Wild, High and Tight: The Life and Death of Billy Martin
by By Golenbock, Peter
Category: Biography & Autobiography , General

On the field, he played and managed with an aggressive intensity that sometimes spilled over into fury.Off the field, he cruised around in a chauffeur-driven gold stretch limo, stocked with a full bar, video, and phones, sporting a custom license plate: YANKEE 1.To many people, he was a hero. To others, he was a disgrace. Labels are easy to apply, but no single word can sum up the complex and tormented life of Billy Martin.Billy was one of the great managers of baseball's modern era, perhaps the greatest. In every new job, he built losing teams into immediate winners: the Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, Oakland Athletics, and the New York Yankees all triumphed with his exciting "Billyball" style of play. And all fired him, for his off-field escapades inevitably eclipsed his baseball achievements.He was possessive, jealous, a brawling bully who was also a victim of smarter, subtler, more powerful bullies; wildly adulterous as a married man; a public figure who was privately, desperately lonely; a street kid who coveted the rich and famous; an alcoholic who maintained total control on the field, but sought the anonymous camaraderie of bars where he could drink to ease his insecurities. His death in a car wreck on Christmas Day 1989 symbolized a life of contradictions gone violently out of control.Wild, High and Tight is unlike any sports biography in recent memory. Much more than a recitation of wins and losses, it is a rich, engrossing, intimate portrait of a little guy, an American everyman who found fame, fortune, all the booze and women he wanted - but was undone by the very fantasy he chased.