When thinking about Oakland A’s history, it’s easy to forget the early-1980s.
The A’s arrived in the Bay Area in 1968, and within their first decade in Oakland they’d established themselves with three straight World Series championships in 1972-74. Fast forward to the late-80s, and a new generation rose to the top of the sport, winning three straight AL pennants from 1988-90. The 21st century has been dominated by Billy Beane and the Moneyball era, but in terms of the 20th century, those two title-winning periods demand the elephant’s share of the attention.
But what about the decade in between? The last remnants of the Swingin’ A’s dynasty were almost completely gone by 1977, and it wasn’t until 1986 that the first key pieces of the Bash Brothers squads began settling into place. Something must have happened during that time.
That something was Billy Ball, led by manager Billy Martin. With the A’s in a post-dynasty slump, and rumors swirling that they might leave Oakland, Martin came in and helped revitalize the franchise. He taught fundamentals that the players lacked, and instilled in them his aggressive and exciting style of play. In the process he took a team that had lost 108 games in 1979 and led them to a playoff berth in 1981, reigniting the fanbase’s interest along the way.
The Billy Ball era didn’t produce any championships, and it didn’t even last that long — Martin managed the club for only three seasons, and was fired after 1982. But despite those modest results, it’s still a section of team history worth knowing about. And Martin, himself a local product born and raised in Berkeley, is an essential character in A’s lore.
To learn more about Martin, let’s turn to the person who literally wrote the book on him.
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Dale Tafoya, author of Bash Brothers: A Legacy Subpoenaed (Potomac Books, 2008), released a new book in March titled Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s (click link to order). To set the scene, here is a synopsis provided by Tafoya:
In the late 1970s, free agency had decimated the A’s and owner Charlie Finley was running the Oakland franchise on a shoestring budget. The A’s were a baseball crisis. Baseball owners and Lee MacPhail, American League president, wanted to take the A’s off life support in Oakland and move it elsewhere. American League clubs rarely met budget traveling to Oakland to play the A’s. The A’s lost 108 games in 1979 and drew less than 307,000 fans at the Oakland Coliseum that season.
In 1980, Finley, after failing for three years to close a deal to sell the club to Colorado-based oil titan Marvin Davis, turned to fifty-one-year-old Billy Martin, who had been fired by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner the previous October, following a fight with a marshmallow salesman in Minnesota. Billy Martin immediately brought life to the A’s and transformed them into a commodity worth buying. By August 1980, Walter A. Haas Jr. arrived on the scene and purchased the A’s from Finley for $12.7 million. The Haas family solidified the A’s stay in Oakland and poured millions into the franchise, making it the best in baseball. By 1982, the A’s shattered their all-time franchise record with a season attendance of 1,735,493 and were named Baseball America’s Organization of the Year.
The book covers the Billy Ball revival in Oakland—the wins, crowds, complete games, and the Clio-award winning advertising campaign. Billy Martin was the difference maker. He made the young A’s believe in themselves.
What follows is an excerpt from the book itself, reprinted with permission from Tafoya and Lyons Press. Here is Chapter 6 of Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s. You can also CLICK HERE to order a copy of your own.
Chapter 6: Billy Ball
Billy baseball. If it were a fever, the A’s would be an epidemic. There’s another name for it. Confidence. — Ralph Wiley, Oakland Tribune, March 23, 1980
BILLY STRUTTED INTO SCOTTSDALE FOR SPRING TRAINING WEARING his signature western garb—wide-brimmed cowboy hat, leather jacket, pointy-toed boots, and tinted glasses—arriving at the recently renovated Scottsdale Stadium to manage the 1980 A’s. The A’s spring training facility from 1979 to 1981 had recently undergone $250,000 worth of improvements that included new offices, air-conditioned locker rooms, concession stands and showers in addition to 4,300 new seats. Billy’s office inside Scottsdale Stadium dwarfed the manager’s office at the Oakland Coliseum.
The A’s managerial vacancy may have been the least appealing in all of baseball, but the circumstances and timing seemed heaven-sent for Billy. He was energized and excited. For the first time in five years, Martin was free of distractions and stress that came from managing in New York. The pressure had caused him to lose weight, and drinking compounded his anxiety. Billy needed focus and his health back, and he knew that coming home was the perfect opportunity. His mother, Jenny, lived in the same house on Seventh Street in nearby West Berkeley and was still married to Jack Downey. “Being back home in Oakland was a great situation for him and he took advantage of it every opportunity,” said Jackie Moore, one of Martin’s coaches. He was happy to be home and confident he would bring excitement back in Oakland. “I’m back in my hometown,” Billy told the media in spring training. “I’m close to my mother, who’s seventy-nine now. I grew up in Berkeley, I played minor league ball in Oakland, I know the Bay Area, I know they’re good baseball fans. I think we can live with the Giants there, I think we can draw 1.2 million, maybe 1.3 million a year.”
Martin made sure to embrace his new opportunity. He munched hardboiled eggs for breakfast in an effort to eat healthier, inhaled Scottsdale’s fresh spring air, and gave thanks for a new lease. But some things remained unchanged. He frequented the Pink Pony Steakhouse, Old Town Scottsdale’s popular dining and drinking establishment that was crammed with baseball figures and fans during spring training. There, Billy held court with a few writers and laughed with old baseball friends. “So it is that Billy Martin is going home again to Oakland. He is going home to manage the A’s. And now he hopes to finish his career there, just up the freeway from Berkeley, where he was born and raised. Billy tells you, it is a changed place. They have torn down the Victorian homes of his youth and replaced them with high-rises . . . He is going back to it and he does not want to disgrace it,” wrote David Israel of the New York Times on March 13, 1980.
Billy fastened on his new white A’s cap and pulled up his double-knits. The flashy green-and-gold A’s colors were a departure from the Yankees’ staid pinstripes, but one element remained the same: he wore uniform number 1. And number 1 knew he needed to build the confidence of the young A’s and show them how to win. He set the tone right away on the first morning of spring training, addressing his new players in the locker room of Scottsdale Stadium. His intensity inspired some players and intimidated others. He guaranteed them a winning season. Jeff Newman, the A’s catcher, remembered. “Billy looked at us and said, ‘Boys, we’re going to win. I’m going to teach you and show you how to win.’ We looked around and saw mostly the same guys who lost 108 games last season.”
It didn’t take long for Billy to establish his authority, which had eroded under Jim Marshall, the A’s manager in 1979. Billy immediately announced a midnight curfew before day games and mandated that players wore coats and ties on travel days. The team instantly recognized the new leadership style. “When Billy came on, he wasn’t going to stand for any of that stuff,” recalled former A’s beat writer Kit Stier. “He installed discipline in them right away. Not that he was the most disciplined man himself, but he knew how to run a baseball team. He already managed at other places and had been a winner. He made baseball fun for them again. But he was severely limited in what he had in terms of a roster.”
A’s outfielder Tony Armas got off to a bad start with his new manager. He was late reporting to spring training on March 1 and Billy threatened to fine him if didn’t arrive by March 4. Armas had been late for spring training the previous season, too, which he blamed on visa problems in his native Venezuela, where he’d played winter ball. Martin didn’t buy the excuse. Everyone else arrived to camp on time. Billy suspected that many players who played winter ball “take a vacation on us when spring training starts.” Billy announced that any late-arriving A’s winter-league players would not be granted permission to play the following winter. Billy changed his mind about fining Armas when he finally arrived, but he warned him to call next time. Armas showed up at spring training on time in 1981.
Bob Lacey, an A’s reliever in 1980, recalled that Martin sometimes embarrassed players in an effort to keep control. “He was the best manager I’ve ever played for, but Bronco Billy would ride the wild player on the team to calm him down so other horses in the stall would see and fall back,” said Lacey.
Billy bumped heads with Mike Norris on the first day of spring training. The twenty-five-year-old right-handed starter was the longest tenured A’s player on the club, having signed in 1973. Part of Billy’s introductory speech included a warning to the players about turning on him. “You ballplayers will screw over managers and coaches,” Billy told his new players. “If you fuck me, I’ll fuck back harder.” Norris looked around and noticed that some of his younger teammates were horrified after hearing Billy’s threat. They all knew that their new manager was fearless, bold, and crazy enough to bench Reggie Jackson on national television in 1977. The locker room was silent and Norris, finding humor in the players’ reaction, laughed out loud. Billy shifted his attention to Norris, and told him to meet him in his office immediately after the meeting. Norris couldn’t believe he was already in Billy’s doghouse before touching the field for his workout. Billy asked him why he laughed and interrupted his speech in the locker room. “I told him that what he said scared the shit out of everybody,” explained Norris. “Then he asked me why I wasn’t scared, and I told him because I wasn’t going to fuck him over. We were cool from then on and I think he respected me because he knew I wasn’t afraid of him.”
Finley and Billy began piecing together the organization. On March 6, Finley hired twenty-nine-year-old Walt Jocketty as the A’s new farm director, replacing Norm Koselke. Koselke never had a background in baseball and spent a lot of time driving players around. “I was scared to death when I got there,” Jocketty told reporters in 1994. “I had no scouts. I had four managers. No pitching coaches, no instructor, no secretary. Nothing. I had to type all the contracts.”
Up in the majors, Clete Boyer left the Braves organization as a minor-league instructor to become Billy’s third-base coach. Martin’s decision to bring Boyer back was partly to help him receive his pension benefits. Billy planned on grooming Boyer to be his Oakland successor. Boyer admired Billy’s fearlessness. Like Billy, Boyer had his share of late-night bar scuffles. Boyer would be in Billy’s inner circle on and off the field. Coaches Lee Walls and George Mitterwald were holdovers from 1979. Fowler replaced Lee Stange as pitching coach.
Billy was making new hires off the field as well. To fill the role of traveling secretary and public relations director, he brought twenty-eight-year-old Mickey Morabito over from the Yankees on March 25. Morabito had started as a batboy for the Yankees in 1970 and eventually became the team’s director of public relations. He was also a longtime friend of Martin’s and helped him survive the enormous media scrutiny in New York. For the A’s, Morabito inherited the task of restoring community relations and coordinating team travel.
Whether they’d be traveling back to the Bay Area had been the subject of some speculation. A rumor was circulating in early spring that the A’s never made flight arraignments to return to Oakland to begin the season. This fueled suspicion that Finley expected to sell the team any day. Martin, meanwhile, ignored the rumors and began teaching the young A’s the fundamentals and instilling them with confidence. “It started in 1980,” former A’s outfielder Mike Davis said in 2004. “Billy came to spring training and started building confidence in us and letting us know we could compete at the big-league level. We put together a great spring and were on top of the cactus league. He did that to build confidence in us.”
A’s players bought into Billy’s winning style right away. They finally had an established, winning manager with a name. “This is the first time I’ve felt like I was in the big leagues since I broke in,” Norris told Stephanie Salter of the San Francisco Examiner during spring training. “Nobody before has given us a total awareness of defense. Things like pickoff fundamentals; working on them makes a guy confident enough to call the pickoff play, and confidence is what you’ve got to have—especially as a pitcher. I’ve learned more in five weeks than I have in five years.”
Billy identified with the bunch of unknown players. He was an under-dog himself, scrapping and clawing to survive in life and reach the big leagues. Billy inspired them to believe in themselves. “We needed a no-nonsense manager to make us believe in ourselves,” said former A’s catcher Mike Heath. “We loved Billy. He demanded from us and knew how good we could be.”
In 1980, there was nowhere to go but up for the Oakland A’s. In addition to finishing in last place in the American League West in 1979, thirty-four games behind the first-place Angels, the A’s finished at the bottom of almost every major team category. Their team batting average of .239 and fielding percentage of .972 were last in the American League. Their 4.74 ERA was the second highest in the big leagues and they finished last in runs scored with 573. After the dismal ’79 season, Martin’s main challenge was to convince his players to forget it and move ahead. “Billy was at his best coming into a situation like the A’s were in, and they were ripe for this charismatic, mercurial leader who was crazy in love with the game of baseball,” said Salter.
Billy forced the club to divorce themselves from 1979 and made them believe they could win. “From day one, Billy inspired us to get out of our doldrums of ’78 and ’79,” recalled former A’s catcher Jim Essian, who played for them from 1978 to ’80 and in ’84. “His enthusiasm and ability to inspire us was remarkable. He told us we could win. He sparked us. Throughout the spring, he brought aggressiveness. He loved to put pressure on the defense.”
Catcher Jeff Newman said Billy’s confidence was contagious and motivated players. “He had so much confidence in the team and his ability to manage, it spilled onto us,” said Newman. “We believed it and went out and played hard for the man. It was fun. Those days of Billy Ball were fun times. You have to give him a lot of credit for coming in and being a very positive person, showing and telling us we were going to win.”
A’s players circled around Billy on the infield dirt and he yelled, “You don’t have to have great speed to steal home. You have to have the right pitcher.” That awakened the A’s slower runners. The perfect conditions mattered more than speed of a runner for the steal of home, emphasized Billy. “Any time a pitcher winds up, we’ll go,” Billy yelled again.
Stealing home was stealing a run. Daring, aggressive, and unpredictable baserunning was a part of Billy’s theory that rattled opposing managers. In 1969, when Billy managed the Twins, he passed on his secret formula for stealing home to Rod Carew. Carew swiped home an astonishing seven times that season, tying Pete Reiser’s 1946 major-league record. “Billy worked with me for hours reading pitchers to become more aggressive,” recalled Carew. “Many of those hours we concentrated on stealing home. Few guys ever stole home. We worked on timing to the split second.”
Billy preached aggressive baserunning throughout spring training. All his players were expected to take risks on the basepaths, not just speedsters like Rickey Henderson or Dwayne Murphy. Billy convinced them how they could go from first to third on a bunt. A’s players lacked confidence and the fundamentals. He was teaching them things they’d never learned before. “It’s going to get better,” Billy told reporters. “Most of these kids have never been taught any fundamentals. We’re going to keep working on them until we get it right. We’ll come out before games and work on them. The players are all excited. That’s half the battle right there.”
A lively crowd of 2,980 filled Scottsdale Stadium to watch the Billy Martin–charged A’s exhibition opener on March 13. Billy’s A’s spring debut created buzz. It was the team’s biggest spring-training crowd since they moved their spring headquarters. The crowd was buzzing with chants of “Billy, Billy, Billy” before the game. It was a promising turnout considering the A’s only averaged 3,787 fans per home game during the regular season at the Coliseum in 1979. The A’s didn’t disappoint the energetic fans. Billy tapped twenty-four-year-old right-hander Matt Keough to start the exhibition opener. Billy was fond of Keough. While Billy was managing the Yankees in 1978, he selected Keough to represent the A’s in the All-Star Game in San Diego. Keough, Brian Kingman, and Steve McCatty tossed three scoreless innings apiece to shut out the Milwaukee Brewers 5–0. Tony Armas, now out of the doghouse for arriving late, collected four hits, including a home run and double to carry the offense. “Billy got us ready to run the bases and make the proper plays on the very first day,” said Bob Lacey. The resourceful Billy emphasized stealing, hit and runs, bunting, outfield throws, and pickoff plays throughout camp.
Columnist Ray Ratto, who covered the team for the San Francisco Examiner, noticed a new energy that Billy had brought to spring training. “From spring training on, they just seemed like a team with purpose, which they hadn’t had in the previous three years,” said Ratto. “Spring training in 1980 crackled with energy they hadn’t had since the World Series years. It had an edge to it.”
Opposing teams began recognizing that every A’s player was a stolen base threat. On Friday, March 21, while the A’s were nursing a 1–0 lead over the Mariners in the top of the sixth in Tempe, catcher Jim Essian led off with a double and made it to third-base on a sacrifice. As Mariners pitcher Glenn Abbott peered in for the sign, Essian, the slowest A’s player, suddenly broke from third-base and dashed home, shocking everyone. A rattled Abbott noticed Essian trucking home and threw wildly to his catcher, allowing Essian to steal home easily to seal a 2–0 victory. The slow-footed Essian didn’t have any stolen bases the previous season and had amassed a career total of five since 1973. His teammates emerged from the dugout to celebrate with him. “He wanted us to be aggressive and gave me permission to steal home, so I did,” recalled Essian. A’s players were put on notice to stay alert at all times for the steal sign from A’s third-base coach Boyer. The A’s were showcasing a fresh, exciting and entertaining brand of baseball. “It was Billy’s way of showing them that it could be done,” said John Hickey. “There was nobody on the planet more shocked of stealing home than Jim Essian.”
Watching Essian’s steal of home from the press box in Tempe was Ralph Wiley, a twenty-seven-year-old columnist for the Oakland Tribune. He flew to Scottsdale to visit the A’s camp for the weekend and watch them play under Billy. The Tribune hired the Tennessee native in 1975 as a copy editor from Knoxville College, where he worked in journalism at the Knoxville Spectrum. The quick-learning and inquisitive Wiley climbed the ladder fast at the Tribune. He covered prep sports, the city beat, and the Giants before headlining as a regular sports columnist for the newspaper in 1979. He was a provocative writer and brilliant wordsmith that earned him the nickname “the Wiz” from his peers in the press box. Wiley also covered some legendary boxing cards. That weekend, Wiley decided to write a column about the A’s new aggressive style of play that included stealing home and suicide squeezes.
Wiley’s challenge was how to best capture the forceful style of play he was seeing from what he had first described as “survival ball.” The A’s were becoming the epitome of Billy’s scrappy nature in only three weeks of spring training. Wiley submitted his column to a novice desk copy editor, having settled on “Billy Ball” to describe the new daring A’s. The column was scheduled to run on Sunday, March 23. But the editor told Wiley that “Billy Ball” sounded corny and he was removing it from the column in favor of “the style of baseball played by Billy Martin.” Wiley insisted that it be kept in. The editor complied and “Billy Ball” appeared in Wiley’s Sunday column. “Billy Baseball” perfectly headlined Wiley’s piece: “
The A’s are even much more fun on the field. Billy baseball is stealing and bunting at the same time, hoping the third-baseman fields the bunt and the shortstop covers second, enabling the runner to possibly gain third-base, or at least make threatening gestures. Billy baseball is stealing home. Billy ball says a squeeze play a day keep the shutouts away. The A’s have tried the squeeze six times this spring. It has only worked three times, but it has never failed to be exciting for the people in the seats, which is the very best part of it.”
Triggered by the A’s success on the field and centered on Billy’s showmanship, “Billy Ball” became a national phenomenon and changed Wiley’s life and elevated his career in journalism. It was only spring training and “Billy Ball” started floating around. “It had a great name and captured the situation perfectly,” said Dave Newhouse. “It became history and became necessary.”
The A’s boasted a promising Cactus League record of 12–7 under Billy, who announced a starting rotation of Langford, Norris, Kingman, McCatty, and Keough. Keough, who was 2–17 with a 5.04 ERA in 1979, finished the spring with a record of 4–0 with a stellar 2.00 ERA. The pitching staff led the Cactus League with an ERA of 2.89. Billy was impressed with his five young starting pitchers. He had seen them develop across the diamond while managing the Yankees. Billy’s main concern leaving spring training was his shaky infield defense. As a former second baseman himself, Martin had no tolerance for defensive mental lapses. “We need to shore up our defense in the infield,” Billy said. “We’ve got good pitching from what I’ve seen. But pitching doesn’t make defense. Defense makes pitching.”
In Oakland, Martin didn’t have the power hitters he had in New York, or the short porch in Yankee Stadium’s right field. He believed that being assertive on the bases, pressuring the defense, was the A’s only hope to manufacture enough runs to compete. But his players needed to move as ordered. The A’s stole home three times during spring training. “Our job was to move guys over,” remembered infielder Mickey Klutts. “We had to put pressure on the basepaths. We wanted other teams to make mistakes. He was all about putting pressure on the defense. He called an awful lot of hit and runs. We were an American League team that bunted guys over.”
Back in Oakland, the news of Billy’s arrival spurred ticket sales, despite the lingering uncertainty over where the A’s would play in 1980. Some of the older locals, remembering Billy starring for the Oakland Oaks in the 1940s, wanted to come and celebrate his East Bay return. The story of a local boy returning home to rescue a dying franchise piqued local interest. The A’s also benefited from the Raiders’ plans to leave Oakland. Heartbroken and angry local Raiders fans turned their attention to the A’s. It was Martin’s job to make sure his players didn’t disappoint.
— END OF EXCERPT —
About the Author
Dale Tafoya is author of Bash Brothers: A Legacy Subpoenaed (Potomac Books, 2008) and has followed Oakland A’s baseball for thirty years. His work has appeared in the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, Orlando Sentinel, Modesto Bee, The Source, and Beckett Baseball Card Monthly. In addition to his writing credits, Tafoya has been a guest on ESPN Radio, FOX Sports, Cumulus Media and Comcast Sports. Tafoya resides in the San Francisco-Bay Area.