Crime in Sports - The Angry Wanderer Billy Martin Part 5

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

This week, we follow Billy's exploits, as his teams perform wonderfully, on the field, but it's still not enough to keep him from getting repeatedly fired. Why? Because he fights with team owners, opposing players/managers/fans & umpires. He even beats one of his own players, so badly, that they have to be hospitalized for 20 stitches to their face! Then, he gets arrested for actually doing something admirable! Wild as always!   Take a team from nearly last place, to winning their division... and get fired, lead another team back from the dead... and get fired, then quickly get another job, despite your reputation with Billy Martin - Part 5!!   Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!!   Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman   Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS, STM & YSO merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com   Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS, STM & YSO!!   Contact us on... instagram.com/smalltownmurder facebook.com/crimeinsports [e-mail]

Hello and welcome back to crime and sports. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another wild, crazy edition of crime and sports.

We're going to dip back into Billy Martin this week and see what he's up to as he fights and punches his way across the major leagues. Is the only guy I've ever heard of sued multiple times for fights on a baseball field. You don't hear. Have you ever heard of that before? Sued. Sued in court, crazy, team suing him and everything. It's crazy.

We'll get into all that. First of all, head over to shut up and give me murder.com. What's there, you may ask, everything. First of all, all of our merch, anything you want. If you've heard something funny on the show, I bet you there's a T-shirt about it. So get in there, check that out. And get your tickets for. live shows. I don't think there's any left for small town where I think Philly and DC are sold out,

right? I'm pretty sure in December. So virtual live show is the only chance you're going to have to see us live this year unless you already have tickets there. So do that. It is October the 30th. That is the day before Halloween. Obviously, it's the Thursday right then. We're going to just like a regular live show except anywhere in the world with internet. You can watch it. We're going to do it regular, just like everything with the pictures and jokes and all that, except we're going to have costumes. on too. We'll make fools of ourselves. It'll be a lot of fun. So get in there and get that. And it's available for two weeks after we do it too. So you can watch it as many times as you want in there. You can do whatever you want with it. Check that out.

All of that at shut up and give me murder.com. Also, check out Patreon. Get yourself some Patreon. Do yourself a favor. Patreon.com slash crime in sports, just like this show. That's going to get you everything. That unlocks. That's the skeleton key to all of your desires here. I'm telling you. Anybody, $5 a month or above, you are going to get everything. Hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before immediately upon subscription. New ones every other week, including this week, by the way, you get one crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get it all this week for what we're going to talk about. For crime and sports, we're going to talk about all of the accusations against Deshaun Watson.

Oh, boy. It's pretty deep. There's quite a few of them. And then for small town murder, we're going to do an internet salad episode is what we call it, where we talk about everything that's going on in the world except politics. That's the only thing we leave out. So just fun stuff. And we're going to make fun of people. We're going to talk about that comedy festival in Saudi Arabia, too, because I've been asked about that about that, about 5,000 times.

So let's, and I won't give, I'm like, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. It's all say. So there you go. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of that. That said, let's do this. Let's get back. to Billy because he is a mess.

Also ad free. Oh, ad free. That's right. Patreon. You get ad free. All the shows ad free. Thank you. Small town murder, crime and sports, your stupid opinions, all ad free. And you get a shout out at the end of the show as well. You can't beat it. That's the value. That's the value. Yeah. So there you go.

Let's start out with Billy May 24th, 1969 here. There's an article that leads off. Billy Martin's same old guy. Not old. Same old guy. That's what it says here. He's changing for nobody. Yep, they said because it is and because of his fierce competitive nature,

Martin occasionally loses sight of the fact that there are others who feel almost as strongly about baseball as he does. And this leads over. This leads to complications. A case in point was his recent run-in with Sherry Robertson, the Twins Vice President and Farm Director and George Brophy, the assistant farm director, over the optioning of a pitcher, to Charlotte instead of Denver. Okay.

What the hell does he care where the guy goes? Okay. Yeah. Calvin Griffith, who owns the twins, called in all the principals, listened to what they had to say,

and then he had something to say himself. He said there were two bosses on the ball club, Billy Martin downstairs on the field, and Calvin Griffith upstairs in the front office. Martin apologized to Robertson and Brophy. He said, quote, I was wrong, dead wrong, to air the whole thing in the press.

I could have said everything I had to say in private and kept it among us, which I should have. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Sherry Robinson and always have. I brag on him all the time and I know the kind of great job he does. I certainly didn't want to show up anybody. I know every man is a proud man. The one thing I'm glad of in this whole thing is that it's all ironed out. So yeah, he's fighting. This is what he does.

He's fighting over that and rather than just fight it out internally, he goes to the press because he wants to he wants them to know that you know the public is on his side basically yeah yeah you know meanwhile it's the owner's ultimate decision of what anything happens on the team so they can sure they can send anybody anywhere they feel like so um yeah so they go on and he says you know i'm the manager and casey stengel wouldn't have done that and i got to do it better how you know how casey stengel would have done it and all that kind of shit okay now uh this is from the book billy also played all kinds of of head games to get a mental edge on his opponent. In 1969,

the young and promising Oakland A's were the twins' closest rivals. And this is right on the cusp of the A's being a dynasty after this. Oh. Because I think it was what, 71, 72. They won three championships in the early 70s.

So it's in the 71 to 74 range in there. So they said when the A's came to Minnesota for the first time, Billy was irked when Oakland's 23-year-old slugger Reggie Jackson slammed two home runs and the A's built a 7-0-0 lead. So this is going to lay the groundwork for all the crazy Reggie Jackson shit that's going to happen later with the Yankees. They said when Reggie came to the plate late in the game, two pitches whizzed by his head.

Jackson charged the twins pitcher Dick Woodson and the benches cleared. And Reggie said after the game, that's the kind of manager Billy Martin is. If someone's beating his club, he's going to put a little fear in that team's heart. I don't blame Woodson. He was following orders. blame the manager. So right away, it's 1969, and there they are. They're fighting already. So Billy denied he was throwing at Jackson and said that the two teams were being separated on the field. He said, as this was going on, Jackson threatened him. Billy said, he yelled at me that he was going

to get me. I want somebody to write that. So if we ever get in a fight, he won't be able to sue me and say, I started it. Now, Billy's crazy. If you've ever seen Reggie Jackson, he is a thick piece of humanity. He's a big man. He is. He is. He is. He is. He is a fucking sturdy guy. His legs are like tree trunks. His arms are big shoulders. He's a big goddamn giant home run hitter. Yeah, he's not small.

No, he's not that tall. He's not that tall. He's like 6'1. It's somewhere in there, 511 to 6'1, but he's a thick son of a bitch, though. I mean, this is. Big block. And a lot younger than Billy, not the guy you want to fight. You know what I mean?

There's that. And the crazy part is he tries to fight him like almost 10 years later when he's even older. He doesn't care. He's insane. Out of his fucking mind here. So manager Billy Martin sets the record straight, the Fort Lauderdale News says here. Okay. The sports writers, I guess it's going to be, they think rookie, they're talking about

Billy Martin as being like the rookie of the year in managers, basically. Yeah, he said, we don't have that title, but if you combined them, you'd have that. That's what he is, basically. You wants it. Yeah. They said Ted Williams, meaning Ted Williams, Ted Williams, Ted Williams. is the latest head. Timmy and Ted.

Yeah. Is the latest head Billy Martin has hanging over his fireplace. He nailed this prize with one blast right between his eyes. Jesus.

He said Ted Williams was the worst ball player he'd ever seen. At least that's how it came over the wires. Billy says, quote, I didn't say that. I just said he's the worst

bass runner I ever saw. And that's the thing about Ted Williams is great. I mean, hitter, yeah. Top three hitters of all time. I mean, you could move them around.

You can pick the top three and you can fucking shuffle them. It really doesn't matter, honestly. If you're talking about Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, this guy, Willie Mann. There's a lot of people you can throw in the mix here that are, you know, whatever. But in those black and white era baseball players, anytime they hit like a blast, like a bomb, anytime they start running, it's a giggle fest. They all look terrible at running. Well, that was mainly when the film speech.

are different. Like the Babe Ruth looks ridiculous. Yeah, it's a different film speed. Yeah, he looks terrible. Yeah, put a different film speed on guys now that look ridiculous too. It's the same thing. And baggy, and baggy pants lends to that too. Baggy wool pants, yeah, that doesn't help. Yeah.

Those look like a hammer pants on. Yeah. Guy got genie pants on. He's running around the bases. Yeah, he's about to slide in that. That's very silly. But like Ted Williams, as far as hitters go, he's just like the most scientific hitter of all time. Sure, sure. He wrote books on breaking the strike zone down in the 80 parts and looking at this part and the exact.

He did. He was the money. He did batting for dummies. He was doing like money ball hitting as far as you don't hit the pitch that's in the lower outside corner because you're only have a 12% chance of getting a base hit when you swing at that pitch. He did that shit 50 years before anybody thought of it. He was writing books like that. So that's how his mind worked. But he's also known as a fucking lazy base runner and a lazy ass fielder too.

That's both, yeah, Ted's definitely known for that. That's why everyone would say, well, why DiMaggio win MVP's over him? Because DiMaggio played center field in Yankee Stadium spectacularly. That's why Ted Williams was in the left in Fennway Park with the monster and being lazy. That's what he was an insane hitter. I mean, he was concentrating so much on hitting. You know, what are you going to do? So he said, look, the guy asked me a question.

He asked what I thought of Ted Williams as a base runner. I said that as a second baseman, I never saw. him slide. I said he was a lousy bass runner. I didn't say he was a lousy ball player. I'm not that crazy. Yeah. No. He's fucking Teddy ballgame. I'm not insane. I'm not insane. He's obviously the best hitter in history. He said one thing about Billy Martin. He doesn't back off. Cal Griffith is his boss and Cal Griffith's comment on the Ted Williams thing is this. Hell, Williams has proven himself. He hit balls so far he didn't have to slide, which is a nice way of kissing his ass. Um, so they told Billy

that line and the paper says you think maybe if your boss said that you'd giggle a little and say hey that's a funny line not Billy Martin he stands as Billy Martin's like that shit's hack fuck this guy old hat oh yeah he said

oh on singles he said you mean he's not supposed to break up a double play after getting a single he didn't hit singles any farther than I did so he said his home runs don't matter singles do so they said before Billy Martin went after Ted Williams on the Washington Safari.

He brought down a couple of beefy local specimens. That doesn't sound good. No, it doesn't. Sounds like Billy went to the bar and got lucky. Or went to a farm and shot a couple of cows. Either one. Again. And then got lucky with them.

Yeah. With the old cows there. Sherry Robertson is director of player development for the twins. He's also vice president. He's also half-brother of the president of the ball club. George Brophy is the farm director of the twins. Billy squinted down the sights of his double. barrel shotgun and got them both with one squeeze.

Oh boy, that's when they're talking about the whole them fighting about the, uh, sending a guy to Denver or Charlotte. Oh, right. So Billy says, uh, quote, I had just finished talking to Calvin about sending the man to Denver, and I had the backing of my two pitching coaches that he could win in Denver. I was on the other end last year. I understand more than they think I do. He says, and then he said, Sherry Robertson says, what does he know about where

the hell to send a player? this is his second year managing I've been doing this since 1953 okay and he said all those guys you've got out there on the field they're my guys so I must be doing something right

is what he told Billy Martin if your team's playing well it's because I'm good not because you're good which thank me which they sucked the year before he came so it's funny I don't know kind of right yeah it sounds like Billy might have had something to do with that here yeah so

Sherry said Billy gets upset when he used when he loses. Who the hell doesn't? He'll be all right. He's going to be a hell of a manager. He just has some learning to do about the different departments of running a ball club. It's like I told him. I said, God damn it, you take care of the managing and I'll take care of the player development. And Kyle Griffith just said the owner, that's just how Billy is. He got excited, but he's a real good manager. Yeah, that's how it works. Now, before Billy Martin put the uniform back on to manage at Denver and Minneapolis, he worked for Sherry Robertson and George Brophy as a scout.

And apparently, Billy didn't achieve the rank of Super Scout. One person said, no wonder Billy Martin didn't know what he was doing as a scout. He doesn't think Ted Williams was a good ball player, which is stupid because obviously he does. Yeah, just dumb shit. So, okay, here's a story from the book here. All right. There's a guy, Boswell here. Boswell was a temperamental but gifted starting pitcher,

a 6-390-pound right-hander, who by 1969 had already posted three double-digit victory seasons for the twins. During a trip to Detroit in August, Boswell was inactive because of a shoulder injury, but Billy still required all the pitches to run 20 laps from foul line to foul line before games, which no one understands, by the way. pitchers

pitchers it's not yeah they're a weird breed they don't need to do that don't fuck up their head just don't fuck anything up pictures are like a comic whatever their routine is beforehand

let them do it that gets them to be able to stand there with everybody staring at them and do what they got to do that's why you're allowed to you can do coke off a prostitute's ass while you call for more fucking nachos in a comedy club green room

because that room is to depending on you doing shit and no one else that works there knows how to do it. So whatever you got to do to get prepared to do that. Let them do it. Go ahead. More coax, sir, they don't give a shit. So it's the same thing I feel like with this. So they said, also, as Rod said, as my good friend Rod Beck said, I never saw anybody

in the DL from pulled fat. Don't worry about me out there. Fold fat ain't shit. On a pitcher, I'm good. Pictures are weird. So during a trip to Detroit in August, he was inactive and this is what happened. open here. When Art Fowler, Billy's pitching coach, reminded Boswell of his running duties before a Thursday night game, Boswell swore at Fowler and refused to run.

Fuck you, old man. I'm not running. I'm not doing it. Yeah. After the game, the twins lost, and Billy went to a bar called the Lindel A.C. owned by Jimmy Buzacaris, the best man at Billy's 1959 wedding to Gretchen. Now, the Lindel AC was not a big, was a big place not far from Tiger Stadium and one of the first sports bars in America with the walls and tables lined with jerseys and autographs. It was the Tuts Shores of Detroit, which that was the big pop and place in New York where all the athletes went. He said on this night, Billy was drinking with Fowler and Bob Allison, one of his outfielders. While it might have been baseball tradition that managers didn't drink with their players, or at least not for too long, Billy felt otherwise. Yeah.

He liked most of his players and he wanted to be with baseball. them. That's the other thing about Billy. It's a common rule in baseball that back then, anyway, the players were not allowed to drink at the hotel bar of the hotel they were staying at. They were allowed? Not allowed. Not allowed. Every ball club had a rule of that except Billy. As Billy said, I don't want to get a goddamn call at three in the morning that some idiot fucking left fielder wrapped a car around a goddamn telephone pole and I got to go get him out of jail. Trying to get back to the hotel. Yeah, he goes, I'd rather have him get shit-faced and stumble back to his room.

He's being realistic. He's a ball player, so that makes sense. But Billy, he likes to hang out and drink with the players. It's just how he is. He's a player. He's one of those guys. He would talk baseball and he would hear things from the player's perspective about the team. And after a couple of drinks, it gets a little looser and the guys are a little more honest and he knows the heartbeat and what's going on.

It's just convenient for them to do that there. Much better. But it's a, it was a, it doesn't look good thing for baseball. Yeah, the optics are bad. It's also, it also raises a flag to anybody. that wants to bother fucking baseball players that they, well, I know where they're staying because they're all at this hotel bar.

Exactly. But it was a little bit different back then as far as people, because there's nobody was going to like get autographs to sell or any of that shit. It was just women trying to fuck them. In 2004, I crashed Warren Moon's party at the fucking Hall of Fame. You know what I mean? Yeah. In a thermal.

I wasn't even dressed nights. You're like, what's up? Jimmy shows up in a making bacon t-shirt being like, What's up, everybody? And a shirt that said, Where's the bar? I ate the 96, sir. Yeah.

Christ, man. Holy shit. So, yeah, Billy also, Boswell, whom Billy liked and always called Basie was at the bar too, but across the wide room. Billy asked Fowler how the pitcher's running had gone before the game,

and Fowler told him about Boswell. Billy told Fowler he would address it with Boswell before the next day's game. The group had, had a couple more drinks and Fowler went back to the team hotel. Once Fowler left, Boswell came over to Billy. And Boswell said, Art told you about my not running, didn't he? Yeah.

What are you here for, the not running thing? Billy said, that's his job. And Boswell said, I'm going back to the hotel to kick his butt, that little squealer. Oh? I'm going to go beat my pitching coach up right now. Yeah. Yeah. So Billy said, Bozzi, you're not going to do anything like that.

And Boswell said, yes, I am, got up and headed toward the door. He bet your ass I am. Now, Allison, who was as big as Boswell and one of his close friends, ran after Boswell and stopped him near an alley behind the bar. As usual, there's conflicting stories from this moment on, but what is known is that everyone had been drinking. So that's why things get cloudy. Now, Allison apparently said, if you're going to be a tough guy, why don't you hit me? And Boswell did knock him down. Okay.

You got it. Yeah, there you go. Billy always maintained that when he got to the alley seconds later, Boswell was hitting Allison as he lay on the ground. Billy pushed Boswell away, grabbed a chain with a crucifix that hung around Boswell's neck, and used it to draw Boswell closer as he punched him repeatedly in the stomach. So first the pitcher's beating up the outfielder,

then the manager comes outside to beat up the pitcher for beating up the outfielder. We all following this? By his chain. Yeah. Pretty soon there's going to be an elephant running away from a mouse. This is ridiculous. This is the dumbest shit ever. God damn it.

This is awesome. Yeah, here it is. Pitcher above outfielder manager above pitcher. Calvin Griffin's going to come down being 88 years old, beat the shit out of Billy now. And they're all doing it because the pitching manager beat up a fucking ball boy. Yeah, all of this. It all goes downhill from there.

All goes downhill because he caught the guy, well, they caught the bat boy, beating up the guy cleaning the toilets. It's really a mess. The whole thing's a disaster. Yeah. is that when fighting a bigger opponent, Billy later explained, you have to get inside and close to him. Yeah. Yeah.

Pulling his chain kept Boswell close. Finally, according to Billy, he punched Boswell in the face, which sent him bouncing off an alley wall. Reporters would later ask Billy what happened next. And he said, well, when he came off the wall, I hit him again. Hit him again. That's it. He bounced towards me. Yeah.

He said Boswell fell to the ground and Buzakaris intervened. saying, Billy, he's out. Years later, Billy wrote, I looked at Boswell and I felt sick. He was bleeding badly, and I felt terrible because I really liked the kid. It's a good guy. And this is why managers don't drink with their players generally. They very rarely get in fights with them on team planes or anything like that. While they're sober?

While they're sober. Yeah. So, yeah, he said, I was thinking to myself, how in the world did this happen? No one's going to believe it. How the hell do I get myself in these situations? stop punching things. That's how. Stop fighting.

You're always fighting. If those two guys want to fight, let him fight. If Art Fowler wants to squeal, then he can get his ass kick too. You know, what are we doing here? So anyway, he said, Billy ended up going to the hospital with Boswell. The fight made national news since it's not every day that a manager pummel's one of his own players. Right. That's rare.

Although it wasn't altogether uncommon back in like the early 20th century. Those guys were rugged. back then though those were that was a different breed yeah and they were like the most callous handed fucking guys in the world those guys back then they were all day jobs and furious about it day they all they played all day they were in the sun all day those guys were 26 and they looked 50 those guys were a mess back then you don't fuck with those guys hard drinking train riding fucking angry men angry angry not making shit for money like oh man pissed off so he goes to the hospital and that's what goes on they said on the team it wasn't a total surprise

Rod Carew said Dave at that time was a problem. Alice, the guy he beat up, Boswell. He said he drank a lot and he was a problem. And he challenged Billy. And knowing Billy, he's not going to back down from anyone and he put a weapon on Boswell. Sure, yeah. But it didn't look good.

Jim Cat, who's a great pitcher, I think he won like 18 gold gloves or something, Jim Cat. Jim Cat? Yeah, he's a Yankee announcer, Twins pitcher for a long time. He said, let's face, Dave's face was all black and blue. and it looked like he'd been in it with Jake LaMotta or something. They said, Billy walked around for a few days with a badly swollen and cut right hand. Griffith interviewed all the involved parties and ended up fining Boswell who apologized to Billy in the owner's office.

Wow. So he's the guy who got the fly. Well, I guess he started it all. I'm so sorry. I hurt your hand on my face. Not bad. Jesus, I didn't mean to get my face in front of it like that. Billy said it was unfortunate, but sometimes these flare-ups. happen. Boswell won 20 games for the 69

Twins, which is the best season he had in the big leagues. So every manager should have punched him in the face. It might have helped. Yeah, yeah. That's what it is. And this is all in the newspaper as well. I mean, it doesn't look good. Boswell reported to have received 20 stitches to close facial wounds. Wow. That's an ass-lop. The beatings will continue until morale improves. Is that that old? The beatings shall commence.

Wow. Until morale improves. That's how it goes. And I'll be honest, too. Like, I mean, it looks bad from one standpoint, but from another standpoint when Billy says, hey, go do something, you're going to go fucking do it now. That guy's face was split. He beat the shit. And he's a young fucking strapping guy who just beat up an outfielder.

Right. And then Billy came over, kicked the living shit out of him. You go, Jesus, don't fuck with our manager. You know what I mean? You don't go out of that old man. What does he know? Shit. okay Billy no problem.

Yes, sir, is the only fucking question you'd have at that point. Sir, answer you'd have at that point. So apparently that's that, you know, he said Allison, Martin said later on, Allison was standing there with his hands in his pockets when Boswell hit him with a sucker punch, knocked him down and almost out. He said, that's when I saw that. He said, I see Boswell attacking him and landing several blows. And Billy said, I hit him five or six times in the stomach.

Then I hit him in the head when he came off the wall. I hit him again. He was out. before he hit the ground. There you go. What do you want for me? Pretty good fight. One guy's looking one way, the other guy's looking at one way, the other guy's looking the other guy's looking the other way.

This guy's saying, what do you want from me? What do you want from me? I don't know. So, anyway, that's hilarious that he's beating up his actual players here. Right under it, though, there's some fun ads here. Okay. The Fine Arts Theater on Baltimore Avenue in Asheville, North Carolina, is showing some 1969 porn, it looks like. Oh, boy.

Oh, yeah. Adults only. One is called the love child. The next, which, you know, late 60s, that makes sense. The next one is called Love Me Please. Also showing is Campus Confidential. Yeah. College girls.

She's begging for it. It's under that controversial, yes, brutal, yes. Bold, yes. Brutal? It's called slaves. Oh, brutal. It's a porn. about like slavery porn.

Oh my God. Jesus Christ. Let's not have that. Oh, that's not a porn. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. It says, wait, it says suggested for mature audiences,

which sounds like porn. It does. But it's starring Dionne Warwick and Assy Davis. I don't think that's porn. Osie Davis is an amazing actor, like a all-time, he's not in porn. And Dionne Warwick. Dionne ever was.

Had a career. She's, that's telling motherfuckers to walk on by at that point. Like, she had it all going on. Yeah. Wow.

That's right under the porn shit, too. So it really is confusing. Okay. August 24th, 1969. There's a headline here, Mrs. Billy Martin,

no second-guesser. Gretchen here. Gretchen box at trying to second-guess the baseball maneuverings of her husband. Yeah. So they, they're talking about a play here.

Rich Reese. hits a bases loaded home run that gives the twins a crucial victory in Baltimore. En route to the airport the next day to send the manager off on a road trip, Mrs. Martin poses a question. Many twins fans were asking him. She said, quote, I asked him, Rich Reese is going to be in the lineup tonight, isn't he? As said Mrs. Martin, he said, no. I thought he was kidding me. He just won a game for us, you know?

Rich Renick started in the game instead. Martin's explanation that certain left-handed pitchers gave Reese trouble. He said, Renick got two big RBI in the first inning and we won the game, said the manager, said the manager's wife. I really wouldn't dare to disagree with him about baseball. Well, that's probably wise since he's been playing it forever and it's not your job. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I think, at that point. Sure the Boeing guy's wife disagrees with. Again, Michael Jordan's wife arguing with him about fucking how many mid-range jumpers he's taken.

I think I got this. Thanks. I'll take care of it. We got this. We're good. Travis Kelsey writing half of Taylor Swift's album. I think I know how to complain about ex-boyfriends on my own now. I got this. You know, you gave me all that credit about this thing. I'm lugging along.

Why don't you just let me write a couple of songs and we'll call it even? I think he wrote that song. Probably the one. Pretty sure. he wrote that. If I had to take a swing and a guess, that's it. The funniest part is this show, particularly, crime and sports,

about half of this audience is going, what the fuck are you talking about? Which is very funny. I think everybody knows by now, right? No. No? They've got to. No. It's like front page news for a month. You think a bunch of 45-year-old guys know about specific Taylor Swift songs? Because a lot of this audience is not

going to know the shit. Yeah, that's a good The ladies will, but. Yeah. So anyway, that's what's going on here. His wife's not going to disagree with him, which is probably good because he probably punch her. Yeah. We don't need that. To keep Billy out of jail for domestic violence, I'm not going to disagree with him.

She does say that it's different being a player's wife and a manager's wife. She said there's definitely more pressure being a manager's wife. She said, as a coach's wife, I felt more secure. managers are hired and fired so easily, but I don't sit around and worry about Billy being fired. Well, you should because he gets fired constantly from everywhere. She said, I love the twins. I get terribly

more excited about the game since Billy became manager. I can't stand to miss any games. She said fans were heckler sometimes though. Well, they say. She said at one game, one man stood up and yelled, Billy Martin, you're a donkey. Which is a pretty piss poor insult. It's a bad

heckle. It's a new one. I wouldn't say new. It's having its rise again now, but that's because of the guy from, yeah, but it's because of that guy from the chef show. He calls people a donkey. Yeah, that's the guy. Yeah, but that was 20 years ago he was calling people a donkey. Is that what he did?

I don't know. It was like Kitchen Nightmares era. Yeah, that was a long fucking time ago. It's probably because of memes caught fire again. I guess. My kids love to call people that. That's a really dumb fucking, yeah. Yeah, that's weak.

He said, Billy Martin, you're a donkey. I just let it go in one ear and out the other, but it's terrible on the children. Our little boy, Billy Joe, won't understand until he's older. Why, your dad's getting called a donkey? A donkey is like, why are they mad at dad? He doesn't get it. So, anyway, that's what's going on here. Minnesota ends up winning the NL West, which is pretty good.

Here's a great fucking picture of Billy having a touch of champagne. A small serve. Just a smidge. It's literally like a brandy sniffter that's bigger than his head. And he's drinking champagne from it. It's bigger than his head, literally. It's twice the size of his head. That takes, you could fill that up with three bottles of champagne.

Oh, for sure. That's like a nice light fixture in your entryway is with that as. It's huge. Yeah. It's fucking enormous. You could use that. You could weld that to your countertop and make it a sink. Yeah.

No shit. It says Billy Martin has a Wii one. That's the... Funny. The headline for it there. So the Twins played the Orioles who had won 109 games during the regular season in the ALCS. This is the Twins won 97. The Orioles won 109.

And Earl Weaver's the manager. So you got Billy Martin versus Earl Weaver. This is like the two most explosive fucking managers of all time. If you're the Ups, that's just so much pressure to those games. Rage versus Fury. Who's going to win? Holy shit, yeah. Irresistible force and the immovable object here.

There they are. So more than 40 years later, when Earl Weaver was asked to recall the 1969 series, he answered, quote, I was frightened. Here we'd won 109 games and we had to win two out of three, or three out of five against a Billy Martin team. They were very scared. They were going to get fucking run here. Yeah, because, and surprised and upset. They didn't, though. Baltimore ended up losing to the Mets that year.

Great. Anyway, Baltimore won the first two games of the best of five series. Those were the two games in Baltimore. Both games went to extra innings, too, which is, wow. That's awesome. That's pretty good. Game three back in Minnesota, Martin was expected to start Jim Kat, but instead started Bob Miller, who was knocked out of the box in the second inning, and the twins were eliminated.

So now, Martin had been given a one-year contract for 69, which is standard back then for a new manager. sure you'd have no confidence in a guy who's never managed before so he asked for a two-year deal for 70 and 71 but Calvin Griffith was unhappy both that Martin didn't pitch cat because he liked cat a lot yeah yeah and the explanation he had asked Martin for had been quote this is this was Billy's explanation was quote because I'm the manager that's why that's why because I'm an adult that's why he was yeah he was looking for baseball reasoning of why you did that and Billy said, I don't have to tell you my baseball reasoning. I'm the manager. Because I'm your father. Shut up. Which is tough to say to someone who signs your paychecks, literally.

Not the GM, the actual guy whose money is, he's paying. That's not good. You've also paid me to make decisions and I made them. So shut up. Back then, though, that's not how that shit went down. Those managers were like, you know, it wasn't a conglomerate of people. I own the team. I'm sitting in the box.

I'll do what I want. So now Martin's decision, was defensible because Kat had been struggling with injuries and Miller had won late in the season during a tight pennant race. So it looked like he was the hot hand. Other events during the season, such as the fight with Boswell and Martin kicking Hubert Humphrey out of the locker room when he tried to visit after a twins loss also embarrassed the team. Hubert Humphrey ran for, you know, for president and all that shit. I think he was Lyndon Johnson's vice president, I believe. and then he ran for president, lost to Nixon.

kicked him out because it was a loss. So he said, no fucking visitors. It's a loss. Don't care. Don't care who's here. Look at how important you are. Fuck off. So that's what happened.

So the twins executives also received numerous complaints about Martin drinking heavily during road trips, which you knew was going to happen. It's Billy Martin. And were angered when Griffith told Minneapolis Tribune columnist Sid Hartman off the record that the twins were thinking of firing him. So Martin had led the team to a division title, but they felt like Martin was more trouble than he was worth, and other the team executives were trying to pressure Griffith to fire him. So October 14, 1969, Billy is fired.

Even though he took this team to a 97 win season and won their division and took them to the next level. Didn't matter. This is, this happens repeatedly in Billy's career, despite insane. on the field success as he gets fired. He could win the World Series and get fired while he's celebrating. It's insane. It's wild. I'd rather lose than win so well

and deal with this guy. Just constantly have to battle him with fucking bullshit. He and Steinbrenner were the perfect adversaries because nobody wanted to win more than Steinbrenner. So Steinbrenner has a giant ego but also

wants to win. So he'd get mad at Billy, then fire him and then go, fuck, but I want to win. So then he'd rehire him because he wants to win. He'd go, ah, that was a mistake firing him. I should just eat the shit. Then he'd go, no, that goddamn Billy, fuck him, he's fired. And then a month later, he'd hire him again. It was the craziest thing in the world.

Fuck, we stink. God damn it. But, yeah, because nobody gets fired up. He wants the manager to get fired up. And if he doesn't, then he's like, God damn it, fucking Billy wouldn't get fired up. You're fired. Bring Billy back. So that is crazy.

He gets fired here. Griffith said it was the hardest decision I've ever had to make about a manager. Yeah, because he fucking won, which is crazy. Griffith said, I've always been a Billy Martin man ever since he was with the Yankees. I liked his hustle and his desire as a ball player

and could find no fault with the way he managed on the field. But a general manager, Griffith also holds that post with the twins, should consult with a manager about certain situations. He didn't want to come in and see me. He thought I was being critical of the ball players. I never told him how to play the game of baseball. I never interfered with him doing his job on the field, but I think the twins are as much a part of me as

a Billy Martin. I'm the one who has to sign the ball players. I should have the right to say what's what. Sure. Yeah. He said prior to hiring him, realizing his explosive personality and his inexperience as a manager, I had numerous meetings with him to set policy and guidelines, which means nothing at that point. He still has to go out and play or the team has to play. Yeah, and you're going to start with this and then like, is this your boundary setting meeting? Is that what it is? Yeah, this is the guidelines. I'm in charge of this. You're in charge of that. No arguing about this. He said, I feel he completely ignored the understandings because he's winning. Normally winning is the key. Doesn't matter. Nobody cares what you're like. You're winning.

Bill Parcells was a pain in the ass to have as a, you know, for an ownership team. But he's winning. What do you want? You want to lose? Is that better? The conflict between him and the players getting their respect is a different thing. Exactly. Gretchen said that was a very difficult time. Billy had made the young players believe they could win. He brought all the Latin players into the fold. He motivated and rejuvenated the veterans. Billy changed the culture. He went to 100 banquets and 100 dinners for free. The fans were ecstatic. He put the twins on the baseball map. Sure, some crazy things happened that season, but it was also just Billy's first year. He's just a babe in the woods.

That's all it is. He's just so young. He's just such a child. Just treat me. Kid gloves, guys. You know, come on. Billy didn't understand what he'd done with, that was worth being fired. He felt certain that, he felt certain that with one more good pitcher, the twins may have won five or six divisions in a row.

He said, we could have been a, you know, really a thing. here. But it doesn't matter. He's shit-canned. So Billy Martin, in an article here, it says, Stunned Billy Martin says, I did my job. That makes sense. He said, Griffith said he completely ignored our understandings and all that. Martin said, I told Calvin on the phone, I wasn't going to get into a verbal confrontation about our agreeing and disagreeing. If I had anything to say to him, I'd tell him personally, but I won't tell him. him anything. And I won't meet with him like he asked me to do next week. I have no immediate plans for the future. I don't know if I'll stay in baseball. At this point, I'm just in the position

to say that I don't know what to do next. He said he's going to take his family to visit relatives in Nebraska. That's what he's doing next. Well, great. Yep. He said that that's a place to go to forget about everything. There's nothing there to remember. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. he said he got a call and he said Griffith told him I'm afraid I've got bad news for you I said that's good enough for me he said he wanted to talk to me

when he returned from the World Series and I said I didn't see any point in that I'm fired I'm fucking fired we're not going to talk about it which that's fair yeah that's that's like if a cop pulls you over and gives you a lecture and then gives you a ticket no no no no pick one

there's nothing worse than a cop go Pick a fucking path. Do you buy this like this? Who cares? Just give me the ticket. Break my balls or give me a ticket. That's it. Not both.

Not both. You can fuck, shut the fuck up and write or give me a long-winded bullshit and I don't have to pay anything or be bothered. I tell me to go on my way. That's fine. You get one of the two. You can't have both. Can't do both. Fuck you.

I'm really tired of the, do you buy it like this. No, I did this? Yes. Yes, I know it has to have mud flaps. Give me the ticket. I don't care. Exactly. I'm not doing it.

No. I won't be doing it. I will not be putting those stupid fucking things on my truck. That's me with my front license plates in New York. Nope, I'm good. You got to have a front license plate. Okay. And I'll never put it on.

It's never happening. I'm not ruining my truck with your fucking mud flaps. If you don't like that rocks fly up and hit you on motorcycles, drive a fucking car. That's what I do. I don't know. Put a shield around you like the rest of us do it 80 miles an hour, you fucking morons. Yeah. And Jimmy rides motorcycles.

I sold mine because I was tired of the fucking rocks. There you go. And opportunities are getting hit. That's crazy. That's great. So Billy said we haven't been able to tell our little boy, Billy Joe. Gretchen and I have been together for 10 years. We've had some trials and tribulations before.

We'll get really, no, not a relationship with Billy Martin. Is that right? No. We'll get by this one. We were very happy with the years we were with the twins. Because he was a scout and a coach and a player. He's been there for a long time. Now, okay, Rod Carew says,

who fires a guy who took a seventh place team and turned it into a division winner? Right. What the hell? Exactly. That's the thing. Carus... No, and the players, you're sending a bad message to the players, because you're telling the players, I don't really care about winning.

No. They're there to win. We get the guy that helps us win and we're getting rid of him. It gives us confidence that we believe in and then you shake at him. He said everyone was disappointed. We were obviously building a good thing and then he was gone. That's how everybody feels all the time. In 2009, the 40th anniversary of the 69 Twins Division victory,

a Minnesota newspaper columnist and radio host, Patrick Reese, wrote about how in late 69 you couldn't go anywhere in the Twin Cities without hearing the vow, quote, I'm never buying another ticket to a twins game. Uh-huh. And that's the other thing. He's very endearing to the fans because he so wants to win so fucking bad that when you fire him, the fans take his side. It's happened with Steinbrenner a hundred times.

Which pissed Steinbrenner off. He'd go, I'm the guy signing the checks. I do all this shit and they love him. Yes, they do. Sorry. I'm the guy that does this. No, you're not. No, you're not.

On the field, he's the guy that does that shit. Yeah. So they said, uh, Reese said the. Martin effect was more than a myth. In 1970, the twins won 98 games and another division with Bill Rigney as manager and as attendance fell 88,000. By 71, when the twins were losers, the attendance had dropped by more than 400,000 from the team record set in 69. Wow. And Reese said, and this is a fact, a decade after Billy was fired, you could still run into a 40-year-old,

sipping a beer in a local bar, waving in disinterest at the Twins game on the corner TV. saying, I haven't been to a game since they fired Billy. I miss Billy. Miss Billy. So Billy's trying to do it. There's an article here that says, winning not enough, Billy Martin can't figure it out. So it's just basically saying, I don't know why they fired me. He said, I don't plan to get back into baseball.

Not right now, anyway. Wow. He says he's broken up with her. He's done. Yeah, the fucking mistress has, the spell's been broken. Jesus. He said, I like Calvin. He's a fine man.

He says, but he already fired me, so why does he keep talking about me? What is he looking to do? Fire me again? Yeah. This is the ticket and the lecture. You fired me. That's enough. Now, shut the fuck up.

You don't get to tell me anymore. They say bumper stickers, which say bring Billy back, remain on a great number of cars. And there's other stickers saying call Fox, call Fox Ed Billy. What the hell does that mean? Call Foxxed? Call C-A-L-L-F-E-E-F. Fox dash ED, Billy. Call, I guess Cal is what they're trying to say?

Cal Foxed Billy? I don't even know. Whatever. In reference to the publicized differences between Martin and the club president Howard Fox. Okay. Oh, Cal Fox. But it's not. Yeah.

It feels influenced Cal. Yeah, they fucked up. That's a typo. It should be Cal and not call. That Cal Foxed Billy. Okay. That makes way more goddamn sense. So Billy's 41 years old.

He's only done baseball. That's all he's ever done. but he says, yeah, he might be done with it, though. That's all there is to it. And he probably hasn't made enough money to quit, right? God, no way. Hell, not even close. He needs a paycheck real bad.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. November 13, he likes to spend, too, so he needs a paycheck. November 13th, 1969, he has a new job here. They say fans starting to forget about Billy Martin. That's another thing here. They said the bring Billy back bumper stickers, no more. testimonial dinners to the popular opinionated fire brand who has tilted the establishment with no more success than Don Quixote.

Okay. Griffith hired the other guy here and they said no one's going to hold a benefit for Billy Martin though. He hasn't been left out in the cold. Billy just signed a $25,000 a year public relations contract with KDWB and already holds a similar position with a beer company. So that's a radio station here. is what he did. Apparently, he signed up to work for. Billy's a colorful guy. He's still, yeah, you want to listen to him. He'll get people in.

December 17th, 1969, he says he's happy and he's biting his time. I'm not going to take any job, you know, whatever. He said, I can't kid myself. When spring practice rolls around next year, it'll kill me to be away from baseball. And I'll probably cut my heart out during the season. But right now, it's just a. cross to bear. You can't divorce yourself from something you love, but I'm not going to cry about it either. So there you go. And he said, I'm the executive assistant to the president

of KW or KDWB in the cities. He's the what? The assistant to the president. So executive assistant to the president. Oh, okay. So it's a shadowing him. Yeah. He said I'm also learning radio management. I'll be dealing with youth and also doing some on the spot sports. Right now I'm making more money than I did with the twins and I'm happy. And they say on the office, you don't, you didn't watch the show. That was that was Dwight Shrewd's title. He would say, I'm the assistant manager and Steve Kurod go assistant to the manager. Oh, okay. He's not an assistant manager. Yeah, yeah, that's, uh, all right. That's dry. I just adore Steve Carell.

I love him too. I've never fucking cracked a smile watching that show. I'm like, what am I watching? This is so fucking bad. That's why when you said that, I was like, what? How did they do? But it's executive assistant. It's an actual title.

I feel like it's my fault. The manager is not that. I feel like it's my fault too because I've just, I'm never really working a lot of offices, so I don't know. Yeah, that's, yeah. I think that's what it is. It has to be because everyone else seems to like it. And I like the people on it are good. And somehow it'd be like if you took a bunch of great ingredients and you put it all together and it tasted like cat shit and you'd be like, why does this taste like cat shit?

Is this my mouth? It shouldn't be. I put things that go together together. These are great people. Makes no sense. Why is that fucking BJ, whatever the fuck. I can't believe they gave us that show and tried to tell us that that guy's funny. I hate him so much.

Who is this? BJ. He was in, I forget his last name. It doesn't matter. I just fucking can't stand him. And he's a writer on the show, too. He's just the least funny delivery of a line of all time. He's not funny. Billy says he has nothing to say about recurring rumors that he's headed back to the Yankees eventually. He said you'd have to ask the Yankees about that. I'll just say that if the right spot came along, I would consider it, but I'm not looking for a job. Okay. Not that. He said he went to contact Seattle pilots official after being fired by the twins for two reasons. The pilots, though, never came back to Seattle. They had one year, and that was 69.

And then they went to fucking Milwaukee and became the brewer. So. Done. Yeah, he said, I wanted to let the baseball world know that I was still interested. And I wanted to clear up a statement that Calvin Griffith made saying I was, I solicited a job with Seattle while I was still with the twins. This statement was not true. I priced myself out of the picture.

He said at Seattle. I'm too expensive for them. They were cheap as fuck that team. They said the whole trouble at Minnesota was Howard Fox. That's the vice president and traveling secretary. That's the guy I believe that he fought that time. With the keys, remember he threw the key at Billy. The next thing you know, he was beating the shit out of him.

He said the trouble between me and Howard started three years ago when I punched him in the nose. He said at that time he'd get me. He fired and he did eventually, I guess, he said. Is that why the brewers are yellow and blue? Yeah. They're the pilots' colors. They just kept the color and just changed the name. That's it.

Same shit. Isn't that interesting? It's a great team. I love everything about their logo. That's cool. The mitt and everything. That's pretty job, guys. They had lost the Braves and fucking needed a team.

He said, he's about Fox. He said he's also the one who made a big thing about gambling on the trips. These are professional men on a baseball team, not at Sunday school. I kept track of the games they had and made sure there's no rookies or guys who couldn't afford to play gotten games. Nobody got hurt. It just gave them a way to pass the time on trips. Everybody does it. Gambling on the team playing in sports happens right now.

It's been going on. It's the biggest thing in the fucking world. They all owe each other thousands of dollars and all this shit. That's just what they do. These are competitive guys with five hours to kill all in a tube together. They're going to gamble. That's it. They can't play basketball against each other or baseball.

on the plane so you can play cards though so they said all the they talk about the twins he had a lot of praise for the team and everything he said they all did a great job and I think the proof is in the pudding and the fact that they each collected $6,400 meaning that's for winning

the division to go into the playoffs the bonus the team changed I to we and without interruption I think we could have had a dynasty for four or five years at least and he said that he will miss the people in the area he said you ought to see the letter I get. I just finish reading the last

stack of them today and they're so great. I'm saving them. I told my wife we should paper a room with them so people can always see them because they're so warm and understanding. A lot of people sent copies of the letters to Griffith and he sent back form letters. Some people sent the form letters back to him.

Jesus, a lot of mail going on there. Billy Martin, this is September 24th, 1970, so after the next baseball season. So he sat out for 70. Billy Martin reportedly the choice to replace the Tigers manager. Oh. Talking about him in Detroit here.

They said he is scheduled, reportedly scheduled, to replace Mayo Smith, Mayo, as the manager of the Detroit Tigers here. So they said, Billy said, there's no way I can divulge anything. I've been talking to a few other clubs, too. Okay. That's interesting. October 30th, 1970, Billy is named the manager. of the Detroit Tigers.

Here we go. Here we go. Where he won't last. Where he won't last very long. He said, I think we can win the pennant, and that's why I'm here. He said, I don't think major changes are necessary. I think the material is here. There's just a few changes that need to be made.

That's it. He said, I know I'm taking a wonderful man's spot in Mayo Smith. I've admired him all my life. I guess he used to be a Yankee second baseman, so he knows him. He said, the general manager of the Tigers said, Billy's a lot different in many respects than Mayo, but that doesn't make Mayo wrong. Each type can do a certain job under certain circumstances. We just needed a change here. And it's a baseball.

Sometimes you just need to mix shit up and get a different vibe going on the team here. So Martin said, I don't think there's a generation gap talking about that this guy was a lot older and Billy's a lot younger. He goes, I don't think that guy, that was that guy's problem at all. He said, there's a communications gap. I plan to talk with each player individually and often. The only way you can stop clicks is to nip them in the bud. He said, loyalty and honesty are two-way streets. I'll give it and I'll expect it in return.

Right. There you go. He said, and I'll be strict with whatever it takes, too. Billy's hiring has no bearing on the handling of Denny McLean, they also said, too, because they said that Martin was hired. The team was asked if Martin was hired because he'd be able to deal more with Denny McLean, who was recently suspended, which we talked all about Denny McLean on the Denny McLean episode. That's a bad guy.

Yeah, he turned into a real bad guy. Now, Martin, the next newspaper article, discredits the inside story on McLean. Okay. He said, Billy Martin has been the Detroit manager less than two weeks and he's already in the middle again. This time he's the middleman and a story concerning. Denny McLean. The story is supposed to be the inside one on why the tigers got rid of McLean. There's only one thing wrong with the story.

It's not true. Billy Martin attending the World Series here was standing in a hotel lobby waiting for his wife Gretchen to join him. When a guy he knows came over to him and asked him about the story some people are circulating, the one where Martin asks the Detroit brass to get rid of Denny McLean at any cost because he'd pose a tremendous morale problem as long as the other players remained. Right. Listening to the story again, Martin said morale had nothing to do with McLean leaving. We need a third basement in a shortstop.

We listened to all the other offers and thought Washington's was best. They said, you feel you could have handled McLean? He said, there isn't a slightest doubt in my mind that could have handled him. I had no problem. I could have beat the shit out of him if I didn't want to handle him. Yeah, just punch him. He'd get the idea. They said, how would you have done it?

And he said, easy. I'd have sat his butt down and had to talk with him. I would have told him my rules and when we would have seen what happened. If you wanted to be treated like a man, I'd treat him like a man. If you wanted to be treated like a boy, I would have accommodated him that way too. Diplomacy until I need to punch him in the mouth. Exactly. Then I'll smack him around and put him in time out.

He said, what do you figure your biggest job with the tigers will be? And he said, molding them together. Get them thinking of we instead of I'm. And yeah, he said, like Casey Stangle would do. So he said Martin's wife joined the group and Detroit's new manager employed a beautifully controlled soft voice. Talk very differently once his wife arrived. He said, cripe, Gretch, you're so slow. What took you so long?

You never get out of first gear. See, thanks for saying that in front of the press, Billy. Appreciate that. What's matter? You slow, fuck? Let everyone know I'm shitting ropes up there while you're waiting for me. That's real nice. So 1971, Tigers are 91 and 71.

pretty goddamn good. They finished in second place that year. And pretty good, though. The Tigers also second in attendance that year also, which is really what they give a shit about. Selling tickets. Making money. Yeah, you bring Billy in. It shows fans you want to win and then they buy tickets.

That's kind of how it works, you know. So anyway, yeah, this team here, who's out norm cash? There's some good players on this team here. I think you still had, I think was K-L K-Line's still there. He's 36, but he was still there. Jean Lamont. Joe Niko, Phil's brother, the lesser Niko here. Okay.

Mickey Lollich, yeah, there's some good guys on this team. So Martin announced that the Tigers would win the 71 American League East title and that the Orioles were over the hill. He said he's going to run his team his way and that's it. He said he made clubhouse tirades for the poor play even during spring training. And that concerned Detroit management apparently. They're like, ooh, he's getting crazy. Billy didn't like to lose in spring training.

He'd get pissed him off. I don't think he likes to lose much at all. Yeah, but I mean, he knew spring what it was for, though. Yeah, yeah, but he doesn't want to lose. No, well, there's later on, like when Steinbrenner will get mad because they're losing in spring training. And Billy's like, do you know how baseball works? None of this matters. Yeah.

Shut up. So this is from the book. Billy told the Tigers over and over that his system, it was, that his system of winning baseball wasn't as much about speed as it was about aggressive. He wanted to always score the first run of the game, put opponents on the defensive. He didn't play for big innings early in games like many managers. He played to score first. If a game was a fight, a comparison Billy Martin would always make, then it mattered who got the first punch in. Which makes sense.

Yeah, it could be a shutout. If you score the first run, it might only be the only run. You never know in baseball. Sure, sure, yeah. He had other cannons, too. He wanted his players to go from first to third on singles. aggression, make them throw you out. That's the other thing.

Take that extra base and make them, make perfect throws and tags because they're more likely to not do it. Position. Yep. And he didn't mind if a guy got thrown out once in a while like that, fine. That's all right. He said he wants hard slides into that third baseman too. He said, let's see if their outfielders can make that throw and let's see if the third basement will stand in there and make the tag with the ball and the runner arriving at the same time.

slide over the bag, have the third baseman take the contact and the throw. Fuck them. Yeah, that's smart baseball. He wanted base runners faking a steal of home, hoping to draw a balk from the pitcher. It would steal a run and demoralize the pitcher. Little things. It's never giving, never relaxing for a second. It's always pushing and pushing and pushing.

And it works, too. He said he wanted his players to knock down middle infielders trying to make double plays. He wanted to try more hit-and-run plays, teaching his players that they didn't have to hit the ball toward a particular hole in the defense, as many managers taught the play. Billy instead just wanted the batter to put the ball in play. They said Rodriguez later insisted he picked up at least a dozen hits doing just that. Billy made a standing rule that any player who got hit with a pitch with the bases loaded would get $150 cash and the right to pick his next day off. Oh, that's fun. Get hit with a pitch and drive in a run.

Yeah, you're getting something. Pick your own day off. Yep. And Billy made sure his players knew that he always had their backs. In the first 10 days of the 71 season, Billy got thrown out of two games defending players who were upset with strike zones. Oh. This is all to rally the troops. That's all this is.

That was all. Yeah. I don't know you're on their side. Absolutely. So as soon as the season starts, he's shit talking. This is Ken Harrelson. He likes to shit talk. The Tigers had been surprised when Billy, whose feisty representation.

He was fairly docile during spring training. He was getting the lay of the land, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. So they were astonished at the man in the same number one uniform who on opening day of the season became a different person altogether, a jumpy maniac, a hyper dugout presence who was always ready to go after anyone in the ballpark. Yeah, Billy would pace in the dugout all the time. He'd move around like a lion in a cage.

Hands in his back pockets, so he wasn't screaming and yelling and waving. because he would be if they weren't in his back pockets. That's fun. Yep, that's how he is. He's disarmed himself. Yep, that's exactly what it is. He's like, nope, not going to wave my hands around, not going to punch anything, not going to throw him around, not going to make gestures. Hulcher these sidearms.

Yep. He knows what he's fucking doing. In the first inning of the first game, Billy started in on Cleveland Indians flamboyant first baseman Ken Harrelson, who liked to wear tight tailored uniforms, a fu-man shoe mustache, and multicolored wristbands. Oh. Off the field, Harrelson was the king of early 70s style, known for his closet full of Nehru jackets. What are Nehru jackets?

It's a, you'd know it if you saw it. It's a 70s type of jacket. Oh, yeah, that one. Polyester style. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. No, different, completely different than that. It's late 60s, early 70s style,

not leisure suit, suit shit. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of, yeah, hard to look it up here. It's not. How do you spell it? Uh, N-E-H-R-U. N-E-H-R-U. Yeah, N-R-U.

Yeah. Jackets? Jackie, you'll see it and go, oh, yeah, those 60s jackets. Oh, it is, uh, is it, is it, is it, is it, is it a, uh, like a, a, um, a cultural thing? Cultural thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. The ones that they're showing me have no collar. They're very, it looks like a, um, kind of like a, a cultural jacket like somebody would. What do you talk? Just say it. What do you talk? What are you talking about?

Eastern middle. I don't know. Just say the culture you're thinking. Okay. Eastern Asian jacket. Okay. Cultural. I'm like, what do you mean?

Like a, like a. I don't know. I don't know if you meant hippie or black people or what are we talking about. Be specific. It looks like, yeah. Looks like something that you would wear for like a religious outfit or something. Yeah, no, that's just that late 60 style of weird shit. Yeah, that was a big thing back there.

So you can show your hip and index. to it. Oh yeah. You want to show up that? You had to be mod. It was back then. Yeah. You know, modern. You know what I mean? Show me you know something. Yeah, that's how it is. I don't like it. So it's too much to keep up with every week. Yeah. That's God, the fashion. Yeah. I guess it's better than sweatpants and slides, but still. There is that. You know what I mean? That's being out there and in the fucking ball. Can't do that either. Can't do that either. Like you fucking dirt bag. Look at you. Yeah. Put on a pair of pants. The airport's the worst. Pants, just shoes.

I don't care about pants. You want to be comfortable. Fine. Cover your goddamn feet. I'm tired of seeing toes. I'm tired of seeing toes. I'm tired of seeing men's toes. I'm tired of people shuffling along.

Stop shuffling. Pick your goddamn fucking feet up. Put shoes with laces on. And you can pick your fucking feet up and they won't fall out. Yes. Maybe those are around your fucking heel. God damn it. That drives me fucking crazy.

Get out of my way. It's like everyone's in a mental hospital. That's what it feels like. Everyone's walking shuffling around like their fucking mediation. it up in a mental hospital. It's fucking crazy. Or they're like dragging an IV next to them. That's how they're all walking because

they got these fucking shoes on. Can't take it anymore. Can't go too far too fast. No, that's what I mean. You had to see that, but that was me holding a pole next to me. A very sick person. A very sick man.

So Billy yelled from the dugout, you clown Harrelson, where are your bell bottoms? You think your clothes are going to hide the fact that you can't catch anything in the dirt anymore. You stink. Everybody knows you can't go to your right anymore. Just getting them guys head.

Yeah. Everybody knows you can't hit a curve ball. You're washed up. You should get off the field. Go sit with your designer and some disco. That's where you belong. Jesus Christ. They said the once a somnial

Tiger's dugout was sleepy no more. We were all looking around at each other. Catcher Bill Freehand said. This was a whole new ball game. Our manager was crazy. These games were a war, us against them. There was that obvious five minutes into the first game of the season. So this is a mess.

And Harrelson, it turned out, barely played in 71, then retired at the end of the year. So Billy clocked him. He scouting him out of business. Yeah. Scouting him right. Next up, there was a ball player named Willie Horton here, who he had a feud with. Martin repeatedly benched the guy and that was a problem

and he kept himself out of the lineup with an alleged injury that Martin didn't believe. This is from the book. Billy's intensity was not directed only at the opposition when Willie Horton, one of his stars and a crowd favorite as a Detroit native, did not run out a ground ball, which is Billy's fucking...

I mean... Fucking do it, yeah. That, I mean, he pulled Reggie Jackson in the middle of a fucking inning because he was lazy. He lazily went after a fly ball and didn't really give it much effort. Billy pulled him right off the fucking field. You get out of there.

And that was when he was like, you know, the huge star. You do this 100% or you don't do it at all. He's nuts like that. So Billy yanked him from the game and benched him for the next game too. When Horton was reinserted into the lineup, he said he was injured and couldn't play. Uh-oh. Where the hell did you get hurt? You were fine when I pulled you off the field.

You were sitting. Apparently, Billy and Horton had a 10-minute screaming match in the manager's office afterwards. You know what, though? I got to give Billy credit. Ten years ago, he couldn't fight for ten minutes without throwing a punch. That's pretty impressive. Well, he's figuring out that he probably can't throw him anymore. Yeah, that's not bad.

Oh, no, God, no. That's not even close to the case at all. This is actual self-control. In front of the lawsuit, perhaps. Maybe. They did not exit as pals after the argument. Billy wanted Horton suspended by the Tigers and told reporters so. Horton

wanted to be traded. They feuded for a while, but Horton ended up back in the lineup and played well. Horton later, who later, by the way, became a coach for Billy in the 80s. Is that right? That's the other thing. If you fight with Billy in the beginning, doesn't mean you won't be friends later. He might earn his respect. He said, Billy made me see some things for what they really were, and he became a mentor.

Interesting. This was after their, now we'll talk about their first loss of a regular season game in April. Okay. Okay, baseball is not football. No. Losses happen all the time. You're going to lose a couple times a week. It's just the way it happens. You got fucking 162 games. And the best teams in history can only win 115 out of those.

And most of the time, the really good teams win 100 out of 162. So great teams lose a ton. A hundred is amazing. Yeah. So when the Tigers lost their first regular season game to Baltimore in April, one run lost. It wasn't a blowout or a round. anything. Billy came back into the team's clubhouse and saw his players surrounding the customary meal spread, a table in the center of the room piled high with a hot entree like fried chicken, meatloaf, or pork chops, as well as cold cuts, condiments, and other food and drink. The post-game

spread. In a scene that would be repeated in clubhouses from Oakland to New York from 1971 and 1988, and by the way, also repeated in a hundred baseball movies, this scene, Billy scream, go head and stuff your faces, you bunch of fucking losers. We should have won that game. How can you eat? I'm hungry. How do you have a stomach to eat? Yeah, it's wrong with you. You should fucking sit there sadly and then sulk out of the dressing room eventually and go home. I want to throw up right now. Yeah, go home and cry to your wives. So then Billy charged across the room, grabbed the food table with both hands and flipped it over. Flipped it. Then he kicked it a couple of times, too, just to make sure.

Nothing was left edible. I need none of this to be able to not touch the ground. This is all going to be fucking garbage now. Willie Horton said stuff went flying everywhere. There was chicken in the lockers, coal slaw and guy's shoes, beans on clothing and food and drink all over the walls. Oh my God. I got some coal slawed my loafers here. Thanks.

Thanks, manager. Thanks, Skip. Appreciate it. I got gravy on my Leru. What is the jacket called? Nauru. I got a chicken thigh in the fucking breast pocket of my nairu over here. This isn't good.

Shit. Shit. So he said, then Billy just stormed into his office and he slammed the door. We all kind of looked around. Nobody had ever seen anything like that. But everybody knew that Billy really hated to lose. And maybe we better start hating to lose too. Shit, if this is what it's like when we lose, we better fucking win.

You don't have to love winning. Just hate losing. Hate it. Hate it so much. You should hate losing more than you like winning. Absolutely. That's the only way to play sports. Yeah, you don't want to fucking hate losing.

God damn it. That sucks. So they said there were other moments later viewed as motivational or as a case of team bonding. When Cleveland's hard throwing Sam McDowell, that sudden Sam McDowell, who Sam Malone from Cheers, Ted Danson's character, is loosely based off of. He was a guy great pitcher. I mean, it was a tremendous pitcher who'd completely. He completely drank himself out of the game. Turned in a heaping pile of shit.

Just booze. All booze. On the end of a bar. Yep. So Sam McDowell hit two tigers in one game and threw inside to two more. Billy put reliever Bill Denahey in, known as Wild Bill, into the game. Oh, boy. Billy told Denahey to use his natural wildness to his best effect.

Just let it fly. See what happens. Take the glasses off, Wild Day. Yeah, go ahead. When Dennyy hit the first batter, catcher Ray, Fossi in the back. Fossi charged the mound. In a flash, Billy sprinted from the dugout. Oh. That's not normal. Normally, the manager isn't one of the first three guys fighting at the pitcher's mound. Yeah, the bullpen gets there before him usually. Usually, yeah. The first one to get to the wrestling mob around Fossi and Denahe. So he's the first guy there. Head of the first baseman, the third baseman. God, dang. The rest of the tigers naturally followed. Yeah, I guess if the manager's going, we're going to. Both benches and bullpens. Both benches and bullpies.

pens emptied and in the brawl that ensued, Denny he kicked Fosse in the head and cut him badly. He is wild bill. Jesus. Horton, a former amateur boxer, broken Indians pitcher's nose with a one-punch knockout. That poor bastard. That's 25 guys.

You get the former fucking Golden Gloves guy to fight. That's who you get matched up with. Great. Thanks a lot. And he's probably a reliever who ran from the bullpen really fast. Just trying to settle some shit and just got clobbered. I'm just trying to look interested. That's all. That's what we're supposed to do.

I just want to look like I'm part of the team. Yeah, just trying to look like I'm into this, man. I'm the only one of the broken bones. God damn it. And Gates Brown, who was a tough 220-pound reserve outfielder who had once served time in jail for burglary, decked another Indians player and sent him to the disabled list with a concussion. Wow. After the game, about 15 tigers were in a bar across the street from Tiger Stadium.

Think about ballplayers drinking in a bar across the street from their home stadium. directly across. You have to get so far away. Yeah. I mean, they'd wait like two hours. They'd hang out on the clubhouse. Then they'd go. But still, there's going to be fans there.

Right across the street? That's unbelievable. And they said fans kept sending over drinks, said Charlie Silvera, one of Billy's coaches, who was in the bar that night. They'd raise their glasses and yelled to the slugging tigers. They love that shit. Yeah. And you know what?

The guys on the team loved it. The hitters loved that Denahey had protected them. And pitchers loved. loved that the hitters had run out to protect Denahey. It brought everyone closer. Yeah. Is this where it started? Like the camaraderie of once there's a brawl, we all brawl together?

Well, that's how it's always been. Yeah. And Billy knew that. And Billy knew old-time baseball. That's how it was in the old time. And it's not a matter of just sit and wait for a home run. It's a matter of take it up the guy's ass. Defend your guy.

Yeah. Shove the ball up his ass if you can. Yeah, yeah. So they said there was repeated conflicts with umpires, with the personnel off the field. He accused the organist of Oakland in Oakland of trying to distract his players playing organ shit at the wrong time

and the scoreboard operators in Baltimore of spying on his team. Oh. That happens a lot though, because they remember... That's how the Astros did it. That's how they did it. Bernie the Brewer,

who would slide down the fucking slide back in the day. They were accusing him of fucking stealing signs and giving them in, the whole thing was, weird. After a poor April, Martin's players won seven in a row to surge within four and a

half games of the top placing Red Sox near the start of June. The results helped establish Martin as one of the best managers in baseball on the field because now he's done it twice too. June 30th, 1971. Billy is upset about Baltimore's curfew.

Oh, the town? Yeah. Okay. A three-run homer by Baltimore's Brooks Robinson caught the Tigers in the ninth inning and a city curfew overtook the teams in the 13th.

A lot of these teams, a lot of old times they have curfews for things. It was for noise and shit

like that for surrounding people. Like I remember at the, even in New York, Madison Square Garden had a curfew.

Like the wrestling shows used to be 8 p.m. until, you know, either this card or curfew. That was it. Yeah.

So that was how it was. He said, why must Baltimore be different than all the other cities? Why do they have a bunch

of Puritans here. Someone ought to tell him it's 1971. Under city law, no inning of baseball may be started after 11.50 p.m. on weekdays, an action must end precisely at 1159 on a Saturday

night. He said, this law is as old as the ships in the Baltimore Harbor. It's stagnant. Ah, bullshit. 71 here, this is July 20th. Martin's views clash withumps. Oh, what do you think's going to have in here.

Detroit manager Billy Martin and veteran umpire Larry Knapp staged a three-ring circus Sunday that might wind up in the commissioner's lap. Uh-oh. The point of contention was how long relief pitcher Tom Timmerman, or how long he should have, to warm up when the game with the Royals was resumed after a one hour and 40-minute rain delay. Billy said, I'll push this protest harder than it's ever been pushed. I'll take it all the way to the commissioner if I have to.

yeah he said that um there i guess there was an argument over timerman warmed up for 21 minutes before nap the crew chief told him to get ready to pitch that's when martin started getting mad and he said the rule book says my pitcher's allowed as much time as he wants to warm up after a delay okay now the umpire said it's strictly a matter of judgment you'll find that in the rule book too he doesn't have a leg to stand on. It's the same old Billy Martin not caring about anything but Billy Martin the umpire said. I told him, look, there's 26,000 people in the stands today. This guy's got a gate to worry about. He tells me, I don't care about them. I care about me. I pay, I tell them he's paying, they're paying a salary, those people up there. Yeah, he's like, I want to win. I'm not going to fuck about

whatever. So August 10th, 1971, Reggie Smith and Billy Martin square off. after a game. Reggie Smith is a big mean-looking son of a bitch, too. Played for the Dodgers a lot in late 70s. Reggie Smith was walking to his car after yesterday's 12-11 win and slash Donny Brooke with the Tigers. He was sipping a beer minding his own business. He's walking to his car sipping a beer. Excellent. Very 1971.

At the same moment, Detroit manager, Billy Martin, was walking toward the field parking area, their pads crossed and tempers flared. Hey, you got a big mouth from 90 feet away, yelled Martin. You looking for a fight? This is Christ. Smith, though he says he wasn't looking for trouble, replied, I'm ready. The two never came to blows, thanks to the intervention of pitching coach Art Fowler, who parted the would-be combatants.

Fowler was quickly helped by some Boston police. Watson Suppolstra, a member of the Detroit Press Corps, was on the scene. Red Sox Center fielder had words for him also. Quote, he kept following me around and pestering me, said Smith. I told him to leave me alone in no uncertain terms. What business is it of some writer tell us what to do? Okay. Another guy who didn't play Joe LaHood said, who was also involved in the incident with the Tigers here,

said that the Red Sox outfielder reported he was threatened by Martin and told to keep his hands high because he too was guilty of a big mouth. LaHood laughed and Martin said The true story of Billy Martin happened two years ago in Minnesota there when Martin threatened Rico Petricelli Rico went over to the dugout steps and challenged Martin to a fight You'd better believe he sat on the bench and didn't move La Haud continues For the record, Smith is 17 years younger and almost 35 pounds heavier than Martin Spolster reported that Martin commented,

I wish the cops had let us go at it. The way he was moving, he was a son. sucker for my punch. Stop trying to fight people who are younger than you. A sucker for my punch. Younger professional athletes, yeah. Martin was rewarded with a new two-year contract through 1973 with a raise and salary. Oh, that's great.

They like it here. So, by the way, Horton and Martin in the press are denying there's any feud between them. Horton said, I love the guy. I really do. He's very much like Charlie Dresson. I think we have a mutual respect for he. other. It's no secret that I had some problems, not all of them related to baseball last season. I said a few things in anger that I'm sorry for now, but I know that Billy doesn't hold them

against me. Things should be a lot different this year. I've taken off at least 15 pounds and I'm in a good frame of mine and honestly believe we can make a run for the pennant. Nice. Yeah. And we know they did make up because he hired him later. Okay. March, what is this, March 30th, 1972. Jim Brewer. by the way. Remember him? He's the guy who's face he broke or allegedly broke. Pitching for the Dodgers here. They say is not a person you would invite to the same party as Billy Martin. No, they don't like each other. Martin says, you spell that name, F-I-N-K, Fink. Like rat. Yeah. What he doesn't know is that one of these days I'm going to trade for him before he gets out of baseball and I'm going to take care of him once I get him over on my club. I'm going to trade for him so I can beat the shit out. out of him. I can hold him still. I'm going to trade in a punching dummy.

What the fuck? Won't that be something? I can't wait for him to hear that Billy Martin just made a trade for him. Yeah, he'll shit his pants probably here. So, this is how this goes. Now, they're talking about how Martin's authority, they're going

back to the Dave Boswell incident, which was the fight that he beat the shit out of those people outside of here. Martin said, what I really ought to do is stage a match between Boswell and that Think Brewer. Let them push each other around for a while. Then I'll take on the winner.

Jesus Christ. He said, listen, fellows, I don't want you to get the impression on just some kind of rowdy bum. I was always fresh, I guess. Brash may be a better word, but I was never a vile bum. Casey Stengel and Charlie dress and molded me the way I was. He said, I'm not kidding. Baseball's going to get a real black guy someday because they'll use the precedent of the Billy Martin Jim Fink case.

Everybody ought to do something about it. People fight on the field. That goes on on the field. Shut up about it. 1972, Detroit Tigers, 86 and 70, first in the ALE. That's wonderful. Win their goddamn division here. They go on to lose in the ALCS to the Oakland A's.

It goes all five games, though, and it's the A's were a fucking, I mean, they were an overwhelming force in those times. Nobody could beat them. They were nasty. So pretty impressive for Billy. He's very happy. were number one in attendance in the entire fucking American League also, which is really all the goddamn teams concerned about. They're winning and they have high attendance. This is great. Everybody's happy. So they said that in spring training, he was nice and relaxed. His tigers

were a favorite and he liked it. The season started late due to a player strike and missed games were not made up, which left teams playing an unequal number of games. Not everybody played the same amount of games, which is interesting. 86 and 70 is. Eighty-six and 70 is. is not 162. No, that's... By any fucking stretch of the imagination. That's 156. Yeah, yeah.

So there's less games now. So that's how this goes. Once play started, Billy was himself. He would berate everybody and yell at people from the dugout. He got ejected in the second game of the season. Oh, boy. There you go, obviously. April 19th, 1972, Billy scoffs at Earl Weaver feud.

Okay. What is that man? He's saying, that's not a few. It's not a feud. He says, well, I come to Baltimore and right off the bat, I read where I'm cocky, and then I've said I'd punch Earl Weaver in the nose, is what he said. Yeah. He said, cocky, let them prove I'm wrong. I think I've got a pretty good ball club capable of winning the pennant. Hit Weaver in the nose. He said, why would I want to punch Earl Weaver in the nose? He said, let me give you my opinion on Weaver. Earl's a great manager. His record proves it. And it's also my opinion that he should have been voted manager of the year a couple times. The guy who knocked me and what job he did, didn't he? The guy who knocked me and what a job he did, didn't he, said, I never won a pennant. He said, well, the year I managed Minnesota to the Western Division Championship, the Orioles didn't beat us that easily in the championship series.

If you recall, two of the three games went into extra innings, 12 and 11. Powell hit a home run with two out in the ninth to tie one of them. So, you know, he said also, tell the writer who hit me so much, hit me so much that he's invited to come over to my house and see the World Series rings and pictures. Tell him if he's nice, I'll let him touch DiMaggio shoes and gloves. And if he's real nice, I'll let him touch my glove and bat. Yeah. Okay.

Now, the players strike interrupted some of the season for about a week. So teams played anywhere from 154 to 156 games, depending. The Tiger's second game of the revised season brought them to Baltimore. And the tone of the nearly season-long competition between the teams was established from the first pitch. Earl Weaver immediately started getting on home plate umpire Dave Phillips because he thought he wasn't calling enough strikes for Oriol starter Jim Palmer. Unwilling to let his opponent get the advantage, Billy started yelling across the diamond at Weaver. Shut up, you little midget, Billy shouted. Jesus Christ.

He said, Weaver retorted, I will if you tell the guy behind the plate to do his job and call that pitch at the knees a strong. strike. When Palmer's next pitch was called a strike, Billy yelled at the umpire. So every pitch he's going to get yelled at by somebody. Don't let him call the game for you, he yelled at the umpire. Mind your own business, Billy, we've encountered. This is during the game from dugout to dugout. Cross the field.

And this was the first inning. If I'm the up, I'm like, I'm going to kick you both the fuck out right now. I'm not going to hear this all day. I don't care. I hate you both. Wow. By the fourth inning, Phillips had had his fill of the dugout repartee. He called both managers to home plate and insisted he would eject the next manager who said a fucking word about balls or strikes.

Shut up and let me call the rest of the game. Billy lasted until the sixth inning. Then he was gone, thrown out by Phillips. Billy's first ejection in a hundred games with the Tigers. Weaver smiled and waved goodbye as Billy exited. Afterward, Billy was heading to the Tiger's bus walking across a darkened parking lot outside Baltimore's Memorial Stadium when a fan accosted him. Oh, what are you? As late as the early 80s, visiting teams sometimes had to wade through fans to get to a team bus.

Security was often lax or non-existent. The approaching fans said, you better win tomorrow. Take a hike, Billy answered. I'm not kidding around, the fan said. Jack Sears, a 25-year-old supermarket employee and former resident of Pontiac, Michigan. Go fuck yourself, Billy said. Sears replied with a fuck you and a shove to the shoulder. Billy responded with, I'll give you one guess.

He punched him. Punched him right in the nose. You don't touch me and expect me not to hit you. Fuck you is one thing. You touch me. I'm hitting you. Don't know what you're doing. The two scuffled a little until they were pulled apart.

Billy boarded the team bus. Jack Sears after giving his name to reporters was never heard from again. Who knows? So, oh my God, that's fucking funny. Now, this guy said, I wasn't mad about it. anything, Martin said. This guy was blocking my way to the team bus. He was swearing and I told him to get away and I pushed him.

He called me a name, dove at me and knocked me against the bus. He said, so I was fight. Fuck you off for me. Yeah. That's it. Sears works in a local food chain outlet. He said, I'm Chili Willey, the frozen food man. That's his quote. What is that?

I don't know. He said, that's the department I work in. I work in frozen food over at the fucking supermarket. So they call me Chili Willie. Yeah, that's it. Now, Sears interviewed in the parking lots, lived in Baltimore for 15 years, but was a native of Pontiac and loved the Tigers. His girlfriend said, that's all he talks about. If it wasn't for the Tigers, I wouldn't have this ring, he said.

She said, I guess he's proposed. Then also, Sears said that just before the tussle, he'd shaken hands with Al K-Kline because he was his idol. Oh. So he wasn't, he was a supporter of Billy's. Right. And turned ugly, though. Still got punched in the face. That's what happened.

Hey, there you go. Take that souvenir home with you. So he says, Billy says he manages his own way, but he learned some of the ways of, you know, from other managers. He says, things have changed. It's harder to manage. The players are a different breed. He said, when I got benched, I didn't say anything. The modern boy does, young guy.

He said, he wants to know why. I like that. It's important to communicate. It eliminates the generation gap and stops little things before they can grow. He said he learned psychology from Casey, which is what buttons to push with certain guys, how to be a leader, how to get them going. He said from Joe Gordon, he learned what not to do. There you go. He always hated that guy.

1972, they talk about the Hall of Fame. And he said, when do you think you'll, they said, when do you think you'll make it? He said, I can make it anytime I want. All I have to do is donate the bat I have to Cooperstown. It's the last one Joe DiMaggio used in his career, and it will say donated by Billy, Billy Martin. That's how I'll make it. That's pretty fucking cool. DiMaggio must have really fucking liked it.

He gave him his last batty ever used. Yeah. And just giving it anything of his. Yeah. That's amazing. And his glove he said too. Yeah. Pretty wild.

So not bad. August 11th, 1972. Billy Martin feud with Earl Weaver may be a real thing is a newspaper article. Gee, you think? Yeah. Yeah. They don't like each other? Yeah, wow, weird.

He said, I'm not feuding with Weaver. I just don't think he should be allowed to say what umpires should work his ball games. If the league pick office lets him do it, then I should be able to pick my umpires too. That's all. He said, what the fuck? I'm just tired of his bitching and he gets what he wants. Right. Yeah.

He said, you know, I've got enough trouble handling this club of mine without letting the league telling them how to assign umpires. He said, evidently Weaver can do both. Maybe that's why he's in second place, he said. Oh. He's trying to worry about umpires too fucking much here. So, yeah, that's been going on forever. Now, this is about the A's.

Quote, the swinging A's as they came to be known, also had the most feared lineup in the best pitching staff in the American League. This is like Raleigh Fingers and those guys. This was a real good team. When they came to Detroit in the late summer to, the AL East leading Tigers, they took two of three games. Two of the A's stars, Reggie Jackson and Burke Campanaris, were also drilled by Tigers pitchers in the series.

Probably not an accident. When the A's came back for another series in August, both benches emptied after some inside pitches from Detroit rookie Bill Slayback. Various pitchers are players squared off and Horton remained undefeated. Yeah, the boxer's going to kick everybody's ass. Decking Oakland's Mike Epstein with one punch. August 23rd, 1972. The pennant race is heating up, and Billy is ready for it, man.

Billy also, oh, the Oakland outfielder and Tigers. Oh, that's right, because there was a problem when they're talking about the bench-clearing brawl with the Tigers, or with the A's that we were talking about there. They said the Oakland outfielder and Tiger manager, Billy Martin, oh, I'm sorry, said that. This newspaper article is so faded. It's hard to see. The Oakland outfielder said Tiger manager Billy Martin was the culprit. This guy said, I've never, I never fight in my life. I heard Martin tell the catcher to have the pitcher knock me down.

If he tries to hit me, what do I do? I've got to protect myself. And Billy said, if he was mad, why didn't he fight me? I had him backed up against the wall and he said, no, no, he wouldn't fight. Why not? He figured he'd get beat. That's why. All right, that is fucking fun there.

Here we go. There were whispers of discord that swept through the team. Mostly on the road. Billy was drunk in front of the plane, or Billy almost got in a fight in the hotel lobby bar. The Tiger's front office heard the rumblings. There was added tension in this team because Billy essentially had only three regular starters, Rodriguez, Brinkman, and Kline when he was healthy.

Everyone else knew, everyone else was caught in a revolving platoon system that Billy was felt was necessary. to squeeze every last run out of a sputtering batting lineup. That's one thing Billy does to piss players off is fucks with the lineup a lot. Pulls people, moves people. Moves, platoons people who think they should be starting every day. And they're like, I got to get in a rhythm. And he's like, no, no, that guy against us pitcher is a better matchup.

Use it on the bench. And that pisses guys off if they don't totally trust him. You know what I mean? So some players in the Tigers dugout were simply tired of Billy's incessant pressuring tactics. Even if they kept their mouths shut or they kept their distance, The veteran corps of the lineup continued to play hard, happy at least that Billy had them chasing the division title. In that sense, not much had changed in 20 years of baseball. Casey Stangle, who platooned his players, had once famously said that every manager has 10 guys who love him, 10 guys who hate him, and 5 are undecided.

I've heard that a lot. The key for the manager, Stengel said, was to keep the 5 who are on the fence about you away from the 10 who hate you. Which is why Casey's fucking hilarious. Yeah. Keep the majority in what I do. That's it. Yeah. Keep those guys.

Don't let them get swayed. Then you're fucked. And yeah. So after the last weekend of the, or by the last weekend of the 72 regular season, the first place Red Sox came to Detroit for the final three games of the season. Boston had a half game lead over the Tigers. So it's a winner take all series here for the division. The division winner would be the one that won two or three.

That's it. Two out of the three. The Tigers quickly won the ones. the first two games ending the drama. The Red Sox won the final game of the season, but the Tigers won the division with an 86 and 70 record, won half game better than the Red Sox at 85 and 70. So the settlement of the April player strike established that some teams played fewer games. So Boston didn't, they played a game less. That's it. They played one more game. They might have won. Who knows? So Billy had led two teams in three years to the ALCS. Each team had been a reclamation.

project. It was the work of a budding baseball genius, which is exactly how most of the baseball community now viewed him. On the eve of the ALCS, the ALCS champion A's, even Reggie Jackson said, I don't like Billy Martin because he plays tough baseball, but I probably love him if I played for him. Well, guess what? You would trust me. I can see the future, Reggie. You're not going to like it at all. You're going to fight with him a lot. Hang on those words, Reg. Yep. So they said, in the losing locker room after they lost the ALCS, Billy barred visitors in media until he'd addressed his team. Through the rickety clubhouse door of creaky old Tiger Stadium,

reporters could hear Billy saying, I'm proud of every one of you guys, every one of you guys, every one of you use. On a personal level, though, he was crushed. Billy's old Yankee roommate, Charlie Silvera, sat with Billy in his office after all the reporters and players had left the stadium and they were drinking a beer. and Silvera said, we replayed and rehashed the key plays, the umpires call at first base, the two plays at the plate. We did that maybe once or twice, and then Billy said, come on, we've got to go up and see Campbell in his office.

We need to go talk to him, too. The Tiger's executive suite was on the roof by the right field line, and Billy and Silvera had to walk through the narrow concourse of the stadium beneath the seats to reach the elevator that would carry them to the offices. The fans had filed out and the concourse was empty, but for a few maintenance men. He said, we were walking in silence, neither of us talking. And then about halfway there, when there was no one else around, Billy just stopped. He said, Charlie, I really wanted this one. And he started to cry. He put his head on my shoulder, kind of fell into my arms and said, I wanted to win today so much.

That's what he wants here. It's all he's about. He wants to fucking win. The headline here, or not the headline, okay, Martin's arrested now. Let's just put it that way. Billy's arrested. For what? It said, that's all the headline said.

The story underneath it went on to say, this is from a newspaper article from the United UPI, he said the story beneath it went on to say the Detroit Tigers and Detroit manager and one of the Tigers minor leaguers, Ike Blesset, were arrested the other night outside a Lakeland, Florida, quote, bistro after a loud argument. The police say both were charged with profanity. Oh. Most people who read the story had the same reaction. Oh, Billy was in a fight again. The fact is he wasn't.

Actually, according to a witness, he prevented one from breaking out. Peacemaker, Billy? What? They said Billy Martin was the peacemaker and he wound up getting it in the end, the same place he usually gets it. Oh, that's not good. Isn't that generally the way, particularly in the perpetually hectic life of Billy Martin? Now, here's what really happened, they say. It was late after midnight, and Billy Martin was hungry, so he corralled his pitching coach, Art Fowler, and the two went into this combination restaurant cocktail lounge, simply because it was one of the only places they could get something to eat at that hour.

Martins and Fowler finished eating, and on the way out, the Tigers manager, noticed Blessett, a 23-year-old outfielder out of Detroit having a discussion with another patron. Blessett played with Toledo last year and appeared in four late-season games with the Tigers. He's considered a good prospect, but mostly due to his inexperience, he was sent back down to Toledo earlier in the week by Martin. Now, Martin said the way he and this other guy were starting to go at it, it looked as if they were going to fight. I didn't want that to happen. So I went over to the kid and took him outside. We were standing there in the parking lot, and I said to him, you don't want to get into that fight. You don't need that.

You don't want that. Ike Blessed was still overwrought with having been sent back down to the miners again. He listened to what Billy had to say, and suddenly the tears started streaming down his cheek. Bless it, not Billy. He said he was standing there in the parking lot sobbing, Martin trying to comfort him when a police car rolled up and one of the cops got out. He came over to where we were and said to Ike, okay, oh, this is Billy, saying this. He, quote, you know what, let's give this an end of the room. own words. I think that's necessary. Billy deserves it in their own words, especially for this

because this is pretty fucking good. In their own words, quote, he came over to where we were and he said to Ike, okay, black boy, you're arrested. And Martin said, says Martin, I said he didn't do anything wrong. You're the cop. And the cop said, you're arrested too. That's all it was. He didn't do anything wrong. We'll all arrest you too. He just defended somebody. Martin's reaction. was immediate. For what? For profanity, the policeman said, according to Martin. He never even gave us a chance to explain what we were talking about, said Martin. Martin posted a bond for both of them to get out. It came to $64 for both of them to get out, which is funny. The kid came over the next day to apologize to Billy for all the trouble he caused, and Billy said, not your fault, kid. He said later,

he's a good kid. He's got ability, and I can understand the way he felt about being sent down again. I remember when the twins released me as a player. You know what I did. I cried and I had a lot more years than Bless it did. He said, look, I understand the feeling, so I get it. Yeah, what are you going to do? He said, Billy Martin arrested, eh, about the headline. I'm swearing.

Yeah, I guess everybody figures, uh-oh, there goes Martin in another fight. Yeah. Oh, my Christ, that's fucking funny. 1973, Tigers, 85 and 77, third place now. again, Oakland's kind of a force at this point. He pissed off a lot of people this year. Pissed off a good amount of people here. He said, quote, this is fucking amazing.

He said that the brewer sucked, is what he's saying. He didn't like being there? No, no, no. He said, the brewers are shitty. He's talking about the brewers. And he said, Del Crandall has two words for Billy Martin. Not the two words you're thinking either.

If you've heard about what Billy Martin had to say about the pennant chances of Del Crandall surprisingly quick-starting Milwaukee Brewers, Billy Martin sometimes has a way of saying the first thing that comes to his mind. Whether that's actually the case or not, the blunt outspoken to Detroit Tigers

field boss has never hesitated a second and he did it this time too. Basically, he was prodded about how he felt about the Brewers being ahead of the Tigers in the American League East. And he said quote, if the

Brewers can win with this club, then I'm a Chinese aviator. Oh, boy. That's such an old time. Oh, wow. That's fucking amazing. Yeah. And so they told the Brewers manager that, and he said, well, he'll look funny in that leather helmet and goggles. Willie?

Flying around up there. And he said, your sports writer teed me up. So if I told him that just to shut him up, said Martin, as they were teasing each other there. Okay, so yeah, Billy is causing trouble in Detroit, though. He's causing issues. He calls for an umpire change, too. During the game? No, no, no.

He's calling the office, telling the league office what umps he wants to. We will not have this guy here. Yeah. He said the umpires cost us three games in our weekend series in New York and two others earlier in Anaheim. I wanted to say who I want up. He was just saying, I'm not going to do what Earl Weaver does. Right. and tell them who don't.

So this is from the books or from the book. But if there were good vibes about the 1973 Tigers, and there were, since they were near in first place in the AL East, as late as mid-August, there was also an undercurrent of simmering rancor. Billy and Campbell feuded constantly, with Billy criticizing the team's scouting department in the press, a public display of the team's dirty laundry that incensed Campbell and the other tigers, others in the Tigers organization.

John Fetzer, the low-key owner who wanted his organization to have a defined and accepted chain of command, was disturbed by Billy's lack of professional protocol. In the past, Campbell would protect Billy, saying the end was worth the means. Increasingly exasperated, Campbell was no longer rushing to Billy's defense. There were other hiccups along the way. Billy showed up uncommonly late for the occasional game, striding into the park about an hour before first pitch. That's insane. managers are there like five hours early.

Yeah, they're there in the morning. That is wild. Without a batting order written out, the players did not know who was taking batting practice or who was at what position or for infield or outfield practice because he wouldn't have the shit field. The field is probably hung over. Something all teams did before every game in the 1970s.

Players and team executives also noticed that Billy seemed more impatient than ever with umpires and even with his coaches. In June, he missed a couple of games to fly home to West Berkeley to be with Jack Downey, who had suffered a heart attack. When he returned to the Tigers, players and coaches said Billy appeared gaunt and drained. They said, Billy looked like he was getting kind of beat down. The more worried, the less he took care of himself. You could see it slowly happening.

Billy lobbied strenuously for a couple of trades, only to be blocked by Campbell in the scouting department. Billy seethed anew. It was so it was something less than one big happy tie. family, but the team was winning. And in that case, almost everything else can be overlooked. Then in late August, the Tigers started losing, just as the Orioles started winning. So the Tigers fell seven and a half games out of first place. Not good.

Not good at all. So here's something that he does that's fun. Okay. Billy Martin here. At a game in Detroit against Cleveland on August 30th, the Indians noted spitball pitcher Gaylord Perry was beating the Tigers three nothing after seven innings. Gaylord Perry is famous for doctoring the ball in every single way possible. He'll admit it openly.

Oh, spitballs, shit, Vaseline, anything. He's, he is who I think Harris and Major League is modeled after. But he did it his whole career. He was just a guy everywhere. Vagicilil. Yeah. So Billy was livid with the umpires for not detecting Perry's illegal pitches. Truth be told, Billy was probably most incensed by.

the notion that someone besides him and Fowler was getting away with doctoring the baseball. Billy's reaction was to have two of his pitchers start loading the ball up with Vaseline. If he's doing it, you fucking do it. As Fowler taught them, it was easy. Put the Vaseline on the crotch party or uniform,

then put your hand down there before throwing a pitch. Just looks like you're adjusting your cup. Just fix your balls all the time. He said if the umpires came out to the mound to inspect the pitcher, it was presumed that no umpire in front of an entire stadium of fans would start pawing around in the player's crotch to investigate. Let me feel your cup.

Is it snuggly against your taint or what? The tiger's still lost. After the game to the astonishment of the Detroit writers, Billy announced, quote, My pitchers were deliberately throwing spitballs the last two winnings on orders from me. I didn't to prove a point that it can be done without the umpires doing anything about it. They're making a mockery of the game by not stopping Perry. How about that? American League Joe Cronin suspended Billy immediately.

Yeah, you have to because he's calling out specific names and saying you're not doing anything about that guy. We all know he's doing it. Yep. And also he just admitted he told his pictures to Dr. Baseball. That's that immediately. Three days later. Yeah. Three days later, Jim Campbell called Billy to his rooftop office.

God, that was hard to say. And told him he was fired. you're out he said did I not make this team a winner Billy said repeating himself from his Minnesota exit but I won though isn't that the bottom line yeah so Billy Martin searching for a new job September 2nd

1973 fired three good seasons shit can already now this is when he's kind of he's biting his time but this is when Texas had just moved from Washington to Texas. Okay. And they were looking for anything to put asses and seats.

That book, Seasons in Hell, is all about the first three years of the Rangers in Texas. And they came from Washington? They were the nationals? They were the senators before that. Oh, senators. Yeah, they were the Washington senators who were one of the worst teams in baseball for ever. It was them and the Browns that were the worst teams. So they came out here and they had Whitey Herzog as their manager, the future World Series winning with the Cardinals manager.

And he was doing a good job, but the ownership heard they could maybe get Billy Martin. So the whole thing got real fucking weird real quick. And Whitey Herzog got fucked over worse than anybody. He got this terrible roster there. No way of winning with this roster. Did the best he could, but he wasn't Billy Martin. So he's getting fired, period. He never had a chance.

So they say, Billy Martin, this is an article. Master manipulator of baseball men is looking for a new job today because he isn't as good at managing himself. The Detroit manager was fired Sunday with a $65,000 year to go on his contract. Oh. Wow. He said that the spitball incident, the owner said, was a contributing factor, but not the sole reason.

He said it was... It contributed. It was the straw, for sure. He said it was an accumulation of things. There comes a point where what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. He said, one of those wrong things was the spitball incident. He didn't like that at all. He said, I cautioned Billy also about making comments concerning the commissioner,

the league president, club executives, minor league players. We can't have that sort of thing. It breaks down the efficiency of the organization. I have no complaints about the job he did on the field. From foul line to foul line, he did a darn good job. Great. Literally what every single person says. Yeah.

Billy came home from the book here on the day of the firing and talked with Gretchen about how the Tigers were going to honor the last year of his contract in 74. So he's getting paid no matter what for a year off. So to Billy, there was no rush to find another job. He's like, we can coast for the next year. It doesn't matter. I'm getting paid. But a day later, Bob Short, who was a Minnesota politician for whom Billy had campaigned in 1970s.

See, that's the problem. He knew the guy. He's also Texas's owner. He bought the Washington franchise and moved them to Texas. And he's just a business guy. His whole plan is to get Texas to be something that anybody gives a shit about, then sell the team at a profit. He has no interest in running it for a long time. That's exactly what he does.

So he called Martin home, called Martin at his home in the Cranbrook Manor townhouses outside Detroit. Short at that time was the owner of the senators in 72. Like I said, I'd moved them to the Rangers, to Texas to be the Rangers. The Rangers were dead last place and drawing, I mean, sometimes 2,000 people a night. Nobody fucking cared. First of all, it's hot as shit in Texas at night, number one. Real hot. The team sucks.

They have no stars. They're not going to win. They're going to lose 12 to 2. Yeah, you're going to watch the other team. Yeah. Short wanted Billy to come to Texas as his manager right then. Short said he would fire Whitey Herzog, and Billy wanted to rest, though. Short said he was offering a contract through 1975, worth 65 grand a year.

plus the use of a new house and a new car. Oh. Billy said he wanted to think about it. He was tired. He mentioned that another move would mean his son would have to find another Catholic school to attend. A new school year just started and his son liked his friends and his teachers. Yeah. Short said that he'd find Billy another Catholic grade school in Texas.

Okay. Billy was like, I don't know. He said, call me back in a couple of days. When Short got Billy on the line again, he told him he found the perfect Catholic school. and they'd be happy to accept his son and then Short offered him something that Billy really wanted. He offered him control.

Here we go. He said you can have final authority over the roster. No general manager is going to tell you. The power. Yep. You can call up whoever you want from the miners, oversee the farm system.

You can make trades if you want. The power. Literally anything you want here. Billy said, fuck yes. Let's do this. I'm in. So it was September 8th,

which is six days. after the Tigers fired him. This is crazy. He got fired while the season was still going. Then Texas fired their manager, who was fine at that point, and hired him for like the last week of the season. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. So they said, Billy would be managing his third team in five years, and this time he'd be his own general manager too. When Texas writers asked him what he could do with a team that had already lost 91 of its 140 games in 73, they were terrible. Yeah.

That book is hilarious. That season's the hellbook. Already lost 91 games. Oh, it's so funny. They just talk about their ineptitude and it's hilarious. Billy replied, I've been fired twice. I'm a two-time loser. I know losing, but I also know winning and I know how to get from one to another.

I know how to do that. So Billy is, there's an article here, short picks Billy Martin, blah, blah, blah. Short said he had talked to Martin out of, talked him out of weight. until next season to take over. He said, Billy is the most exciting and best manager in baseball. The main thing is just to sell a ticket. This Bob Short is very short-sighted

when it comes to selling tickets. He just wants to sell tickets. That's why he's like, I can make a couple of bucks in the last two weeks of the season if I just fire this guy and hire Billy. There's a guy named David Clyde. If you look him up,

David Clyde is one of the, he should have one of the bigger grievances with baseball of anybody of all time, this poor kid. He was 17 years old, 18 years old, and a phenom high school pitcher in Texas, right? So the Rangers drafted him number one overall, which is fine. But they brought him directly to the major leagues from high school. Oh. Because he was a big deal in Texas and would sell some tickets.

So to get basically... Just to put asses and seats. They destroyed this guy's career. And Billy hated him. He was like, why is this kid up here once he took over? He was a fucking kid. He's not a major league pitcher yet and ruined his confidence. And they destroyed this kid.

It was never the same. He had a couple of phenomenal outings. And then he kind of went to shit after that because they just wanted to sell tickets for a minute. They ruined his whole career and destroyed everything. It's kind of shitty, honestly. Life is over. Yeah, he fucked him over. Good.

So Short said this spells at this date the success of the franchise. If I could have anybody I wanted to manage this team, it would be Billy Martin. Martin said, I'm not going to make any great promises. I want to see how much pride this team has and I'll be trying to win for the rest of the season. Now, Short said that when he announced that Whitey Herzog was fired, he had not yet convinced Martin to take the job. Short said he called me in about the seventh or eighth inning of last night's ball game and said he had talked it over with his wife and was ready to take the position.

The firing of Herzog was a shock to both players and fans, and although Short admitted it would not be a popular decision, he believed it was his to make. Short said, if my mother was managing the Rangers, and I had the opportunity to hire Billy Martin, I'd fire my mother. He doesn't care. Bye my see you later So that's what it is

He doesn't give a shit He's so Billy they said Aren't you controversial Too controversial Billy said well I'm controversial myself Aren't I? He said so the decision to hire me

Makes sense He said I've always made this statement Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini Could play for me if they had talent What matters is the ability They have and not what comes out of their mouth That's what a manager is Is to handle people

Well if they could play ball that might have been excellent. They might not have gone the way they went. So maybe that would be good. Invoking those words is really wild. That's wild. Well, I mean, Castro's a failed baseball player, so there you go. It's the same thing.

A longtime Dallas area newspaper columnist said about Billy, he loved the whole Texas wild loose image thing. He said almost from day one, he was wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat and a big belt buckle. Here we go. He's wanted to be a redneck for so long. he finally gets to. I've had this fucking affect on my voice for 30 years or nothing.

I could be Mickey Mantle now, finally. He said the Dallas area newspapers ran a picture of Billy holding a shotgun in front of the fieldstone fireplace of his home, a Texas Longhorn above the mantle. In other pictures, he twirled a replica cult 45-6 shooter while nine-year-old Billy Joe in Texas, BJ more often started to be called Billy Joe had his hand on the shotgun. They were calling him BJ for years, but they moved to Texas and started calling him Billy Joe again. Jesus Christ. Now, the 73 Rangers here, this is the Whitey Herzog's team, was 57 and 105.

Not good. Not a good team at all here. So Billy Martin, 9 and 14 to finish out the season, but he doesn't give a fuck about that. This roster is terrible, by the way. Absolutely awful. The only thing of any real note here is, Charlie Hudson is a left-handed knuckle ball pitcher, which

how many of those have you ever seen in your life? No many, no. Answers fucking zero. He's a left-handed knuckleball pitcher who shot himself in the fucking pitching hand in the middle of the season. Idiot. Quack, while cleaning his gun.

Ever touch a pistol. Shot a fucking, what an idiot. There's that and Tom Greve is Ben Greve's dad and a future general manager. Jim Forgo. He's on this team, who managed the Phillies for a long time. And who else? Jeff Burroughs was a good player later on.

Oh, and Jim Bibby is Mike Bibby's uncle. Is it really? Yes. He's Mike Bibby's uncle. Mike Bibby's dad plays the NBA. Exactly. And Jim played for them. And he had a mean fastball.

And from everything the book said, the biggest dick in the major leagues. Probably. Literally. No, not literally. He said it was a known fact. Had one? Yes. Had the biggest dick in the big.

the major leagues. It was an enormous hog. In that Seasons in Hellbook, he talks about if Bob Short could have charged admission to see his dick he would have, because he said it was impressive. Yeah, everyone talked about it. How about how gigantic his cock was. So there's that.

Billy Martin, in the March of 74, he predicts a surprise season from the Rangers. It's going to happen. It's all going to happen here. He's ready to go. He says he can do it. He said with Bill, and Jeff Burrough says with Billy Martin winning his everything. I think if our pitching holds up,

we'll surprise an awful lot of people because he's going to make everything better and milk everything he possibly can out of every player, which sounds horrible. He's going to milk us. Not the fellas. I don't think so. Yeah, that is no good here.

Billy says that it's going to be the great turnaround of 74. Now, March 10, 1974, this is in spring training of his first year, Apparently, he's almost the Yankee manager. Oh. This is from the Daily News in New York. If things had been different, if Mike Burke had still been running the Yankees with complete authority, if he had his way, Billy Martin would be sitting in the manager's chair. It was a master plan of Burke to replace Howk with Martin, who would give the club the pizzazz and a pennant. Martin would have had Whitey Ford as his pitching coach.

He would have asked Mickey Mantle to coach too, and Mickey might have done it for his old buddy. and he said, I'd have worked for him. I'd have worked for him, Martin said, yeah, I think I had to work for Mike Burke. It would have been a great thrill managing the team I used to play for, but I never had it in my mind that I wanted to be a manager for the Yankees. It wasn't my great dream. Meanwhile, it is later on, he says that.

Yeah, he said, a New York guy from Berkeley, California is what I am. I love New York. Anybody's got to love it for the restaurants alone. So there you go. Now, in the first few months, everything's going fine in Texas. This is before the season actually starts. Oh. Then just before the season started, Billy's Texas gift horse burst from the barn and galloped out of town, according to this book here.

Bob Short, whose financial footing was not as solid as Billy suspected, sold his interest in the Rangers to a group headed by a Fort Worth industrialist named Bradford Corbett, who would have it for years and years and years and years. Yeah. Corbett, a native New Yorker who started his business career in 68 with a $300,000 loan from the government's small business administration had made a fortune selling plastic PVC pipe and copper tubing to the oil industry. Wow. Didn't we talk about this guy? I think at some point, yeah. He paid $9.6 million for the Rangers, by the way. Think about that. Holy shit. That is nothing.

That's terrific. Oh, my God. That's a sweet deal. Corbett, just 36 years old, announced he was delighted to have Billy as manager, but that he was firing the entire Rangers front office and hiring new executives. So now Billy's control is gone. He just took it away from because that was a deal he made with the old owner, not with this owner. How do you think Billy's going to take to that? He's going to be a little upset.

A little bit. Short and the new owners said, this is from a newspaper article, that Billy Martin would remain as manager and the, he would be glad to stay. Billy said, if they want me, I'll stay and give any new owner the kind of team I'm trying to give short now. So he says, I'll do the same shit for this guy as that guy. It's a paycheck either way. He says, we're going for the pennant. There's no doubt in my mind.

We're going to have a fine season. We're going to turn it around. We don't talk about the past now. And the Rangers, they did. He finished 84, 76 and 1 for second place in the ALS. They went from literally one of the worst teams of all times. to second fucking place. They were in the pennant race right up until the end.

It was pretty goddamn impressive. And their attendance was fourth in the American League. Yeah. Rather than dead last. Yeah. So, I mean, you can't complain about the job Billy did there. Did a great job. April 28, 1974.

Umpire ejects Billy Martin before the game even starts. How do you do that? What do you so upset about? How does that happen? Well, manager Billy Martin and infielder Leo Cardenas of the Texas Rangers were both ejected by umpire Joe Brinkman just before the start of Saturday's game with the Yankees. Cardenas, who was in the Rangers' third base dugout, was thrown out by third base umpire Joe Brinkman for heckling from the bench.

Martin then came out after a brief talk. Brinkman threw Martin out too. Martin then kicked dirt all over the umpire's shoes and trousers before leaving. Martin said that Brinkman turned to the Rangers dugout and said Tovar. you're out of the game. Mistaking Cardinius for outfielder Cesar Tovar. Martin said Brinkman kept referring to Cardenas as Tovar. Can't tell him apart, can you, you asshole? Jesus Christ.

So there's a headline here. Texas is Billy Martin. He's a different guy every night. That's the headline here. And they said, the natives are calling it the great Texas turnaround. The Texas Rangers were baseball's laughing stock last summer. They were Keystone cops in Denver. They were Keystone Cops and Double Nits, stumbling, fumbling and bumbling their way to a 47 and 105 record.

It was actually 57 and 105. Naturally, they were a source of great embarrassment to the state of Texas, not to mention themselves. After seven weeks of the 74 season, no one is chuckling up their sleeve at the Rangers. With new ownership, new manager, and a few new faces on the field, the Rangers have created an enthusiasm in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. attendance is up more than 100,000, and the talk along the avenues and the taverns is about the Rangers having a chance and not the Dallas Cowboys.

So that's a change. They said significantly, the Ranger rebound has coincided with the arrival of Billy Martin. There it is. There you go. They said his powder keg personality, repeatedly vaulting him into the public eye. He is as well known for his off-the-field exploits

as his shrewd, cunning, abrasive, level-may-care approach to managing. No shit. This is, who the hell's talking here? Can't see who this is. Who is this? Bert Hawkins. Oh, Bert.

There's a board member of the Rangers front office who doubles as the team's traveling secretary said, Billy Martin has a tough kid on the block swagger. Martin, the manager is akin to Martin the player. Guts and a hard loser all the way. He can be charming. He can be cantankerous. He has a flare and he can flare it up.

Part of the Martin Mystique is creating an atmosphere which the athlete finds losing super painful. He's a plotter and a prober, a manipulator, a strategist, and a tactician. He's a scrapper, a snarler, a catalyst of confidence. He's a joker, a smoker, and a midnight toker. You better believe it. He fucking is. Jesus Christ. So, yeah, they're talking about all this shit.

Martin hates to lose. Let's read from the book here. Losing was another story. Everyone who played for Billy had at least one story of how hard Billy took a loss. Billy always said he never wanted to be a good loser, and he never was. I remember after one loss, I came into the clubhouse, and on the way to my locker, I reached out and grabbed one potato chip from the meal spread. This is Tom Greve.

As fate would have it, Billy was a few steps behind me, and he went nuts, screaming, how can you eat? God damn it, you fucking losers. Oh, man. The players from Minnesota and Detroit could have predicted what happened next. Food was flying around the room. Of course. Grieves said, it sounds funny now, you know, all that for one potato chip.

He said, but the next day, Billy came to me and said, hey, look, don't make anything of it because I don't. You just happen to be the one who touched the food, and that message was for everyone. He's like, I was just waiting for anyone to do it. Anybody, the first person to eat, I was going to unload. Yep, he said, and let me tell you, the guys didn't. want to lose after that game anymore. So it was

1974 that Billy's arguing with umpires became his that's when it really was performance art, the book says. And it's true. This is when he really started taking it up and the fans were like, oh shit, here comes Billy. And that was more exciting than a home run. Yeah, yeah. You're hoping the team won, you know, there was

some home runs and hopefully Billy came out and got thrown out because that's a real fun. They said there was no Wild West without outlaws and they're often beloved. Billy's confrontations. with umpires, the sheriffs of baseball, came to be expected at Arlington Stadium, and the fans arrived eager to cheer on their rabble-rousing manager. No baseball fans seemed to enjoy watching Billy go after the umpires, kicking dirt, throwing his hat, or flinging bats from the dugout as much as Texas fans did. Egged on and adept at playing to the crowd, Billy took things to new levels.

He was thrown out of both games of one double-headed. Wow. Twice he was ejected before the game even began. Yeah? Wow. Jim Evans, an American League umpire, said it was to fire up the crowd. And he always wanted the players to know he was fighting for them. Then maybe they would fight as hard as he was fighting. Crowds urged him on. He had a terrible temper, but that was just Billy. I never minded working his games. It was a challenge, though. He said, besides, off the field, he was such a charmer. We'd see him and he'd come over to the umpires and make jokes. He'd always want to buy everyone a

drink. On the field, things were different. Billy had essentially three kinds of kinds of arguments. He knew the rules pretty well, so one argument would be a rational discussion about the rules, and you almost enjoy that. The second argument was all about trying to get the next call. Once I had two bang bang plays at first base, and I called his guys out both times. Billy charges on the field and says, I don't know if these two guys are out or safe, but I better get the third call. Next guy's fucking safe, right? This one is in. Yeah, right. Yeah. And the last argument is for me now. Now I get that, right?

Yes, I do. And the last argument was just crazy. He would snap from the losing or the pressure or whatever. He'd come out and not even be making sense. I'd try not to throw him out because that was almost too easy. I'd wait to see what kind of crazy thing he would do. Sure. But that happened too often.

He usually had a point when he came out there. Sometimes he just lost his mind. Evans noticed that Billy had other strategies when it came to umpires. In Texas, Billy would have Sunberg's, signal him in the dugout when a pitch close to the strike zone was called a ball. That would be Billy's cue to yell, hey, come on, Jim, that's a strike. It wasn't a strike, but since he knew it was close and he wanted to put the seat of doubt in the umpire's head, so maybe he could get the next close call.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was all very calculated. Evans has been retired nearly 15 years and spends much of his time at umpiring camps and speaking engagements, and he said the number one person people asked me about is Billy Martin. He was unforgettable, a little off his rocker. but unforgettable. That's our guy. Yeah.

Now, we covered 10 cent beer night on a Patreon episode. So we'll kind of do a little bit around that here. But this is from May 30th, 1974. Billy Martin decked twice is the headline. Yeah, punched twice? Yeah. Texas Rangers' manager, Billy Martin, isn't looking forward to 10 cent beer night

and bat night in Cleveland next week. Not after Wednesday night's base brawl. in which he was decked twice during an eighth inning free-swinging Flurry as Texas down the Indians 3-0 on Jackie Brown's three-hitter. They all, not Pam Greer either. They all made, they'll all be mad at me in Cleveland, and that's for sure, Martin said. I'm not exactly looking forward to it. That's before the whole mess there, which he knew it was happening. So Indian first baseman John Ellis tackled Randall and both benches traded punches during the first fight.

Martin was down twice in a wrestling match with Buddy Bell of the Indians. Steve Fulcott and Ferguson Jenkins of the Rangers brought Cleveland manager Ken Aspermante. Aspermante? I think it's Aspermonte. Sure. Yeah. Down from behind and pinned him.

Ellis said, I don't think that was too professional of Randall to run at Wilcox. Nobody runs at one of our pitchers like that and gets away with it. For a while, there was nine against 25. Ellis said Randall was made because Wilcox threw behind him, or mad, it says made in the newspaper article, because Wilcox threw behind him, but it wasn't intentional. There was nothing between him, nothing between he and him, but the goal line. Okay. So they're talking about all this.

Martin said, oh, Lord, this is just what we need. But I'll tell you this, our team was battling, and that's the way they'll be all season. Like, we don't need to fight, but, you know, just win games. During the brawl, several fans on the sidelines poured beers directly into the Cleveland dugout, infuriating catcher Dave Duncan. He said there was one guy who must have had 10 beers, but I couldn't get to him. Duncan said he was restrained from going into the stands by his teammates. I didn't even think about that being a side effect of this. It's damn near free to throw a beer in a man's face.

Yeah. Well, this was before 10 cent beer night. Oh, what night is this? Somebody actually, he paid retail for that beer. Yeah, you don't pay retail for a weapon. That's crazy. Imagine that shit. Holy shit.

But I'll read a little bit. This is from Seasons in Hell about this fight. On the next pitch after the one that sailed behind his head, Randall bunted toward first. The bunt was not perfectly placed, but close enough for mayhem. And Randall had only to veer about four feet from the base path in order to level a forearm in the direction of Milt Wilcox's jawbone. Then to continue his demonstration, Randall kept running and tried to butt first base,

John Ellis, square in the nuts. Ellis, who picked up extra money in the offseason, working as a bounty hunter for bail bondsman, was not the sort to take kindly to Randall's show of pugnacity. This began to flail. Players from both teams joined the brawl. People were punched, kicked, and stomped. Unlike the fights that happened in pro football and ice hockey,

players can actually get hurt in some of these baseball uprisings because they're not encumbered by helmets, face masks, or skates. In particular, this particular fracas, nobody became disabled, but some of the Rangers fans decided this should be an audience participation program and were slinging cups of beer onto the visiting players. One bearded guy in cut off Levi's and a tank top emblazoned with the printed slogan, Eatmore Possum, was wearing sandals, had climbed to top the Indians dugout

and issued a direct challenge to Dave Duncan to join him there for a rumble just before being hauled off by stadium cops. That's fucking hilarious. Come on up here and fight a man in a shirt that says eat more possum. Eat more possum. Afterward, Duncan said the man on the dugout

quote, looked like Ben Huron. For a minute, I thought I was going to have to fight him. He said, Toby Harris that our fans are getting more and more like the ones in Venezuela is all he had talked about beforehand that they would have live snakes and fire guns into the air when you did something they liked, which is fucking amazing. Then you have 10 cent beer night with a fucking riot.

And yeah, that was just a goddamn mess, 10 cent beer night. We did a great, great fucking Patreon on that whole thing. Yeah, to go into it, it would just be an exact repeat of that. But they say from the book, in 1974, Billy did not have too many arguments with the Rangers management. and most of the rest of the season was without incident, except for June 3rd in Cleveland when the downtrodden Indians hosted the 10 cent beer night.

So that's that night there. There were streakers, fans surrounded Jeff Burroughs and left field. They stole his cap and glove and were pulling on his shirt. They sort of mugging him out there. That's when it became a fucking mess and a disaster. Billy was thrilled, he said. He loved it. Really?

Loved it. He said his players were together. They fought as a team. He said he likes that. Yeah, that's a great point. It brings a tear to your eye to see him with the common goal for once. Yeah, it's nice. It's nice.

Yeah. He said, this is from seasons in hell. When the game reached the bottom of the ninth inning, the temperament of the crowd became strikingly that of Billy Martin when he reached his hour of belligerence in the cocktail lounge. What had been a largely congenial gathering turned in turn combative, Woodstock had become Kent State. Rangers outfielders were under missile attack now, bombarded with bombarded with bombarded. bottles, rocks, golf balls, and other debris. Someone ran onto the field and attempted to snatch Jeff Burroughs glove. Burroughs responded first shoving the intruder, then chasing him back over the right field

wall. And now people poured onto the field like ants. From the Rangers dugout along the third baseline, players surged with the Yahoo! Alon of the old third cavalry, racing out to rescue Jeff Burroughs, armed with baseball bats instead of sabers. Cleveland players were on the field, too, fighting off their own fans. Nestor Chilak, the chief umpire, trotted into the Indians dugout

and placed an urgent call to the public address announcer who informed the crowd that the ballgame was over, forfeited to the Rangers. At this point, they presumably ceased the sales of dime beer as well. This Mike Shropshire, who wrote this, said, For my safe haven in the press box, I was delighted by the entire spectacle. Since my dispatch to the newspaper back in Texas

would offer something out of the ordinary, and I figured the player's post-game quotes, not be as cliched as usual. Sure. Who brings golf balls to a baseball game? That's to throw up, I guess to throw it because he knew that it was beef. Yeah. He said, my first stop was not the visiting clubhouse, but the little dressing room occupied

by the four umpires. In the big leagues, I believe a game is forfeited approximately every third decade. Chilac, the head umpire who made the call to terminate the proceedings, was in a state of total rage. Nestor did not necessarily conformed. to the typical physical image of the Major League umpire and that his silhouette was never mistaken for that of a sumo wrestler, wringling brothers elephant or Boeing 747,

but in attitude style and overall delivery, Nestor Chilach was an umpire's umpire. Quote, animals, fucking animals, that's what all these fucking people are. Nestor was shouting. I saw no reason at this point to ask Chilac to elaborate on his reasons for forfeiting the game.

He said, I saw a couple of knives out there in that mob. Then they, the Rangers, charged out and they had to because those fucking animals wanted to kill somebody. I personally got hit with a chair in a rock. He said chairs were, this is Billy Martin said this. He said, we got hit with everything you can think of. Chairs were flying down out of an upper deck. Cleveland players were fighting their own fans.

First, they were protecting the Rangers. Then they were fighting to protect themselves. Somebody hit Tom Hilendorf, Indians pitcher, with a chair and cut his head open. Wow. Martin offered a chair? With a chair? Yeah, they were throwing chairs onto the field. I thought they were bolted.

Not all of them. Not all of them. Well, there's like the wheelchair accessible. There's all sorts of different. Even back then they had those. Yeah, foldable ones. Martin offered special exoneration for two Cleveland players. One was Dave Duncan, the catcher who'd been so involved in the saloon brawl that

happened in Arlington the week before. And the other was Rusty Torres, an outfielder. He said they tried to reason with the fans. then laid a couple out when they wouldn't listen. That's good. Hey, listen, calm down. No? Okay.

Fuck you. Jeff Burroughs said it started in the third inning. One guy came out of the stands, then two or three. Then they came by the dozens, mostly between innings. They were friendly at first, yelling and having a good time. Then it got mean. How mean? Yeah.

Then it got mean. So, yeah, they go on to the Cleveland General or manager, Aspermante. said what happened in Arlington last week was part of baseball. This was a riot. This was what happens in our country when people are angry and ready to fight at the drop of a coin. We complained in Arlington when people threw beer on us and taunted on us, but look at our people. They were even worse. Yeah, that's a good way to fucking put it.

So Jeff Burroughs asked the reporter, hey, do the stats count in a forfeit? He said, I hope not. I went 0 for 4. he said with the marijuana smoke was so thick out there in right field i think i was higher than the fans yeah that's why i went over more yeah now people were blaming billy martin for all this somehow this is what i mean when you're billy martin you'll get blamed for anything you get shrapnel blame on ever yeah i mean if he's managing a team when the challenger exploded he's getting blamed for that shit like it's just happens so uh that's who's getting blamed um they want a full

report on the whole thing. Wow, this is Bonda. This is the Who is this guy? Oh, the Indians vice president said he would protest the forfeit. He said it's Billy Martin's fault. Oh. That's what he said.

He said he received a full report on what happened in the ninth. He said it wasn't the beer night promotion. It wasn't our fault. It wasn't that we got our fans shit-faced on 10 beers for a dollar. That's not it. He said our fans were excited and really keyed up after that business in Arlington the week before.

At some point, Billy Martin started throwing gravel and shooting our fans the finger. And when he let his men out of the dugout, that's when matters

got out of hand. That's bullshit. Huge. That is literally... They started this, right? The fans started this shit because they were hammered.

They were hammered and they were fighting on the field. The Indians were fighting their own fans. Right. It's fucking ridiculous. So Billy Martin says, fuck that guy then.

Yeah. He said, they should, do what the president didn't do, meaning Nixon at the time. He said they should do what the president didn't do. Just come out and admit they made some mistakes and he'll do everything to try to prevent it from happening again.

That's it. Just say that. Don't fucking blame it on me. He said everything that that Bonda guy said is fucking ridiculous is what he said. So there you go. All right. Now let's stop there on Billy Martin. Because it's going to get real crazy from here. He's about to get suspended for some weird shit. and then really his whole thing is going to unravel and turn in him.

He's a maniac after this. Yeah, he's going to have a lot of jobs and shit, mostly with the Yankees, but it's going to be a lot of unraveling, man. Billy doesn't like aging, and he likes drinking a lot more. Who likes that shit? That sounds terrible. He makes him drink more. So we will get into that next time here.

We'll start out in July of 1974, and that'll be that. So if you like this show, please get on whatever else. you're on and please tell the world about it. Tell everybody that you like the show and they should listen to it as well. Also, you should definitely follow us on social media at Crime and Sports. Definitely head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Get all your merchandise. Get tickets for the virtual Halloween live show for Small Town Murder,

just like a regular live show. You can watch it anywhere on the planet that has internet from the comfort of your own home, wherever you want to watch it. We're going to have this just like a regular live show, except we have costumes on and are going to make jackasses out of ourselves. Complete idiots. It'll be great. Yeah, we got a cool looking set and everything. So check all that out.

It's a lot of fun. We're very excited for that. That's shut up and give me murder.com. It's October 30th, and you can watch it for two weeks after that, do whatever you want with it for two weeks. So it's a lot of fun. We're very excited. Check that out.

Get yourself Patreon. Do yourself a favor. Yeah. Hey, everybody. This isn't for us. It's for you. Right. It's not that we want, you know,

you to give us money. This is helping yourself. We just want to help you. The best deal in fucking Patreon history. It is. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. Anybody $5 a month or above. You get hundreds and hundreds of back episodes you've never heard before of bonus stuff.

Immediately upon subscription, good binging material. Then you get two new ones every other week. One crime in sports. One small town murder. You take them all. Just take it. Damn it. This week what we're going to do.

We're going to talk about the action. accusations of Deshawn Watson. Oh, boy. For crime and sports. Are they numerous? That is numerous, yes. And then for small town murder, it is internet salad time. All right.

Back by popular demand. We haven't done it in a long time. And that's where we go over what's on the internet that day that we're recording and talk a bunch of shit about everything, anything, not politics. We leave that out because you don't need to hear that shit from us. And that would take more than an hour to get into all that shit. So never mind. We just get into all that.

We're going to talk about that comedy festival a little bit. I guess that's sort of political, but not really. We'll get into it. It should be pretty clear what's going on. So we'll get into all that. That is patreon.com slash crime in sports. And you get all three of our shows, crime and sports, small town murder, and your stupid opinions. All ad free.

With your Patreon as well. Ad free, which is fantastic. And you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is when? Right. Right. Right. Now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people.

on Earth and make all of this possible right now and who we're going to hear amazing bonus episodes. Hit me with them right now. This executive producer, Adrian and Jason, who just got engaged. Hey. Because Deney Pruner told me, she's in the very nice. Congrats, I guess. Enjoy your engagement.

Gary Howard and Grayson, Kentucky. I guess you're not doing Instagram anymore. What did you say? I said, good luck. Oh, yeah. That's not the best. Gary. Vranazan. Thank you, Tim.

Isn't that a rice, a rice brand? Vranazan, is it? Branazan. I don't know. It might be. Like a New Orleans rice thing. Oh, Zataran. Zataran.

Zataran. Yeah, I remember the commercial. Okay, never mind. And then Pioneer, Inc. Or Pioneer? They gave us a very nice. Thank you so much. And exact tech solutions did it too.

for all your tax and payneer needs, see them, I guess. Excellent. Thank you very much. Jessica Lane. Also, thanks, Jessica. Yes, pay your taxes. Don't go to jail.

Other producers this week. Patent Meadows, happy hour. Checking in in Lakenhurst, New Jersey. Ryan Bender. I don't know where that is. Oh, Lakehurst, not Lakenhurst. New Jersey. Lakehurst.

Yeah, he's usually in Texas. Yeah. Shiraz, I think, Chris Chiraz. Lexi Padron. Alisa Sells, Kate Palmer, Cindy Shepard, John would know the last name, B.K. McGinnis, Brianna Brown, Miller Time, Brooke Kelly, Tori Sanberg, Nicole Carney, Devin Rose, Sean Kisler, RKMK, Ali Smith. Tara would know last name. Ross Crawford, Jophili Jopali.

Maybe it's Jeff. Jopali, Jopalai. No, the O is way over there. I don't know what it is. Jill McGard. Coda. Perney, Ariel Sipley-Sipple, Brenna, Brenna Talbert, Jenny Johnson, Aubrey with no last name, Jennifer Hatfield, Lenny would know last name, Christian Vandevere, Penelope Polkatt, okay, Tori Weckerly, Nugent, Holly Conway, Andrew Powley, Lydia, Stefan, Emma Paul, Megan Finn, Michelle would no last name, Veronica Johnson, Shauna Edwards, Paul, Kefaro, Gretchen Smith, Janelle Davis, Devin would know last name, Julie would know last name, Dustin Trick, Tricky, Trichay, Jonah would know last name, Katie Rasmussen, Rasmussen, Kristen Edezadine, Ezadine, Ezadine, Ezadine, Ezadine, Yzadine, Jennifer Allen, Amy H, Les would know last name, Ken Private, Jeff Turner, what is this, Samantha DeWitt, Morgan would know last name, Christine von Knocklestein, Emily Lincol.

Spencer, Rat Fink, 707, Rar, Rachel R, Donnie with no last name, Heidi Hoffman, Brianna Kroko, Shai Royce, Bubbly City, Matt, yep, Nicholas W, D.W. Welters, Andrew Edwards, Jason Vale, Aaron Giza, Nicole Galeigh, Baru, Kelsey Macadea, Macade, Emma with no last name, Kathy would no last name, Adriana, Conklin, Sean Whiting, Fultered, with no last name, Melanie Crueett, Cheryl Corley, Chrysia, Quoshea, Maltry, Doren, Darren, Darren Ellis, Allison, Ocheltree, Crystal Ruiz, Carla Ortiz, J.E. Cook, Dave Duncan, Emily would know last name. J.P. Williams. Sarah Lee, they make the best ones. Adrian would know last name. Becky Smith, you don't like him? I said nobody doesn't like her. Nobody does it better. That's why. Jennifer McVettie, Thomas Greeley, Zellie. Zika, Zika, Lizzie Deshane, Deshain, Mark McAdonnell, McDonnell, Becky Smith, Cowboy Joe, I think I said that. Kimberly Cohen, Penny Lawrence, Jen Clemens, Clemonds, Lauren McCarthy, Bethany with no last name, Deborah Colgan, Becca G, Amanda LaBrek, Yep, Gzel M, Ava Donaldson, Amy Stonaker, Hope Shuts. Elwira, Elwira, it's probably Elvira, right?

Fiatko, it's a... Bori would know last name. Sarah Taylor, Trep Gabbard, Haley Ferguson, Bridget Bennett, Carol would know last name. Colleen Pachoka, Picocha, Amy would no last name, Molly Schaefer. That's, yeah, almost a bad word. Kegan, Colter, Connor Van Sickle, Tony Baker, Caitlin would know last name. David would no last name. Lundy Schneider, Hillary McKinney, Danielle McCullough, Hernan V. Agas,

what the Hobbs, Susan Stitt, Jody Blades, McKenzie Hackett, Alexis Garcia, Joseph would no last name, Peggy would no last name, Zanida Pickett, Aaron A. Archibald, and all of our patrons are the best. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, everybody. Unreal. You fantastic, wonderful, goddamn amazing bastards. We just can't thank you enough for all that you do for us. Thank you for everything you do for us. Thanks for coming to live shows.

Thanks for whatever you do. You tell a friend about it. You don't have to do anything. You have to spend a dime. You say, hey, you should listen to this show. You're fucking awesome. And we can't thank you enough for that because that's how the whole thing goes. So keep doing that.

Keep coming back and seeing us. Shut up and give me murder.com. If you want to find us on social media, it's all there to find. Keep hanging out with us. And live from the crime and sports studios, we will see you next week. Bye. Thank you.