This is an excerpt from the upcoming \u201cThe Bosses of the Bronx\u201d by Post columnist Mike Vaccaro, covering the more than 50 years of Steinbrenner ownership of the Yankees. It releases March 24 from Harper Books. This is the first of three excerpts that will appear in The Post.<\/p>\n
GEORGE STEINBRENNER\u2019S worst nightmares were realized in the summer of 1978. His team, the defending champions, was in shambles, two weeks behind the Red Sox. His franchise player, Reggie Jackson, was in what appeared to be a permanent stalemate with a hugely popular manager, Billy Martin.<\/p>\n
Steinbrenner figured it couldn\u2019t get any worse. Then, right around eight o\u2019clock on the evening of July 23, his phone rang. He picked up. It was Henry Hecht, the Post\u2019s Yankees beat writer.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorge,\u201d Hecht began, \u201cyou\u2019re not going to believe what Billy just said.\u201d<\/p>\n
A week earlier, a two-year triangular soap opera with Billy, Reggie and the Boss as the primary players had reached a boiling point. Martin ordered Reggie to bunt in extra innings of a game against Kansas City. Reggie did, badly, and Martin took the bunt off. Jackson bunted anyway, popped out, and the veins in Billy\u2019s neck bulged and nearly burst.<\/p>\n
Mike Vaccaro\u2019s upcoming book, \u201cThe Bosses of the Bronx.\u201d<\/p>\n
He suspended Jackson for a week. Steinbrenner backed up the penalty. Now, wrapping up a weekend series in Chicago, Reggie was back. TV reporter Dick Schaap was there and he asked Reggie what was uppermost in his mind during his time away. Reggie smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe magnitude,\u201d he said, \u201cof me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later, at a bar at O\u2019Hare Airport, the traveling beat writers cornered Billy, well into his fourth gin and tonic. Reggie, he was told, wouldn\u2019t apologize, said he didn\u2019t do anything wrong.<\/p>\n
Martin\u2019s face darkened.<\/p>\n
\u201cShut up, Reggie Jackson,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need more of your crap. We\u2019re winning without you.\u201d The writers scribbled furiously. One asked, \u201cAre you sure you want this on the record?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPrint it!\u201d Martin said, ordering another round.<\/p>\n
Not long after, the Yankees were summoned to the gate to board. Martin saw two of the writers, Murray Chass of the Times and Hecht of the Post, and asked if they\u2019d printed what he said. They had. Martin was pleased. He also seemed, all things considered, reasonably sober despite having quaffed five or six drinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen him drunk enough times to know the difference,\u201d Hecht would later say.<\/p>\n
But Martin was still angry. Standing with the two reporters, he got angrier still. And out it came.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two of them deserve each other,\u201d Martin said, and Hecht and Chass heard enough of these rants to know whom he was referring to. And then came the kicker:<\/p>\n
\u201cOne\u2019s a born liar,\u201d he said, \u201cthe other\u2019s convicted.\u201d<\/p>\n
George Steinbrenner rehired Billy Martin as Yankees manager in 1983. Pat Benic\/Corbis Bettmann<\/p>\n
HECHT WAS THE one who reached Steinbrenner first, and the Boss was so incensed his voice quivered. Steinbrenner served an 18-month suspension from 1974-75 for illegal contributions to Richard Nixon\u2019s re-election campaign, a felony that Ronald Reagan would pardon 10 years later but for now still sent him into blind furies whenever it was referenced.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe he said those things,\u201d Steinbrenner told Hecht when he calmed. \u201cWas he drinking?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hecht assured him that while he was, he\u2019d been completely lucid.<\/p>\n
Steinbrenner had little choice. He dispatched GM Al Rosen to Kansas City to accept Billy\u2019s resignation. But watching Billy publicly break down in a hotel lobby when he announced his axing to the assembled newsmen somehow pierced the Boss\u2019 rage. Billy called and apologized; that helped.<\/p>\n
George Steinbrenner gives manager Billy Martin a bear hug and congratulations after each was doused by champagne in the dressing room at Royals Stadium Sunday, Oct. 9, 1977 after the Yankees defeated the Royals, 5-3, to take the AL championship. ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/p>\n
There was also this: that day, the Post had asked its readers: who should go, Billy or George?<\/p>\n
Ninety-nine percent voted for Steinbrenner to disappear.<\/p>\n
The sports editor, Jerry Lisker, demanded a recount. And he was right; that number was off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more like 99.3,\u201d he was told.<\/p>\n
Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson exchange words in the Yankees dugout. AP<\/p>\n
Three days later, Billy Martin was brought back to Old-Timer\u2019s Day to an enormous ovation and the announcement that he\u2019d return as manager for the 1980 season. Jackson, crestfallen, asked Steinbrenner: \u201cHow could you do this to me? You know how I feel about the man.\u201d<\/p>\n
So did the writers. That\u2019s why when they demanded a meeting with Martin that Steinbrenner initially refused. Finally, his PR chief, Mickey Morabito, convinced the Boss to let the writers talk to Billy at a Bronx restaurant before he headed off to a long fishing trip, extended R&R. There was one caveat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anything goes wrong,\u201d Steinbrenner told Morabito, \u201cit\u2019s your ass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon, Morabito knew he\u2019d need to update his r\u00e9sum\u00e9. Billy was already two beers in when the writers arrived, and soon he was off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably made the comment about George,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why, I say a lot of things just to be cute. But I was mad at [Reggie]. He set me off. He won\u2019t admit he made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was batting practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Reggie got his money I read the comments, \u2018I got no problem, George and I are eye-to-eye.\u2019 But he forgot one man. Billy Martin. If Reggie is here in 1980, he can expect to be treated like one of 25 players. If he abuses the privilege, he\u2019ll have his hand spanked again. I never looked at him like he was a superstar because he never showed he was a superstar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morabito, on the verge of passing out, hustled the lunch to a close. Back at the office, he knocked on Steinbrenner\u2019s door.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2019d it go?\u201d the Boss asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot good,\u201d Morabito said. He debriefed him. And wondered if he should duck.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this Reggie s\u2014 hits the papers tomorrow,\u201d Steinbrenner said, \u201cyou\u2019re fired.\u201d<\/p>\n
That night, wondering where he could get his hands on enough boxes to pack all his stuff, one of the writers called Morabito.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee you when I see you,\u201d the writer said. \u201cWe just went on strike.\u201d<\/p>\n
There would be no bloody back pages the next day, or any day until late October. By the grace of the newspaper guild, Morabito was spared.<\/p>\n
EVERY DAY WITH Steinbrenner was a new adventure. Three years later, in the minutes after the Yankees lost Game 4 of the ALDS to Milwaukee, word reached the Yankees: Steinbrenner had grown unhinged as the game ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy with the boars is coming!\u201d Reggie Jackson announced.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, in walked Steinbrenner, red-faced and spitting mad. As he blew through reporters in the corridor he carpet-bombed his team, specifically catcher Rick Cerone, who\u2019d gotten picked off and struck out with men on base late in the 2-1 loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are guys here who are on trial, and Rick Cerone is one of them,\u201d Steinbrenner fumed as he roared past the writers. \u201cStupid baserunning. Now we\u2019ll see who some of these guys are and who deserves to be in the playoffs and if some of the guys here deserve to be Yankees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once in front of his team, Steinbrenner revved his engine into overdrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow we will find out what kind of men you are,\u201d he said. \u201cNow you\u2019ve got to show me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of the players simply sat with heads bowed, trying like hell not to laugh at Steinbrenner\u2019s latest locker room screed. Manager Bob Lemon was so mad he worked his way through a cigarette in about three drags.<\/p>\n
Cerone didn\u2019t find any of this remotely funny. After a terrific 1980 in which he\u2019d ably replaced the late Thurman Munson, Cerone struggled through an injury-plagued \u201981, but Steinbrenner offered no quarter: \u201cCerone\u2019s gotten a big head,\u201d Steinbrenner said in September. \u201cSuddenly he\u2019s Mr. New York, the Italian Stallion. He\u2019s going to disco joints. I have a way of bringing guys down to size, and I\u2019ll bring him down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, in the Yankees\u2019 clubhouse, Steinbrenner said, \u201cYou haven\u2019t lost anything yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that was about all Cerone could take.<\/p>\n
Rick Cerone (10) on the mound with pitcher Dave Righetti (19) during Game 3 vs Los Angeles Dodgers. Sports Illustrated via Getty Ima<\/p>\n
\u201cF\u2014 you, George, you fat SOB\u201d he snapped. \u201cYou never played the game. You don\u2019t know what the f\u2014 you\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room went instantly silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of us wanted to give Rick a standing ovation,\u201d one of the players in that room would recall years later.<\/p>\n
Steinbrenner shot back.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you won\u2019t be playing this game as a Yankee next year, either!\u201d he snapped. And then stalked away.<\/p>\n
And you know what\u2019s funny? The next day, Cerone clinched the game and the series with a seventh-inning home run. Steinbrenner was the first man in the clubhouse to shake his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people put fear in you,\u201d Cerone said, \u201csometimes you play beyond yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight years later, by now in his third tour with the Yankees, Cerone was wearing a T-shirt with the word \u201cBOSS\u201d on it. That day George Steinbrenner was spending his last day in charge before beginning his second suspension from baseball. Cerone\u2019s eyes were filmed with sadness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat man,\u201d he said, \u201chas been very good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
(TOMORROW: The romancing and courtship of Mr. October)<\/p>\n