Wabberjocky wrote:
Billy Martin was one of the greatest managers in baseball history. Every team he took over, he made better.
Wabber, you don't have to tell me that. Martin was the ultimate quick-fixer. Look at his record in his first two years with a given team and then subsequently with that same team--if he even made it beyond two consecutive years with a given team. If he hadn't been an alcoholic, he might well have challenged Connie Mack or John McGraw on the all-time wins list as a manager.
But inevitably, Martin would get to drinking and thinking he was above everyone else in the organization, and he would do or say something that would get himself fired. He was extremely self-destructive (and ultimately died of what was probably a DWI incident, drunk at the wheel of his friend Billy Reedy's pickup truck on Christmas Day 1989).
Somehow it was apropos that alcohol had a hand in Martin's death, given how huge a role it played in his life.