Setting the Record Straight

What you may not know about Billy Martin
is that in January of 1972, the same year 
he took the Detroit Tigers to their first 

American League East Championship,
he met a young woman sports editor
on a Tiger preseason press tour. 

It was the first time a woman 
had crossed the threshold into a room 
of Tigers mingling with the press and she

was greeted with a silence so deafening
for decades she lived in the shadow 
of that nightmare. It would not fade. 

What you may not know about Billy Martin
is that unlike others in the room that night,
he did not hit on her. Maybe somehow he knew

that she, like he, had a tough job. Perhaps 
he saw her at the door taking a deep breath,
squaring her shoulders before stepping into the ring.

Perhaps it touched in him the sense of chivalry seeded 
by the mother and grandmother who raised him 
after his father deserted them. This player-turned-manager, 

renowned for throwing punches, kicking dust
and waging war with his own front office, decided
to share with the tenacious woman his untold backstory. 

She was twenty, too young, too naïve to know
that what’s told to the press is on the record,
unless it’s not. Billy Martin never said it was not.

Fearing his candid details too personal to publish, 
she decided not to write the article. Only later,
when Billy Martin repeated his story 

to a male reporter and it appeared in Sports Illustrated,
did she realize he had been opening a door for her
into the major league of sports reporting. 

What you may not know about Billy Martin 
is that on learning she’d never been to Tiger Stadium, 
he invited her to a game, suggested she join the team

in the dugout for pre-game batting practice. 
When she arrived that mid-August afternoon, 
the Tigers, after riding high in July, were in a slump 

so long and ugly some were calling it fatal.
What you may not know about Billy Martin
is that while the players were like brothers to him—

he talked with them, believed in them, fought for them—
there was nothing he could do to get them through a slump 
but plan more practices, say little, support their superstitions. 

• If I play well one night, I’ll wear the same socks the next. I’m wearing too many clean socks. Ike Brown, pinch hitter, infielder
• It’s hard to correct things under pressure so I sing, entertain the team with my great wit, and I do a lot of praying. Norm Cash, first baseman
• I want a win so badly, I’m swinging at bad pitches. Ed Brinkman, shortstop
• I’m not superstitious but the rosin bag is always in the exact same spot just right of the pitcher’s mound. Joe Coleman, pitcher
• I used to touch 3^rd base on my way out to centerfield, but I kept tripping over the bag so I quit.  Mickey Stanley, centerfielder 

What you may not know about Billy Martin
is that when the woman in the dugout suggested
he sign for her a practice ball to bring them luck, 

he borrowed her pen, signed the ball, then 
tossed both ball and pen to the players nearby. 
The remainder of that championship year 

is Tiger history. Ask any fan.

For Harry Stapler, former publisher of the East Lansing Towne Courier

“Setting the Record Straight” was selected by the editors of the new book, The Songs of Summer: Poems about Baseball. To order a copy, click here.