Billy Martin - Death

Death

Martin was working as a special consultant to George Steinbrenner when he was killed in a low speed, single vehicle collision during an ice storm at the end of the driveway to his farm in Port Crane, north of Binghamton, New York, on Christmas Day 1989. He was pronounced dead at a hospital in Johnson City, New York, where efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. Reports of the crash indicated that Martin had been drinking earlier, and that his friend William Reedy consequently was driving him home in Martin's Ford pickup truck. However, several conspiracy theorists and writers (including Peter Golenbock in Wild, High and Tight) have asserted that Martin was the driver, and that Bill Reedy and Jill Martin covered up the truth for legal reasons. According to the HBO TV series Autopsy, forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden performed the examination on Martin and investigated the accident scene, including the pick-up truck in which Martin died. The examination revealed that Martin's impact injuries were all on the right side, and that hair and other DNA found on the right side of the shattered windshield belonged to Martin, who was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. The final conclusion of the examination was that Reedy drove the pick-up and Martin was the passenger. As per request of the family no autopsy was performed.

Martin was eulogized by Cardinal John O'Connor at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, before his funeral at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York. His grave is located about 150 feet (46 m) from the grave of Babe Ruth in Section 25. The following epitaph, said by Billy Martin himself at his number retiring ceremony at Yankee Stadium in 1986, appears on the headstone: I may not have been the greatest Yankee to put on the uniform, but I was the proudest. Former United States President Richard Nixon and Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, along with many former New York Yankees greats attended Martin's funeral service.