat at the pitch oh man accidentally doing that is very funny yeah whoopsies and uh when he goes out to pick up the bat the pitcher walks up to him and Billy punches him in the jaw okay all right we're back the pitch at all pitchers orbital bone was fractured and Billy was suspended for five games blocking a the cubs sued him for two million dollars and he ended up having paid him a 22,000 which is his whole salary for the year well still could have been worse that's crazy yeah oh is that it oh it

in the pen okay yeah yeah it was mislabeled then yeah that's probably okay so that's just the side of a man's orbital bone breaking yeah okay um in 1962 he was playing for the twins and they cut him and that was it he sat in the locker room and cried he was done as a baseball player and Billy you're gonna have to cry outside we need that locker so the twins hired him as a scout okay and so now he's going on the country looking for I don't know if this guy needs the road well he also got a job as a uh as a beer salesman so he's so he's now he's a scout with free beer and he's a drunk yeah so he goes into bars and buys everybody drinks and it's anybody here hit and you guys ever played baseball in any capacity I'm supposed to be

scouting today I forgot no what's up whoo give me a gotta repeat that okay okay I also came here because I'm supposed to find a guy can play ball anyone you're really good baseball who can swing a bat somebody say something somebody say something yes oh you can play you're pretty old how old are you 48 that's pretty old but okay that's pretty good you want to sign a deal be able to twins and you're starting bat boy man yeah okay great he's signed in to son here okay all right welcome aboard see the stadium what's a beer you have ah I really remember honestly so there's a lot of a lot of jobs all of a sudden it's just too many jobs honestly I should have um taken it easier in New York

they got very real screwed me over so bad okay yeah okay yeah sir I dipped out for a minute is everything all right yeah all right whoo you got tears coming down yeah I'm crying pretty bad right now this is hard to be me okay so um he and Gretchen have a son and the twins make him the third base coach and then he's not a very long third base coach keeps signaling to fight he's not a very long drunken flight okay and with the twins team and he gets in an argument with the twins traveling secretary the guy who books all the stuff and handles all the travel and stuff yeah yeah and they keep arguing after the plane lands on the way to the hotel and in line checking in

and then the guy checks Billy and last so Billy punches him in the face okay sure sure and now Billy had been on track to become the twins manager but now right he's not a track to be the twins manager right yes and they make him a minor league manager instead they're like okay go down there yeah well I'm sure the travel will be a lot worse so the team is the team is fucking terrible and so he takes like a casey stangle page so he's okay he wants to put the other team under pressure anyway he can so he would have he would do stuff like one guy would be running from first to second and he would fake he would fake like he fell and then all the players would look at him and then the guy on third would run

on score okay he's doing this crazy it's just all that kind of stuff trick plays and talking to people and and the pressure would cause the other team to make mistakes and then become embarrassed that they have made a mistake so it's like this double like and then and then the team would slowly unravel and no one's seen anything like this like no one's ever done this right it's just totally first Billy's thing and people start to fucking love it and he also starts argument umps a lot and he would kick dirt on them a dirt on them like you go out and kick yeah kick dirt of their shoes and he got ejected from eight games but the team starts to win and fans start flocking because it's it's this crazy version of baseball right and then he gets named the

minnesota twins manager that traveling secretary was like my resignation letter is tender and they were good but they became really good under billy now the owner demanded that billy meet him twice a week for a meeting to discuss everything that was happening with the team sure and billy was like fuck that shit and the guy was like just anytime during the day except for between five and five thirty so billy would show up between five and five thirty now where is he and the guy like this is when i take my nap come back and then he come on the next day between five and five thirty until the guy finally gave up wow it's not asking to come i love a five to five thirty nap locked into your schedule i know right i love everything about this i love a

five to five thirty nap and i love the other guy coming at five to five thirty yeah it's great it's all the whole scenario yeah well i mean look when you give a sudden adult your nap time they're gonna work you know they can work you yes uh come back around five forty five i'm gonna have graham crackers and milk so billy has a starting pitcher run uh 20 laps before games sure right exhaustion before you play but there's this pitcher Dave Boswell and he he's like i'm not fucking doing that i'm not going to run 20 fucking laps yeah and the pitching coach goes and tells billy Dave Boswell is not gonna run and then Boswell obviously hears about that and he's fucking pissed at the pitching coach so they're all drinking at a bar and of course

there's well in the pitching coach go outside the bar in the alley and and get into a fight and uh it's just like if any of these things happened it would just be enormous news yes now you know it's just like like you'd be like what the fuck yeah so he knocks the pitching coach out and then billy rushes out and just starts wailing on Boswell till he was unconscious so then he'd be like it's just you shouldn't injure your players it's just not how you got to though because now it's coaches against players you guys here we're fighting the coaches what we're fighting the coaches so billy knocks him out and billy goes with him to the hospital you know because this is player that he knocked out it's gonna make sure he's okay

and what is he just like switched hats he's like all right now i'm the manager we gotta get that looked at you wake up he's holding your hand how are you okay yeah you beat me up some guy beat you up no you did yeah but now we really bad yeah real bad you knocked me out i think you can play this thursday yeah i'll play i'm always ready to play that's my guy i need a team full of fighters like you boswell the 20s the pitching coach is dead oh yeah well i mean that he was a snitch replaceable yeah uh so he needs 20 stitches and reporters and reporters ask billy what happened quote well when he came off the wall i hit him again what the fuck this is a manager not a wrestler he came off the wall um a manager beating a player unconscious is national news

like that's actually yeah okay yeah i mean if they just fought probably not but national news if you beat him unconscious yeah after he beat up his pitching coach yeah so and the owner the owner made boswell go and apologize to billy of course at times it feels like a baseball team and at other times it feels like a middle school hey so i just wanted to say i'm sorry for your for you beating me unconscious you really owe me a big i'm sorry i know i'm how dare you you i'm sorry for your fist hitting me when i close my eyes sometimes i still hear your screams uh yeah i apologize for this screaming and the bleeding on your fist you just it wasn't you that day look i i said i'm sorry and i just don't do it again no i don't plan to it wasn't great i gotta be

honest i can't go through that again you cannot put me through that again okay coach i'm sorry i didn't mean for you to beat me up be professional from now okay yeah you can't go out there beating up a coach well that no i disagree with that the he he was a snitch and uh you know there's rules all right yeah but still from now on learn your lesson lead by example that's what i always wait lead by example you okay you want to manhattan yeah okay we got a game soon let's get nice and loose so the twins twins make it to the playoffs but they lose and billy's like a public ask for a race because he did so well sure and then a week later he heard on the radio that he'd been fired okay sure exactly good now fans are fucking pissed right an effigy of the owner

is hung downtown so they're effigy pissed the local teamsters threatened to boycott all all twins games uh state legislators petitioned the owner to reconsider like everybody just fucking lose everyone who had a set of twins during that time got rid of everybody yes the owner does not budge he's absolutely not doing it he is another manager the next year attendance falls by 88000 okay but billy's been hired to manage the Detroit Tigers also a very bad team in his first game an opposing player is he's very flamboyant shall we say he has on a tight tailored uniform a fu manchu mustache and colored wristbands okay again this is the 50s right so it's a different look uh right away billy starts yelling out right when the game starts right quote

you clown heraldson wear your bell bottoms you think your clothes are gonna hide the fact you can't catch any the dirt anymore everybody knows you can't hit a curveball you're washed up you should get off the field go sit with your designer and some disco that's where you belong and his teammate billy's team are just like this guy's fucking crazy like what's happening the manager after the they lose that game and then afterwards the players are in the clubhouse and they're eating lunch and billy comes in and he calls them all fucking losers and he says how can you be fucking eating right now and he flips over the table with all the food on it might have been maybe our first table flipping a lot yeah it's definitely been picked up on and he kicks the

table and kicks the food quote there was chicken in the lockers coleslaw and guys shoes beans on clothing but what they soon realized that was that he saw it as us versus them he sees as a war right he's like we're going into fucking war every day well it wouldn't be smart to burn your reaction to the war i mean to be honest but yes i understand it's us versus them yeah and we are a team and there's no taking a loot lost lightly like it's all it's fucking bitch so he teaches them to hate losing right teaches them right and to miss coleslaw and to miss coleslaw and he coleslaw to shoot yeah like there's a hole right they win the division okay but they lose in five games billy cries uh the next season during a game billy wants the umps to check a pitcher for cheating

sure and they refuse to do it they're like we're not fucking billy'll handle this well so he has his pitchers cheat by using vaseline uh billy does billy's like their pitchers cheating since they won't search him will cheat will cheat and then after that after that game he tells reporters about it we cheated we fucking cheated and he said and he says why why he did it he says the umps are bullshit and they're not enforcing the rules so the league suspends him okay and he is fired by the twins wait by the tigers sorry right okay right right again fans fucking lose their shit okay calls flood the tigers front office people are really i really love the move it's like he's like oh shit i thought that would work people are protesting outside the stadium anywhere the

owner goes anywhere to try people are just fucking screaming at him like it's a disaster but the texas rangers immediately hire billy like he when he gets fired he gets hired within days because everybody fucking loves it right okay the texas only cares about football it's fucking football state so billy billy's brought there to get attention right he starts wearing cowboy outfits he grows a mustache i'd love to get back into that one second Dave but uh so so as far as like the competency as a manager is that because he's obviously doing well the teams are doing well but if you're bringing a guy in to have a mustache or a cowboy like how much of it is the flare and how much of it is the substance the substance is there are people

that say there never has been or ever will be a coach like him right so it is he can see everything happening on the field at once right and figure out the one thing the weakness okay he is he is a genius right okay okay he's also crazy as a fucking right boxed yeah he's a mad genius yeah so texas irons um texas is where he turned arguing in umpires like his signature thing okay okay everyone needs a thing yeah so fans would come to games just to see him flip out on umpires right kicks dirt on him he would throw his hat he would throw all the bats out of the dugout and fans would cheer and everybody loved it sure he's got a set list yeah yeah uh he was thrown out of both games of a doubleheader one time okay and he was twice that season tossed before the games

even started wow just like walking by well you know they they walk out yeah right coaches walk out to exchange lineups and he must have started talking shit and get right okay um this is also the year of tense m beer night in cleveland okay right oh yeah right he was the rangers coach yes and that's who they played and so the rangers had to fight their way off the off the field right afterwards billy was thrilled that his team stuck together and fought together and so it was billy the only guy happy on tencent beer night it feels now like we could finally ask if he was the only guy i was like that went great that was amazing that was fantastic boys that's how we got to play every night every night we're gonna offer him tencent ale we need to riot every single game

all right so the rangers finish in second but the next year um they're bad uh he starts drinking more and more and more that probably helped yeah oh yeah for sure uh you know coach has been really good since he's been getting drunk what's good hey we've obviously got some really crazy ideas i like it a lot he told me to shoot a cow yeah yeah no he told me to do that too i just figured that was some sort of like sit i don't know me i don't i'm not it might be a code yeah maybe steal second do you see what he wrote with on the mirror and his puke no win but he's followed why but still uh so plane flights were described as flying saloons and casinos jesus and he would fly with his mistresses okay so obviously gretchen is no longer his uh no she's still this is yeah

but she's not the flight attendant no she's not a flight attendant she's not married and probably at home and now he's billy loves to fly i love billy the owner didn't sign a player billy wanted and then billy and the owner start having issues well that's good and if you're the owner you're entering dangerous territory fyi oh yeah no you've now you've now kicked the hornet's nest yes you're or poked it wait you can do whatever you like the hornet's nest no you poke it you should not kick it if you can kick it you can kick really high yeah but that's fine if you can i mean if you have skills yeah it's like poke the bear don't kick the or you kick the bear i wouldn't kick the bear you're nuts take that also so billy wanted the stadium to play john denver's

thank god i'm a country boy during the seventh inning stretch because he just got into country music in texas uh now the owner that is everyone is that most people's gateway country i guess i ran i finally just heard it makes so much sense schnatt twain here i come the owner what's a griddle well the owner did not want that song played in seven stretch he wanted the traditional take me out to the ball game all right and they argued about it all year long it's just not worth it billy and one day billy told reporters the owner quote knows as much about baseball as i know about my pipe the follow-up will be how much does he know about his pipe it feels like probably a good amount a lot i know a lot okay so he's okay i'm sort of a pipe expert okay so you're

saying it's a compliment it's a compliment oh okay it just felt like it had no no i was saying yeah i mean i i went to school and studied pipes oh my god okay i agree in pipes i wanted it sounds like you have a great relationship we're the best we're really great great the owner tells billy he's thinking of firing him how complicated is a pipe pretty much just like like something with two holes in it yeah it's really not a good analogy it's really not i don't understand these pipes they're a bit like a maze to me how do you unlock these things stupid smoke smoke you smoke so the next day after billy makes that comment the the owner says he's right thinking about firing him in the sixth inning they have a phone in the dugout and billy billy calls what player you

need brought up billy no it's not player no song we're making a change in the lineup song wise he calls whoever's in control of playing the music on on the dugout phone and the umpire heard billy screaming to the phone quote i don't care what the owner says play the fucking john denver song oh my god imagine he'd be like sitting there being like this is the coach like a bummer like i really want to win it's called a designated song yeah it's a substitution and billy said he better hear that song or else and then the song is played oh my god the owner's like what the he immediately fires billy in a day of life ain't nothing but a funny funny riddle and after the game he cried and said goodbye to the players oh my lord sorry guys it's just that um i don't know

if you've ever heard take me out to the ball game but it doesn't have a lot of resonance well people like it a lot actually shut up it's Charles in all stadiums shut up a song that is better and is more connected to the root of the city that we play in is john denver's thank god i'm a country boy and i had to lay it out could don't look like it's a no no it's just not it's an unbelievable song yeah but it's not a baseball it's a great it's a song about everything what if it's baseball part of the world yeah then it's a song that song works for everything we already have a song it's the best song thank god i'm a country boy how does that not work with baseball it's not it's not a baseball song well the neither is take me out to the ball game it's literally a baseball song listen

to me it's about a ball game thank god i'm a country boy come on that's a song baby i'm not saying it's not a good song it's a great song it's not about baseball but it's about it's about heart it's about a commitment to it's not agriculture no it's not basically no it's a song it's a song about pride it's a song about having pride in yourself and the the fields that you're plowing and the breakfast you'll be having no it's about a guy likes being from the country and daddy likes to have a cake on the griddle and he wants a cake on the motherfucking griddle life ain't that much fun if i look i stand by my decision back there you are gotta be out of your mind and i think that was a good move i wanted to finish out the season two i wanted to see

where this could go but i'm afraid we went as far as take me out to the ball game can get us it was time for a change up it was time for what i always call a curveball you're the first manager in professional sports history to be fired over a song and i won't be the last because once you will but no i will not because once people hear that song no that is going to be the seventh inning song there's not a better song to stretch to there's not a better take me out to the ball game oh we've heard it we get it you're at the fucking ball game what more do you want you want to go to the ball game again or do you want to learn about the salt of the earth people who built this country on their fucking backs anyway just go and pack up your locker i'm open

to other songs too i just think take me out to the ball game sucks balls okay okay i'm gonna miss the hell out of you guys we really could have gotten some stuff done look coach you told me you taught me how to just stick to absolutely bullshit insane you know positions abandon your principles if i can leave you guys i'm gonna make a drink here but i'm gonna leave you guys with this just stick to your principles yeah yeah yeah okay i love you fellas no tell me that song's not in your head yeah it's in my head okay thank you the yankees hired billy 12 days later he's got to be like really yeah this is the only job he ever wanted is the manager he was introduced to the game fans go fucking crazy because billy martins back billy cried kasey

stangles cries a lot yeah he does cry a lot kasey stangles at home he's batted in leukemia he watched on tv and he cries okay yankees are bad sure but billy reshapes them he gets rid of the slow guys he brings in youth like the other guy didn't do that yeah keep these slow pokes they have a key um he brings in mickey rivers who was very impulsive and and ran up gambling debts he was also known as mik the quick because he's super fast and he gets another really fast guy will he ran off so the owner george steinbrenner at this point has been when they hired billy he is suspended by major league baseball george steinbrenner yes because he gave illegal campaign contributions to richard nixon and told all his employees to lie about it well if you're gonna

put it all in the line for a politician make it a good one that's the guy make it a winner so while he was suspended he started making speeches into a tape recorder and then the gm would bring it to the clubhouse and put it on a stool and play it for the players strange super crazy uh uh so after the fourth speech that billy heard when he came in he walked over and kicked the stool over and stopped the cassette and from that day on every time the cassette recorder was player played a player would go kick it over okay but then george's suspension so nobody's telling steinbrenner they're like i went over great george yeah yeah so george's suspension is lifted in march 76 so now he can give his speeches in person now we can kick the man

himself over and billy protests uh says you know don't i can't have any talking to my players and george agrees george is like okay i won't i won't give the speeches so instead they agree that george will be allowed to roam the field while they're practicing and do his little like how's your hand well billy found it very amusing because he'd walk by and say to a player quote okay panella now let's whip that bat around right and and at the infielders he would always yell step lively boys yeah so just like what i would do yeah and after come on catch that ball get that going do good work athletically after he would hurt him after he would say that he would walk away and billy would say you're in a boy step lively and all the players would laugh come on guys don't

forget to move so george didn't know shit about baseball sure a player sprained an ankle and the team trainer put ice on it and george came over and said do something don't you have colder ice mm-hmm it's a fair question how cold was it it's not cold enough not cold enough ice yeah yeah was it watery yeah it was water leaking yeah that's water yeah not cold enough um but he spent money george spent money the players have the best planes the best buses the best uniforms george sambrane is it i don't know how he had money he he um he he started with like a factory and no he wasn't real rich when he bought the Yankees he bought them for 10 million dollars like god um but he definitely made money you know it it was just business issue okay you know um and george

george uh george had fight too they had a a team manager named billy kane and he and george and billy would argue over travel arrangements all the time because that's what billy kane did and he and george got into a fist fight in uh new Orleans hotel lobby or arguing over travel was billy like now that i've done i really respect that you got to beat the shit out of your travel guy in the lobby sometimes kane was fired and constantly rehired sometimes he would get fired and then just come in the next day like nothing happened and it would totally be fine that's a good situation billy and george loved each other but they would fight a lot uh but george let billy run the show because he wanted to learn how to win and billy had an amazing ability to see everything on the

field like i said right so he was like this guy is a you know he has a thing right um if someone came in on hard on one of billy's players like slid hard at him he would yell at his team it was a bullshit play and the veterans knew what to do he would like fire them up and go get these guys so everyone knew and baseball if you hit the Yankees the Yankees were gonna fucking hit you a lot harder right it was gonna be a lot worse they kind of took on his personality they would they started brawling the first game in boston they got no big fight after a slide um fans loved it right and they came and celebrities came and billy's famous again he's back in new york he's back in the celebrity he lives in a chariot and hotel in new jersey however sure well i mean back not

back but he's back ish he's back ish he's back he's in the city he's coaching yeah he's in room 411 at the chariot in a jersey but still pretty back and across the street was a dive bar called bottom of the barrel and that's where you'd usually find billy people would call the bar to get a hold of them oh god that's crazy it's also amazing how like dive bars will be like this is a sad place and people like that's what i need to be yes here's my here's my card your last favor a table for one um the yankees extend his contract three years they go to the world series at your home or is he still he's still in the chariot and he stays in the chariot and for a long time they go to the world series they lose to the reds okay now reggie jackson yes he's a really big

free agent he's the biggest free agent out there right a candy bar named after him like he's a really big what goes to candy bar the reggie jackson candy bar the reggie bar you never heard of that yeah they had a reggie bar um he's a homerun hitter he has been at least two locker room fist fights that i could find with teammates okay before notoriously thin skinned and just a dick reggie jackson is okay but george wants him right because he's the biggest player billy does not want him billy's like this guy doesn't fit on the team he wants a different player so when they're trying to get reggie billy's not invited to any of the meetings he's not invited when reggie signs he's not invited to the press conference when they announce reggie that's no removal and reggie

does not contact billy after he signs he didn't call the bar anything billy doesn't billy doesn't call reggie okay in the press they say the right things but billy knew reggie was a square peg in a round hole the Yankees are like a blue collar team and reggie is a big ego rich guy attention hound so george um george stanbury is a special kind of asshole okay if a reporter wanted a season parking pass george made them beg if it was a young reporter he would have him come into his office and he would shoot rapid fire questions at him okay who's the greatest president should chairman of drop the a bomb on japan who was america's best author what's your favorite poem okay and if you didn't like the answer george would just scream names at him and not give him a

parking pass okay so just super weird it's weird like it's this is what rich guys do for fun yeah right sport right yeah it's sport to them it's like they they're bad it's like a cat with a mouse like he he has something that you have something he needs have you ever jeff bezos laugh yeah it's pretty great it's pretty great not real i never i've never wanted dick to blow up more before oh no yeah uh a week later the reporter would come back and be grilled again so it was a a constant process so this guy could get a parking pass right because it's expensive he can't afford he's a reporter eventually the guy would get his parking pass george never did this to win report women reporters okay once a team in uh intern unknowingly parked his car in the wrong

spot and it caused donald trump to have to wait to get his car out oh my god so george fired the team right in front of trump oh jeez to make up for it so that spring billy george and reggie get along everything's going fine season starts and then reggie tells reporters his elbow hurts now billy didn't like i don't believe in injuries jackson no billy doesn't like people telling the press what's up right that's not what you tell you telling i'm that's always i mean that's always the case you don't reveal injury yeah so he benches him and that leads to a two and a half hour meeting in the hotel with reggie and billy just because he benched in that one game and the next day reggie's brooding around and reporters are like what's up

and reggie says quote i don't know what's between us so it's starting out good and then the angie started losing okay and george wants billy to fix it or he tells him he's gonna need a new job fix this thing with reggie so it's 11 games in the season okay he's already being threatened with the hot seat okay so billy has reggie pick the next game's lineup out of a hat after after george started to fire him so he's basically just saying fuck you cyber yeah it's his it's his version of uh right thank god i'm a country boy right right right right and they win that game okay okay that's good that's shitty if you're billy like uh that shouldn't have worked so then in an article reggie said he was brought to yankees uh because they lacked leadership so there's obviously guys

on the team shot across the bow quote i'm this i'm the straw that stirs the drink monson thinks he can be the straw but he can only stir it bad thurmond monson is the catcher he's billy's favorite he's the team leader and reggie said he was misquoted and then thurmond monson said quote for 3000 fucking words oh wow jesus so it's not going great no i was miss article oh look at that there you go oh god jeez the next game no one on the team speaks to reggie okay he hits a home run and the Yankees go over to greet him but then he goes to the other dugout entrance to avoid his teammates reggie does yeah oh wow and then he sits alone in the corner and the commentator beautiful home run and reggie is avoiding his day he's going he went into the other teams dugout

so that's kind of weird but don't worry is then he sits alone in the corner no one talks to him so reporters ask him why he didn't shake his his teammates hands and reggie says his wrist was sore okay sure right and then they asked thurmond monson and monson said reggie was quote a fucking liar okay so it's going well so that's why you let george put the team together that's right two games later in detroit during the first espn live televised game reggie so it's the very first game reggie doesn't hustle for a ball and now he'd actually fought a guy on his last team because he accused the guy of not hustling and now he's not hustling okay and billy pulls reggie out of the game and in the dugout they almost get into a fight on national television they're like screaming

each other and it looks like they're gonna brawl a coach has to pick up billy he picks it like lift him up and pick him up to keep him from fighting reggie jackson so he's lifted off the ground like a little boy yeah that's very it's like mini me reggie other other coaches pull reggie into the clubhouse as he's yelling quote you never liked me this is all in front of an actual audience you never liked me he's not the best no it's not good you never like me yeah this is the first time anything like this in sports has ever been televised live okay no one's ever saying anything like this reggie now waits in the clubhouse and a t-shirt and cleats and he said his cleats were on for good footing for the fist fight that was going to happen wow but two players

talk him into leaving the stadium like dude you gotta get the fuck out of here billy's crazy and then afterwards billy says look i handled the right way the Yankee way and reggie then invites all the reporters to his hotel room and he walks around talking drinking wine shirtless holding a bible okay this is the blood right here um okay it's i mean in some ways it feels like he's i wouldn't say met his match but it's like there is the publicity around something like this makes it i mean it's a little bit like you know like the what's you know going on with the packers and rogers right now like or whatever you have a star at like a star athlete has a lot of power yes you know a lot uh so he in that one he's talking to reporters he says he loves george

and he's being treated this way because he's black but a lot of the Yankees are black so that's not really right okay the guys i sing him are black right okay so george makes billy this is out of town so george makes billy reggie and the gm have breakfast and billy says he didn't do anything wrong and reggie so there's three guys at the table and reggie talks to the gm oh he does one of those to tell billy what he says that's so awkward it's like it's also that can only go on for like 30 seconds before you're like look i'm not going to do that this is what ellen does to people right right i think she did that to writers right she would talk to a writer the producer the writer would be across somewhere it's fucking crazy this is what crazy people do like this is

when reggie said he hustled on the play billy jumped up quote get up boy i'm gonna kick the shit out of you and reggie says the gm you heard it he called me boy and then then you know they just dissolved it went their separate ways right and then george flies in and he's gonna fire billy okay but then reggie's like put this tape recorder on the stool this is the one reggie's like you can't fire billy because then everyone will fucking blame me oh and reggie stops him from firing billy and what a weird little pickle he's right yeah he's certainly put him i mean he's put himself he's caught between home and third yeah so so george orders billy to treat reggie with respect and then the other players are constantly fighting with him and everybody fucking hates him on the

team and billy just stays out of it he doesn't do anything and the team's losing because of all this and reggie says he's upset he's not hitting fourth and he keeps telling the press that and finally the players are like dude just fucking bat him forth yeah so we'll shut the fuck up and they he does and they start winning again and they win the division so reggie's actually just a giant fucking baby right he's not playing well because he's sitting fifth and they move him and he's then he starts playing well right okay um they go and they play the royals and the playoffs the series goes it goes to the last game and then in the last game billy benches reggie because there's a picture he's never faced before and he doesn't want reggie to

you know go out there and try to hit against him and then is that weird i think for the time it's not okay but yeah it might be a little fuck you okay it's sure it could be um the reggie's furious they get into a massive brawl during the game because george brett you know slides in hard and while they're while there's a massive fight they just catch billy just smiling like he just loves it uh-huh this is fucking awesome yankees win reggie comes in the game late and the heroics home run right and then afterwards billy and reggie are best friends and they're celebrating and billy praising reggie to the press fans come to the airport to greet them look at that yeah there they are they're having a great time together but when they get to the airport billy

is the star right nobody wants to see they chanting billy's name at the airport they mob him no other yankees getting that it's all fucking billy right play the dodgers in the world series so they go from getting along great the third game reggie is once again talking shit okay okay he's second yes billy's pitching choices he's angry because billy said uh he's not going to start him because the he wasn't going to start him because uh the dodgers weren't pitching a lefty that pisses reggie off and he says quote i don't need to take that from nobody especially him i know what i can do and so they're just going back and forth and billy's like math is happening in the world the world series they have another hotel meeting okay so for hours and then afterwards

reggie's like it's all resolved we're fine again they win the next two games they're hugging in the dugout more like the hug out yankees extend billy's contract right then reggie hits right then well you know not right there but that that in the middle of the world series and then reggie it's three home runs on three pitches in game six they win the world series once again reggie and billy hugs champagne love billy throws a victory party at the shared well at home yeah when they're back home and gretchen realizes oh my god i mean completely forgot like i'm sure like she felt you know she's like yeah i also exist in this story what she realizes that he has two mistresses there oh shit two two messages at the who who's like what sort like i don't know a drug one seems

really stressful yeah oh my god could you do at the same i mean i don't know if you've ever had experience with two women you were dating in the same place and how weird that is but now picture your wife and two women you're dating yeah like you're like oh shit i look i gotta get rid of one of these mistresses so they start yelling at each other billy and gretchen in the in front of all the guests he throws his drink on the ground and smashes it and then he goes across the street to uh bottom of the barrel and drinks alone quote i sat there all by myself i sat there and rested where no one could bother me by the way it's just it's where he's supposed to be at the bottom of the barrel that's right i mean his marriage is basically over right it's uh it's dave i'd like

to say it's no guys on base two outs own two not looking great right now for the martin and gretchen marriage so he's the toast of new york again right they won the world series and uh he's drinking with bill murray and john bolusian ackroyd and he's on talk shows and he's doing he's taking commercial offers light beer starts using athletes and ads and billy was quote the quasi manager of the light beer team right now he takes all these checks from commercials and deposit them but he doesn't pay income tax on them that's fine they're commercials you're not supposed to you don't tax those does it does he did you not know how it works no i didn't i wouldn't oh yeah that is non-taxable income because i was uh i'm saying so so go ahead okay no it just seemed like

that's not a good yeah what kind of account are you a good one i save you a lot of money yeah yeah no for sure yeah for three years you're in the world i only work with clients for three years that's sort of where i cut it off his lawyer tried again how to to understand how taxes work and he just didn't he ignores it yeah it was it doesn't seem like he didn't understand he was just like i choose to not he's he's troubled money he just gives out like people are trying to stop him from giving out so much money to people like he's just so at the beginning of the next season reggie said he wouldn't get involved in any drama this year he's like that's it no drama but then they have a lot of injuries and they're not doing well and um george starts putting them on commercial

flights to punish him oh jesus christ so they're happy about that and one flight after a delay they're all fucking drunk and they're on this flight and thurmond months and starts playing his music loud and a passenger asks him to turn it down quote mind your own mind your own business fuckface and then and then there's yelling and then this makes me want to fly yeah billy comes back and to calm things down but it doesn't and then yankees are fighting imagine the yankees being in coach with you it's really weird excuse me mr jeter i gotta pee again so it turns into chaos and and uh they would never fly commercial again he would always put him on private planes but not george thinks billy's lost control of the team so george starts leaking to writers that billy was going to be fired

okay smart and billy is like totally drained and uh months and takes him out to try to cheer him up but billy just burst into tears in the sobbing for like 30 minutes he said george doesn't know the team they're yankees george isn't a yankee and now months and starts leaking to papers the reporters wrote the team wanted george to get off billy's back so it's like a war in the press and then at yankee stadium the fans give billy a standing ovation so they're like we're behind billy okay reggie meets with george to talk about all the shits going on they just end up arguing and now george calls reggie boy okay jesus so reggie tells him not to call me boy george says get the fuck out of my office reggie's like i'm not fucking leaving your office so george

storms out of his own office george leaves his office then i quit my office okay that's a it's an admission of fear so during the game that night reggie signals for reggie billy signals for reggie to bunt okay now big home runners they don't bunt right he's extremely offended right and he bunts foul and then then he says go ahead and swing away right right billy's like swing but now reggie's mad right and he refuses to swing okay that's a problem and he fouls out trying to bunt and now billy's fucking furious the game's on national tv and reggie goes back to the dugout expecting a fistfight like he's fucking storming in there ready to go but billy just stays away from him and then after the game he calls george and the gm and they suspend reggie

for five games wow and uh reggie is just fucking so billy sold out he didn't beat the shit out yeah he's not for once yeah he's a total coward yeah he went so reggie is just savaged by reporters and his teammates and they win without him they went for straight games and he comes back in chicago and he tells the press he's done nothing wrong and now the fucking team's like more livid everyone's more pissed i had no idea about this side of reggie jacks i mean i don't know much about baseball no yeah but people don't know how awful he was that same night uh billy's out drinking with his buddy bill veck okay another one of yeah right right and um bill is right hey is that no he was chicago okay he was the minor league until the crazy stuff in chicago right okay and bill veck says

hey i need to tell you something last month george tried to trade you to cleveland wow a manager he tried to trade his manager well but but that that's so weird but that has happened in the nba and been floated in the nfl yeah like um like dock rivers essentially like had a i was like sort of traded to the clippers from the cell like it's really fucking weird really yeah i think i might be wrong i'm sure i'll hear about it if i am but that that has happened a couple times but it is the weirdest yeah it's like it just i don't it just like it feels like management is not a part of that they're like part of the man yeah it's like they're in charge of the trades they're not part of the trade right it's the craziest idea yeah but also that's at this gotta be the first time

probably yeah so billy's fucking livid and they leave that night and they're going through the airport and billy's been drinking and as they go through the airport he goes off on reggie to two reporters okay quote here's what i'm saying shut up reggie jackson we don't need none of your shit we're winning without you oh Jesus he said reggie and george deserved each other because because one was a liar and the other was convicted wow now george has been convicted of making illegal thank contributions so the reporter's called george and he asked them to reread this he's like what could you say that again and then he said send over a tape recording i could put on a stool please and they said quote i'm stunned i don't know what to say so the next day billy's

lawyers like did you fucking say this and billy's like billy said quote no well yes but not like it's come out but yes like i was drunk do you know what i'm saying like listen to me that's exactly what he's saying he's like i mean i said it but i didn't want to look i to be honest it comes down to this life where i'm from on the farm is kind of laid back yeah it's nothing like a country boy like uh no you're not you're from if you look at it it's kind of like it's early to rise early to sack you're from fucking berkeley thank god i'm a country boy no whoo want some weight to chew on no billy time so his lawyer says look you need to retire because if you get fired you won't get paid but if you retire you will get paid for health reasons so he does okay and he as he reads his

resignation he's quivering and almost crying and his old teammate phil reza said quote i was worried he was going to throw himself off the balcony or something well that's how you go out now back in new york george gets tons of death threats okay fans threaten to never go to another yankee game right they start burning tickets outside the stadium that's not great the media is attacking billy and attacking george and pro billy okay right reggie is blamed for starting it all wow and then we'll do part two what i'm trying to feel wow okay okay yeah all right we'll be back right after these words the main source for this episode was the book billy martin baseball's flawed genius by bill pennington