**A New York Times bestseller. From award-winning sports columnist
Bill Pennington comes the definitive biography of one of baseball's most
celebrated, mercurial, and misunderstood figures.
**Billy Martin is a story of contrasts. He was the clutch second
baseman for the dominant New York Yankees of the 1950s. He then spent
sixteen seasons managing in the big leagues--and is considered by anyone
who knows baseball to have been a true baseball genius, a field manager
without peer. Yet he's remembered more for his habit of kicking dirt on
umpires, for being hired and fired by George Steinbrenner five times,
and for his rabble rousing and public brawls.
He was combative, fiery, intimidating, and controversial, yet beloved by
the everyday fan. He was hard on his players and even harder on himself.
He knew how to turn around a losing team like no one else--and how to
entertain us every step of the way.
Now, with his definitive biography Billy Martin, Pennington finally
erases the caricature of Martin. Drawing on exhaustive interviews with
friends, family, teammates, and countless adversaries, Pennington paints
an indelible portrait of a man who never backed down from the game he
loved. From his shantytown upbringing in a broken home; to his days
playing for the Yankees when he almost always helped his team find a way
to win; through sixteen years of managing, including his tenure in New
York in the crosshairs of Steinbrenner and Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin
made sure no one ever ignored him. And indeed no one could.
He was the hero, the antihero, and the alter ego--or some combination of
all three--for his short sixty-one years among us.
