Question Being Asked in AL Dugouts....
Why Did Twins Pass Up Martin As Choice for Club's Acting Manager?
By Milton Richman (UPI)
NEW YORK - Why was Billy Martin passed up?
That's a good question. So good, in fact, that it's being asked in a lot of dugouts up and down the American League.
Ballplayers are notorious busybodies. They like to sit around, chew the fat and gossip like a bunch of women getting their hair done at the beauty parlor.
Usually, they figure things out right. They did again in this particular situation.
They guessed correctly there would be a minor crisis at the top when Minnesota manager Sam Mele was set down for five days and fined $500 on Monday by AL President Joe Cronin for his run-in with umpire Bill Valentine.
They knew Mele would have to designate an acting manager and they figured it would not be Martin, who serves as third base coach with the Twins and normally would be next in the order of succession.
Maybe some fans were surprised, but few ballplayers actually were when it was announced that Hal Naragon, another coach, would fill in for Mele during his five-day suspension.
The obvious question is why Naragon, and why not Martin?
Since the best way to get any question answered is to ask it of someone who knows, I did, and here's the answer straight from the mouth of a knowledgeable spokesman in Minnesota's front office:
"Calvin (that's Minnesota president Calvin Griffith) and Sam sat down on Monday and decided on Naragon for two reasons.
"First, he was the only one of our coaches who had any managerial experience. And second, Billy (Martin) has done such a good job as third base coach for us that we didn't want to take him off the coaching line."
Pardon me if I have a little trouble swallowing that.
I have enormous respect for the man who furnished that information, and for all I know it may even 100 percent true, but a couple of things just don't add up.
Naragon's previous managerial experience, if you can call it that, amounts to two games. He handled the Twins during the last two games of the 1964 season while Griffith and Mele sat in the stands discussing plans for '65.
If you call that experience, then you can also call me an airline pilot because I once sat in a cockpit and was permitted to touch the controls.
It's also a bit difficult to buy that business about not wishing to disturb Martin on the coaching line. There's no rule against his managing and coaching at the same time, is there? Leo Durocher did it. So did Walter Alston, along with a number of others.
The plain unvarnished truth appears to be that Mele preferred Naragon over Martin for his own private reasons.
SAM MELE, TWINS MGR.