TRIVIA WINNER: Clem Labine was the pitcher who was a teammate of Dick Groat and Don Hoak on the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and the 1960 Pirates. Glenn Schubert of Bradenton, FL had the correct answer. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.
TRIVIA CONTEST: By answering the TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY you are automatically entered into a weekly drawing for a Starbucks Gift Card. YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN. Please put your mailing address in with the answer so if you win we can send you the gift card in the mail.
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Billy Martin only played a few seasons in the minor leagues. Which minor league city did he call home as a player and which he would later be a big league manager?
If you grew up in the the 1970's and 80's you remember the battles between Yankee manager Billy Martin and team owner George Steinbrenner. It was constant. Hiring, firing, hiring, firing and eventually firing for good. Even baseball aficionados rarely remember Billy Martin, the player.
Even his baseball cards conjure up a rare player. His 11 years in the big leagues featured six trips to the World Series, although he didn't play in the first one. All were with the Yankees by the way and in 1956 he made the AL all-star team. He never led the league in anything but did come close twice in leading the AL in errors committed. Once at second base, the other at shortstop.
He was an average hitter, batting .257 lifetime and never hitting better than ,267 although in one abbreviated season he did bat .300 but only in 20 games. He only belted 28 home runs in his career but did average 53 RBI per season.
Let's face it, Billy Martin was the epitome of average. But he was a hard nosed average. The daily come to work guy who was an occasional spark plug in the Yankee lineup. He was as they say "fiery." It was, as the word implies, explosive, which led to his run-ins with the owner, and others such as Reggie Jackson.
Billy Martin was an enigma. He could spark a victory while the next day crumbling into disaster. He played for seven teams in 11 seasons including spending the first seven with the Yankees. It went like this; New York to Kansas City, Kansas City to Detroit, Detroit to Cleveland, Cleveland to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Milwaukee, Milwaukee to Minnesota and the end of a career as a player.
In all 28 players were involved in trades involving Martin, plus Martin. The only "names" among them were Ralph Terry and Don Mossi. The rest were basically of the caliber of Lou Skizas, Billy Consolo and Tom Morgan. He wasn't an atrocious fielder but he did make 109 errors in 11 seasons, which isn't really all that bad.
Perhaps his best fielding season was 1953 when he was involved in 121 DP's and fielded .985. It was his best season at the plate as well, clubbing 15 homers, .257 and 75 RBI. In the World Series against Brooklyn he had 12 hits in 24 AB's to bat .500 and drove in eight runs, in helping New York beat the Dodgers in six games.
Still, it's not what Billy Martin will be remembered for. Rather it will be his firings and hirings and run-ins as a Yankee manager. But perhaps that was Martin's lot in life. After an initial stay he was with 7 teams in 5 seasons. Sort of like his stints with New York as a manager.
TRIVIA CONTEST;