Legendary New York Yankees manager Billy Martin got his first managing job in Denver – taking over for the Triple A Denver Bears mid-season in 1968. The Bears had a record of 7 wins, 22 losses when Martin took the helm, and under Martin’s fiery leadership the team had a complete turn around, winning 66 games and losing 50 in their remaining games.
The success with the Bears led to Martin being promoted as manager to the American League Minnesota Twins the next season. Martin would never manage in the minors again, serving as manager for the Twins, Tigers, Rangers, A’s, and of course the Yankees over his career.
One of the stars of that Bears team, third baseman Graig Nettles, would later star for Martin’s New York Yankee teams. Art Fowler was Martin’s pitching coach for the Bears – Fowler also followed Martin to serve as pitching coach in New York.
During that 1968 season the Denver Bears hosted a “kids day” at the stadium for area youth baseball teams. I played second base for my team and I was in attendance that day. Billy Martin was always very personable with the fans, and he was on this day, too, giving a small group of young second basemen (including me) personal attention in showing us the finer points of playing the infield.
As a baseball fan all my life, I always remember the job Billy Martin did to turn around that 1968 Denver Bears team. It impressed on me that a good manager in baseball can have a positive effect on a team more than a head coach in any other sport.
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Interesting that Billy Martin was viewed as a potential GM/manager for the 1993 Colorado Rockies, since he was killed in a drunken pickup crash on Christmas Day 1989.
Might want to edit that.
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Tom – Thanks and you are right! I didn’t catch that so I removed the part about the Rockies wanting Billy Martin to be their new GM. The error was not mine – rather the statement from Billy’s wife that the “Colorado people wanted him to run the whole show” was in the book Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius by Bill Pennington, page 475. Unless she was referring to an earlier time and confused it with the Rockies. The Oakland A’s were in the process of moving to Denver in 1978, to be purchased by Denver oil man Marvin Davis, before the deal fell through.