Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126) (16 page)

I just walked back into the clubhouse. I had the first locker as you come out of the tunnel there in Fenway Park, and I just sat there in my uniform. Spikes, pants, shirt top, tape on my wrist, hat. I just sat in the chair there. Fully clothed. My glove over my knee. I didn’t know what to make of what had just happened.

I remember Bucky Dent was in the clubhouse then, and he was seething because Billy had just pinch-hit for him again in the sixth inning. He was on the phone to his wife, wanting her to come pick him up. He was about to jump the team because he couldn’t take it anymore.

And I told him, “I’m going to confront Martin when he comes in.” I said, “I’m going to ask him, ‘Where were you going with your comments? What were you talking about?’ ”

The more I thought about it, the more I felt misused. I was going to wait for Billy. I was ready to talk to him.

Then Fran Healy rushes in from the bullpen. You know, one of the writers, Ed Linn, wrote later, “Healy has the kind of competence that allows him to move very easily in any situation.” I think that says it all. He looked at me, and he looked at Bucky, and he took care of everything.

Fran told me, “Reggie, whatever you do, get out of here. ’Cause this guy”—Billy—“will start a fight with you.”

All I wanted to do was talk. But I told Fran, “That’s all right. If he does, I’m gonna kick his ass.”

And Bucky Dent was standing over there just across the clubhouse going, “Kick his ass! Kick his ass!” I think Bucky would’ve sold tickets, the way he felt about Billy just then.

But as always, Fran was a voice of reason. He told me, “He will start a fight with you, and you won’t be able to win it. If it happens that you lay this guy out, it’ll kill your reputation, you’ll be suspended. And if this guy sucker punches you or hits you with something”—the way he supposedly sucker punched Dave Boswell in Minnesota—“you’ll be ridiculed throughout the nation.”

That’s what he told me, and after a few minutes I could see that he
was right. They used to call Fran “Henry Kissinger” in the clubhouse, and now I could clearly understand why. Around the top of the ninth inning, I changed into my street clothes and just left. I never did take a shower, just changed into street clothes and walked back to the hotel.

When I got back there, Henry Hecht from the
New York Post
was there. That’s really all I remember. And I did an honest interview with him, and he wrote probably the most negative article I’ve ever had written about me. Just about how I’m an egomaniac who thinks he’s an intellectual. Just a sick mess.

Later, more writers came in to talk with me—Phil Pepe, Paul Montgomery, Steve Jacobson, others. I had Mike Torrez, who was a friend, come over. I trusted him; we had the same agent, Gary Walker. I wanted him there because I didn’t want to go too far. I didn’t want to say too much while I knew I was still angry about what happened.

Meanwhile, in the postgame interviews, Billy’s telling everybody how he pulled me because I didn’t hustle. He’s telling them he’s thinking about hitting me with a big fine. The press is writing about how the whole team’s behind him, 100 percent. How that could be, I don’t know. I know Fran Healy wasn’t behind him. I know Mike Torrez wasn’t behind him; he was back in the clubhouse. I know Bucky Dent wasn’t behind him; he was about to jump the team.

But there were a lot of guys giving the press quotes. Again, all off the record, nobody wanted to put their name to it. Saying I wasn’t hustling, saying Billy was right. Without any of them even asking me about it. Without any of them getting my side of the story.

So there I was, back in the hotel, trying not to say too much, trying to restrain myself. And there was Billy bad-mouthing me to the media; there are my teammates bad-mouthing me without finding out what I had to say.

That’s how the press wrote it, mostly negative about me. I had some enemies in the press box. Joe Donnelly, Moss Klein. But others, I never understood it. Henry Hecht—much as he burned me down a
couple of times, he had his own issues with Billy Martin. They knew what he was like, the anti-Semitism, all the rest of it. But all they would write about was me and how I was the problem.

I had let the writers into my hotel room that night. Today, there is no way on earth I would let a writer into my room. But I did then, and to me the story is, “Here’s a guy who was nice enough to have us into his room, who was open enough to have us into his room for a press conference.”

Instead, I came to understand later that they wrote about it like it was this wild scene. They wrote about all these insignificant things, like how I was walking around with my shirt off. I honestly don’t remember how I was dressed, but I was in
my
room. What’s the big deal if I’m in my room with my shirt off? Why would they bother to describe how I was dressed in my room?

Some people even wrote that there was a blonde in my shower while the writers were there. That wasn’t true. If I had someone there, why would I tell the girl to hang out in the shower for half an hour? If I had a woman in my room, I would not invite the media in. I would not do it. But if there
was
a blonde in the shower—lucky me. Why would you write about that?

There were some accounts of how I was walking around with an open Bible. I got through it, I got through that whole year with the help of my friends and by the grace of God. But anytime that I mentioned the Bible or God back then, there were some people who did their best to ridicule it. I was told they made mention of how I had my shirt off and I was wearing a cross, a gold cross I bought in Oakland in 1969 and wore most of the time, and some other gold chain …

That made me crazy. It made me sound like I had a Mr. T starter kit around my neck.

I did not see
The Bronx Is Burning
. I saw enough of it advertised on TV to turn my stomach. I’ve been in ten movies, and I’ve never seen one I’ve been in from start to finish. I’ve been in probably thirty or forty sitcom episodes, and I’ve never seen one from the first minute to the last. I’ve seen the
Yankeeography
on me, but I’ve never watched it from beginning to end. But the portrayal of the person I was in
The Bronx Is Burning
really hurt me.

I barely remember the scene in my room that night. I don’t even remember who
was
there. I know that Fran Healy came by, Mike Torrez. What I remember was only talking to Henry Hecht and Murray Chass. I had a close relationship with Steve Jacobson, so I probably talked to him as well. I might have talked to some other reporters just because they were there.

I did have support from some people. I heard from George. He was supportive in general, though he didn’t quite understand what was going on. I remember I got a call from Jesse Jackson, a “stick with it” call that was helpful. My father called, asked me how I was doing. My oldest brother, Joe, called to support me.

I don’t know if I handled it well or if I should have been more diplomatic. Color stood out back then. It was a lot of what people saw in 1977. And if you spoke, you were arrogant, you were self-centered, a clubhouse lawyer. Try to express yourself with honesty—it didn’t work. The media weren’t used to it.

I remember around that time I said, “I’ll take it, but I won’t eat it.”

I wasn’t going to internalize it. But it was a galling situation I was in. I had my pride—sometimes that’s not a good thing. Later in life, I realized that pride gets in the way sometimes. To be a good Christian, sometimes you have to lose the pride.

What I was really trying to protect, I think, was my integrity and dignity. With your integrity, sometimes you have to walk a fine line of honesty. Sometimes I would think, or say, “They’re screwing with me again. They think, ‘Why isn’t he just glad to be here? Why doesn’t he just shut up and pretend?’ ”

But that’s an angered response. You have to be careful not to let your anger run away with you, because when you do, you lose time to learn.

That’s what I was starting to figure out. I knew you really couldn’t touch a manager. You couldn’t physically fight back. You had to stand
at home plate and fight with your bat. You can speak in your own defense at times, but you must realize there is no one who is going to come to help you. You realize you’re one against all the rest (Fran, Dent, Catfish, and a few others excepted).

I was learning. But it would still take more time.

Fran knew so much that went on. He knew all the people who were instigating and who were into their childish plans and plots. He knew what was going on between the manager and the players, between the players and other players; he knew what was going on between the owner and the manager. He knew it all. It was strange: They knew we were friends during this time.

He told me later, “I wouldn’t tell you half the stuff that went on.” He said if he had, “it would just have made you crazy.” He felt I would’ve torn Billy Martin apart. (No.)

What nobody told me at the time—what not even Mike Torrez, who was on the mound, told me—was Billy saying, “Watch this,” before pulling me out of that game. I have no idea why they didn’t tell me, and I really don’t care.

But if it was out of worry about what I was going to do with a physical confrontation, I just wish that people would have more respect for me than that.

Was I going to fight Billy? That’s stupid. What would that do? How would that help?

I understood the situation I was in, being African American, the highest-paid athlete in the country at the time. To have created dissent at the time, with the social mores the way they were?

You can’t rebel physically in front of a nation. You have to get back to trying to level the field with patience and great play. With performance, so that you’re trying to prove what you say by doing things. That takes time. You can’t just go into the guy’s office and create a confrontation. It’s not what you do no matter who you are and what color you are.

When you’re in a situation where the authority has most of the power, you can’t just run and rewrite what goes on socially. What is
respected in the world. You got to take your time and try to traipse through it. And my time would come.

Fran is a really nice guy and got along with everybody. He served as the peacemaker. He came into that clubhouse in Boston, saw what was going on, and sorted it out. He got me to leave; he helped get Bucky to calm down.

You know, he not only helped me, but he probably helped save Billy Martin’s job with what he did. I mean, if Bucky Dent leaves, then the story is not just about me and Billy Martin. Then it’s about another discontented player, a
white
player walking out, too. Then the story becomes “Billy Martin has lost control of his team.” And that’s probably the end of him.

Instead, the next morning, I had a meeting with Billy and Gabe Paul at the Boston Sheraton. I always liked Gabe. I don’t think he was ever against me in any way. I know he had trouble with Billy as well.

Later that year, he had an incident, a small stroke, I think. And Billy and some of the players used to make fun of that, used to make fun of how he spoke after that. I liked him. It was easy to see he cared.

The meeting was at eight o’clock in the morning. I got there at eight.

Billy got there about eight thirty. Still with alcohol on his breath.

I don’t know if he was drunk at our breakfast or if he’d been up all night. Gabe started talking about everybody getting along and how the Boss had called to see what needed to be done. He asked us to say something, and I just told him what happened. I said I was hustling. I was just playing deep on Rice, and I thought Randolph had a chance at the ball. I told him how Rice took a big swing, and right away I took a step back. I couldn’t get in after the step back, and it fell in.

Right away, Billy’s furious. He stood up and looked at me, and he said, “Get up, boy! I’m gonna kick the s—t out of you!”

I looked at him. I couldn’t believe what was going on. I turned to Gabe, and I said, “You heard it. You heard him call me ‘boy.’ ”

I said to Gabe, “You’re Jewish. You understand the comment! How do you think I feel when he says that to me?”

And Gabe told Billy he was out of line. He said, “Sit down, Billy. Sit down or get out.”

Billy sat down then, and he started trying to defend himself. Started trying to make out there was nothing racial about what he said.

There really wasn’t a meeting. The writers all called it a meeting when they heard about it later. But there was no meeting. There was no attempt to have a meeting. Billy was too far gone, thanks to alcohol or whatever. Pretty soon Gabe said, “You need to leave now.” I then sat down and had breakfast with Gabe, and he basically tried to soothe me.

He said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that.” But then the next thing he said was, “You gotta get along with him.”

I said, “Gabe, you know I wanted to be traded. Why wouldn’t you let me go away from here? Why wouldn’t you let me go? Be human, let me go. It’s too painful here for me. Please.”

But there was no conceding from Gabe. They wouldn’t let me go. I guess I was needed. They couldn’t just turn loose their free-agent signing and admit a mistake was made. They weren’t going to fire Billy.