Pinstripe Empire (67 page)

THE SEASON GOT off to a strong start for the Yankees, making the move to Billy Martin look both prophetic and wise. From the very first week, it looked as though the Yankees were a team on a mission. By winning five of their first six games, they took over first and never lost it. After so many years in the wilderness, it suddenly seemed easy.

The Boston rivalry again took center stage when Piniella barreled into Fisk, resulting in another brawl. Boston’s Bill Lee dislocated his shoulder in the dustup, having been thrown to the ground by Graig Nettles. The rivalry hit a low point the next morning when Lee spoke of Martin and Steinbrenner as Nazis with a brownshirt mentality.

As good as things were going, Steinbrenner and Paul still sought improvement. On June 15, the trading deadline, they bought Vida Blue from Oakland; Finley was also selling Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox.

Blue, a longtime teammate of Hunter’s, was one of the most electrifying pitchers in the league, and his purchase—for $1.5 million—would give the Yanks a rotation of Hunter, Blue, Ellis, and Figueroa. (Rudy May had been the fourth starter, but Martin wouldn’t speak to him after he questioned being removed from a game.) That would have been quite formidable. But Kuhn wasn’t having it. Injecting himself into the transactions, he called out Finley for holding a liquidation sale.

Finley argued that he was shedding salary on soon-to-be free agents so that he could sign new players next off-season. Yet Kuhn didn’t trust that Finley would do that, and he blocked the sales. Finley sued and lost. Blue remained with the A’s for the rest of the season, and the Yankees played on. Kuhn had prevailed and made sure that future deals included players, and not just cash.

On the same day as the ill-fated Blue purchase, the Yankees and Orioles completed a rare intradivisional ten-player deal, their biggest since the seventeen-player swap of 1954. The Yankees sent Scott McGregor, Rick Dempsey, and Tippy Martinez to the Orioles—all three would become long-term, popular Orioles—along with Rudy May and Dave Pagan.

The Yankees obtained two reliable starting pitchers, Ken Holtzman and Doyle Alexander, along with the veteran catcher Elrod Hendricks, pitcher Grant Jackson, and a minor leaguer. Holtzman, the winningest Jewish
pitcher in history (174 victories, to Koufax’s 165), never got along with Martin, but he did win nine games over the balance of the season, while Alexander went 10–5 in 19 starts.

On July 25, Chambliss hit a walk-off homer to beat Boston, and the fans wouldn’t leave until he took a curtain call from the dugout and waved his helmet. This was believed to be the first “curtain call” by a player since Maris’s 61st home run fifteen years earlier.

The Yanks were driven all year by their new captain, as Munson enjoyed a .302/17/105 season and was a force in each game. It earned him the league’s MVP Award and more than justified the idea of making him captain. He was the first Yankee since Howard in 1963 to win MVP; Mickey Rivers finished third.

Nettles, with 32 home runs, won the league’s home run title, the first Yankee since Maris in 1961 to accomplish the feat. At the final home game of the season, Sal Durante, who had caught Maris’s 61st homer fifteen years earlier, threw out the first pitch from the location of his seat in the old stadium. Nettles, the number 9 on his back, took the throw standing in right field.

Although the Yankees were still associated with power—hence the perpetual use of “Bronx Bombers”—they hadn’t led the league in home runs since that 1961 season of 240, and would not lead outright again until 2007: forty-six seasons! (They tied in 2004.)

With the combination of the new stadium and a championship-bound team, with Rivers proving to be a great table setter and enormously popular with young fans, with rookie Randolph making the All-Star team, with all the trades working out well and Billy Martin looking like the outstanding in-game leader that he was, the Yankees drew 2,012,048 fans in 1976, making them the first team in the American League to top two million since they had done it twenty-six years earlier.

All of Major League Baseball enjoyed the sudden renewed interest in the game, and many claimed the surge was directly tied to the thrilling 1975 World Series between Boston and Cincinnati. And while that may certainly have been true to a degree, there was no doubt that the return of the Yankees to pennant-winning baseball along with the new Yankee Stadium was also a big contributor. Baseball as an industry was always strongest when the Yankees were winning, filling ballparks on the road and attracting big television ratings.

Another cultural phenomenon was occurring that helped spike attendance. The presence of women at games was increasing substantially.

“The women’s movement gave them permission to work, to not need to have an escort, to listen on the radio themselves and not be thought of as tomboys,” explained Suzyn Waldman, who would give up an acting career to pursue baseball broadcasting.

Waldman would eventually become a pioneer in the broadcast field. She was the first woman to hold a full-time broadcasting position in Major League Baseball when she joined John Sterling in the booth in 2005. Steinbrenner saw her coming. “Waldman,” he said, “one of these days, I’m going to make a statement about women in sports … You’re
it
, and I hope you can take it!”

IN JULY, ABOUT three months before his contract with the Yankees was to expire, Pat Gillick was approached by Peter Bavasi, president of the expansion Toronto Blue Jays, about becoming his general manager. He knew it was a violation of tampering rules.

Gillick had been doing good work building the scouting and minor league departments, and he was focusing special attention on Latin America, which was free from the amateur draft.

Steinbrenner found out about Bavasi’s overtures to Gillick when Pat began recruiting scouts, and called the head of the beer company Labatt, also the lead owners of the Blue Jays. He yelled, “You should fire Bavasi at once. He just tampered with the best young baseball mind in the game; he’s trying to hire my brightest baseball person!”

Recalled Bavasi, “My guy says, ‘Who is this young baseball genius Bavasi is trying to hire?’ George screamed, ‘Gillick! Pat Gillick!’ My man says, ‘Never heard of him. But I will tell you this—if Bavasi is trying to hire the best and brightest young baseball guy at the Yankees, we will not fire him. We’re going to give him a raise and a bonus.’”

“George actually loved telling this story,” continued Bavasi. “He was great to me after I was fired in Toronto, promoted me for league president, hired me as a consultant, invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at his home, and when I went to run the Indians, he opened doors for me and introduced me to all the right people.”

Gillick took Elliot Wahle, his next-in-command, to Toronto. On that one, Steinbrenner was less than magnanimous. He threw Wahle out without even allowing him to clean out his office.

—————

THE YANKEES CLINCHED their first Eastern Division title with almost two weeks left, plenty of time for Martin to prepare the team for its first appearance in a League Championship Series. The winning margin was ten and a half games. The Western opponent, also in their first LCS visit, was Kansas City.

After splitting the first four games in the best-of-five series, the two teams played for the pennant at Yankee Stadium on October 14. Figueroa, who led the staff with a 19–10 record, overcame a shaky start and held a 6–3 lead when Grant Jackson relieved him in the eighth. Figueroa left to a loving fan chant of “Ed-die, Ed-die, Ed-die.” But Jackson yielded a crushing three-run homer to George Brett to tie the game 6–6, which is where it stood in the last of the ninth.

Mark Littell was on the mound to face Chambliss, who had enjoyed a monster playoff series. Chambliss then proceeded to belt Littell’s first pitch over the right-field wall for a pennant-clinching, walk-off home run. The historic shot, which gave him a .524 average for the LCS, induced thousands of fans to storm the field, making his run around the bases such an adventure that all hope to touch home plate would have to be abandoned as he bolted for the dugout in a mad dash after touching third. The rules, which doubtless stated he needed to circle the bases, were joyously overlooked, although Chambliss later went out and touched the plate with the mob still on the field. This was hardly a walk-off homer; it was more of a run-for-your-life one. The Yankees were going to their thirtieth World Series. And for no one was it more special than for Roy White, who had been there since the Horace Clarke Era began in 1965. The wait was over.

The Yankees headed to Cincinnati the morning after the LCS win, having partied and celebrated through the night. The Reds could not be taken lightly: They were the Big Red Machine, one of the great teams of the twentieth century. As the Yankee team bus headed for Riverfront Stadium, Dock Ellis kept everyone amused, reading passages from his newly published autobiography, which told of his adventures against Cincinnati. (He’d been ejected from a game two years earlier for hitting the first three batters: Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Dan Driessen.)

Martin named Doyle Alexander to pitch game one, bypassing the well-rested Holtzman and bristling when asked to explain it. Mystery clouded the selection, and the Reds won the game 5–1 behind Don Gullett. A controversy developed during the game when the Reds objected to the Yankees
using scouts with walkie-talkies in the press box to position players. Commissioner Kuhn ordered the practice halted.

Steinbrenner had been doing this for much of the season; it was certainly regularly done in football. One day in Chicago, he had Gene Michael posted in the press box for the assignment. Bill Veeck, no fan of Steinbrenner’s, ordered Michael removed. He assigned him to a seat adjacent to the press box for the rest of that series, but artfully hired a clown, in full clown garb, to sit next to Michael as he did his job.

Michael had retired as a player earlier that season, released by Boston after never appearing in a game for them. I mentioned to Steinbrenner that Michael would be a good addition to our operations, and he told me to have him come in to see him. That began a long and distinguished career for Michael in a variety of positions as he became one of the most respected figures in the game.

Furious over the loss and the embarrassment over the walkie-talkies, Steinbrenner confined everyone to their rooms at the team’s far-off motel that night, saying that “parties are not for losers.” This included Gabe Paul, who disregarded the punishment.

Catfish Hunter pitched well in game two but lost 4–3 on a single by Tony Perez with two out in the ninth. Game three, on a cold night in a boisterous Yankee Stadium, saw the Reds beat Ellis 6–2 for a 3–0 lead, and the fourth and final game was a 7–2 thrashing as Johnny Bench belted two long home runs, including a three-run shot in the ninth to seal the win and send the Yankee fans home, much quieted.

Munson, still in MVP form, batted .529 with nine singles in the four games and took exception to a response from Reds manager Sparky Anderson in the postgame press conference, when Anderson said, “Ain’t nobody can compare to Johnny Bench.” Munson took it personally and railed against Anderson, leaving the room with bitterness. It well reflected the deflated spirit of the Yankees after such a shining season. Martin himself had been ejected in the final game after rolling a baseball toward the home-plate umpire in frustration. Bruce Froemming, umpiring at first, said, “What are you doing?” Martin replied, “It’s none of your business,” to which Froemming responded, “It’s my business now—you’re outta here,” and sent Martin packing. He was the only Yankee to ever be tossed from a World Series game.

Steinbrenner summoned everyone to work early the next morning, saying
the entire organization should be ashamed of what had just occurred, and made no secret of his desire to improve the team in 1977 with the addition of a big hitter in the middle of the lineup. Chambliss had hit just 17 home runs in the cleanup slot in ’76.

There was no doubt that the man Steinbrenner most coveted was the premier free agent of the first free-agent class, Reggie Jackson.

WITH THE DAWNING OF free agency, it was hard to ignore a shift in the way baseball was being covered by the media.

Coverage of the Yankees by their own beat reporters had generally been respectful and even obedient. Occasionally, like in the 1957 Copa brawl or, later, the Peterson-Kekich affair, there was too much to ignore. But as a rule, the writers who traveled, ate, and drank at the team’s expense were practically members of the family and kept secrets nicely.

Following an example set by
Newsday
in the fifties, the
Times
prohibited its reporters from serving as official scorers or voting on awards and the Hall of Fame, feeling it a conflict of interest.

While Dick Young remained the symbol of a hard-hitting reporter, his influence waned when he jumped from the
News
to the
Post
, and he seemed to grow more wrapped up in feuding with television (sometimes blocking their shots by stepping in front of their cameras). He came to champion the owners’ side on disputes.

Things changed dramatically in the mid-seventies. While our daily press notes and occasional press releases once formed the day’s news agenda, reporters were now stepping out on their own to discover what the news was.

No one was more prominent in this regard than Murray Chass of the
Times
. But given the growing national influence of the paper, its respect in journalism circles, and its being the paper of choice by affluent season box holders, Chass’s reporting took team coverage to important new levels.

I started covering the Yankees late in 1970. I loved being a reporter, not just a baseball reporter. And it was my good fortune that at the time I was covering the Yankees, two stories were presented to me that had it all—the growing importance of labor and free-agency, and the oversized personalities of the Yankee personnel. It was a reporter’s dream.

From time to time Mr. Steinbrenner would stop talking to me, but then he knew you couldn’t just ignore the
Times.
I wouldn’t let him bully me, I was always there, and I was always trying to get his reactions, even if he wasn’t returning my calls that day. While he was busy playing the
News
against the
Post
, promising them both exclusives in exchange for planting some story, I was forced to call other teams and developed a great network of contacts, especially agents. Eventually, he came to respect me, I think, and we found a way to live together.