Wild, High and Tight; The Life and Death of Billy Martin

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiii, [1], 545, [1] pages. Illustrations. Bibliography. Notes. Index. Peter Golenbock (born July 19, 1946) is a sports journalist and author. He has written ten New York Times best sellers including Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949-1964, The Bronx Zoo (with Sparky Lyle), Number 1 (with Billy Martin), Balls (with Graig Nettles), Personal Fouls, Idiot (with Johnny Damon), Presumed Guilty (with Jose Baez), American Prince (with Tony Curtis), and Driven (with Donald Driver), and "House of Nails" with Lenny Dykstra. Golenbock was working for Prentice-Hall when he knocked on the door of Nick D'Incecco, the head of P-H's trade book division, and told D'Incecco he wanted to write a history of the Casey Stengel New York Yankees. D'Incecco liked the idea and gave him a contract. Golenbock interviewed almost all of the Yankees of that era. Billy Martin so loved what Golenbock wrote in Dynasty that he asked him to write his autobiography, Number 1. Derived from a Kirkus review: Golenbock barely stays within the foul lines in this Baseball Babylon catalogue of the late Yankees manager's career, his celebrated fistfights, hangovers, trysts, and battles with owners, players, and the press. Golenbock reviews Martin's playing days in the 1950s and his carousings with Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. He brings insight into the father- son relationship he had with Casey Stengel and their eventual falling-out. Golenbock retraces Martin's managerial odyssey: AAA Denver in 1968; winning the division with the Minnesota Twins in 1969 and being fired; his turnaround of the Detroit Tigers in 1971, capped by taking the division the following season, and then dismissal after a tumultuous 1973; being named Manager of the Year in 1974 for resurrecting the hapless Texas Rangers only to be fired in July 1975; then, his achievement of a lifelong dream in being named to manage the New York Yankees.