Alfred "Billy" Martin was only 17 years old when he was first signed to a baseball contract. When his manager and mentor, Casey Stengel, became the Yankee’s manager, in 1950, he signed Martin to the team. Martin proved to be a valuable asset, being named 1953’s MVP, the year the Yankees won the World Series. In 1975, after his playing days were behind him, Martin was hired by Yankee’s owner George Steinbrenner, to manage the team. Under his leadership, the Yankee’s won the 1976 Pennant and the 1977 World Series. Yet, despite Martin’s successes with the team, his relationship with Steinbrenner was tumultuous and tales of his firings and subsequent rehirings filled newspaper pages. A 1985 NY Times article characterized their relationship as “sport's longest-running soap opera.”
Martin died on Christmas day in 1987, at the age of 61, when his pickup truck --driven by a friend--skidded off an icy road in upstate NY. His Funeral Mass, which took place four days later, was held at New York City’s venerable St. Patrick’s Cathedral. More than 6,500 hundred people packed the church --former president Richard M. Nixon, and sports greats Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and Phil Rizzuto, among them—while another 3,500 hundred people stood outside in the cold. From the altar, Bishop Edwin Broderick quipped to the crowd, ”The cathedral was the last place you would expect to find Billy. But it so happens this is the last place we find him.” Martin’s pride in being a Yankee is evidenced by the inscription on his monument in Gate of Heaven Cemetery: I may not have been the greatest Yankee to put on the uniform, but I was the proudest.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Windows into Long Island's Past
This month's 'American Cemetery & Cremation' magazine contains my article 'Windows into Long Island's Past.' ...


-
Hungarian-born journalist and newspaper publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, was born Jozsef Politzer in 1847. Several years after the death of his ...
-
One of the most unique mausoleums to be found in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery is that of successful Atlanta businessman, Jasper Newton Smith. ...
-
At the 1972 funeral of Jackie Robinson, 2,500 people packed Riverside Church in New York City. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, NY C...
-
Way back when, the first significant monument I was introduced to at Green-Wood was the "bride." So significant was this that I ...
-
One of the most ornate monuments in Green-Wood is that of Charlotte Canda, who died in 1845, on her 17th birthday. Canda’s death was th...
-
This open –air mausoleum --resembling a gazebo – was built for Marc Antony Zambetti, grandson of the Stella D’Oro Biscuit Company’s found...
-
This Norman Revival hillside tomb, which contains the remains of the Lispenard Stewart family, was designed by James Fenwick in 1889. The...
-
Over the weekend, Green-Wood Cemetery participated in openhousenewyork (sic). One of the highlights this year was the rare opportunity...
-
Infamous 1930s crime lord, Dutch Schultz, is buried beneath a bench-like monument --which bears his birth name, Arthur Flegenheimer—in Hawth...
-
This majestic monument marks the grave of Major General Robert Patterson, who fought in both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.

No comments:
Post a Comment