August 28, 1977 – Yankees 1, Rangers 0
- Sal Maiorana
- Aug 28, 2017
- 3 min read
NEW YORK – Billy Martin had been bugging George Steinbrenner ever since he took the Yankees managerial job in late 1975 to allow him to bring his good buddy, Art Fowler, to the Yankees to serve as his pitching coach.
Martin and Fowler had first worked together in 1969, Billy’s only season with the Twins. After he was fired, Fowler followed him to Triple-A Denver in 1970, and then back to the majors when Billy managed the Tigers from 1971-73. When Billy was fired there, he went to Texas and hired Fowler in 1974, but when Martin came to New York in 1976, Steinbrenner told him his pitching coach, Bob Lemon, wasn’t going anywhere.
Could you blame Steinbrenner? Lemon was being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in the summer of 1976, recognizing his superb 18-year career spent solely with the Cleveland Indians during which he won 207 games with a 3.23 ERA. Fowler bounced around during 11 seasons in the big leagues and won 54 games with a 4.03 ERA.
Martin sucked it up, Fowler stayed retired down in South Carolina, and the Yankees won the AL pennant. In 1977, Lemon left to become the manager of the White Sox, so Billy took up for Fowler again, but Steinbrenner instead turned the pitchers over to Cloyd Boyer. Now Billy had a case here, as Boyer had played parts of only five seasons in the majors and won 20 games with a 4.73 ERA. However, Boyer had been a long-time soldier in the organization dating back to the early 1960s, working as a scout and occasional minor league manager, so Steinbrenner stayed loyal to his man.
Martin, though, was relentless, and Steinbrenner finally threw up the white flag midway through August; he hired Fowler, and sent Boyer out to be the bullpen coach. One guy who really benefited from this decision was Ron Guidry because he was a young kid still trying to figure things out, and he really appreciated Fowler’s simple approach.
In Bill Pennington’s book Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius, Guidry said, “Fowler was perfect for that team because he just made everyone laugh. Art would come to the mound when you were in trouble and you’d be waiting for some advice on how he was going to solve the situation, and instead Art would just drawl, ‘I don’t know what’s going on out here but you’re making Billy awfully pissed off. So whatever you’re doing, I suggest you cut it out.’ And then he’d walk away, but, you know, you would start laughing and relax and make some good pitches.”
With Fowler keeping things light, Guidry emerged as a star in 1978 as he won the American League Cy Young Award with one of the greatest pitching seasons in Yankee history. “He had a lot of pitching knowledge,” Guidry told Pennington. “He just used it at odd times and it was very subtle.”
Don Gullet couldn’t understand why Fowler kept working for Martin at every stop because Martin would essentially blame him whenever a pitcher was struggling.
“(Billy) really used to let Fowler have it if the pitchers screwed up,” Gullett said. “I was having trouble throwing strikes so Martin sent Fowler to the mound. He said, ‘Billy told me to tell you that Babe Ruth is dead. That ain’t Babe Ruth up there so throw strikes. Please, Gully, throw strikes or Billy is really gonna be pissed at me.’”
This was a peaceful day for Fowler as Guidry celebrated his 27th birthday with a dominating two-hit shutout of the Rangers. He walked no one and struck out eight and had a crowd of more than 37,000 at Yankee Stadium heading to the exits inside two hours.
Of course, Dock Ellis did his part to help along the pace of the game, too. The ex-Yankee limited the Yankees to a mere run when Reggie Jackson singled to right, just after a sixth-inning triple by Graig Nettles that probably should have been caught by center fielder Juan Beniquez.
Martin couldn’t help taking a jab at Steinbrenner afterward when he brought up the fact that the owner, frustrated by Guidry in spring training, wanted to trade the left-hander. “I think there were some people who wanted to get rid of him in spring training,” Martin said. “I wasn’t one of them and I don’t think Gabe (Paul) was.”
Comments