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A history of firing
Posted by Fired Fred on October 10, 2007 5:40 PM
It's been almost twenty years since Billy Martin died before the Yankees could hire him to be a manager for the sixth time. He had getting fired down to a headline grabbing art form.
Seriously, the modern sports manager, coach, ball boy, whatever, couldn't hold a candle to Billy the Master...
Fighting and drinking continued to be the thread that linked his playing days to his managerial career. In his first season as skipper of the Twins, he gave pitcher Dave Boswell a black eye in a bar, won a division title, and was fired.You just don't get that kind of dedication out of modern day managers.
Steinbrenner hired him for the first time in 1975, and the Yankees won the World Series two years later, even after Martin and Reggie Jackson nearly came to blows in the dugout during a nationally televised game. A year later, Martin was fired.
By 1979, he was back at the helm, only to be fired again by October after punching out a marshmallow salesman in the elevator of a Minnesota hotel.
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