THE PETER GOLENBLOG
THE PETER GOLENBLOG
Billy Martin was Driving, R.I.P. Bill Reedy
My close friend, Bill Reedy, died last night from cancer. His wife, Carol, called me this afternoon from Detroit with the news. Bill was the passenger in Billy Martin's F-150 pickup truck when Martin crashed it on an icy road in Binghamton, New York, near his home on Christmas day of 1989. Bill Reedy, sitting on the passenger side, was afraid that the police would charge Billy with drunk driving, and though he crushed his hip in the crash, he wanted to protect his friend, so he pulled himself across the seat so he was positioned behind the wheel when the police arrived. "Who was driving?" he was asked. "I was," said Reedy, who didn't know that Billy Martin had broken his neck and had died. How many people can count on such loyalty from their friends?
The reason this matters is that Billy Martin's wife -- who had to know that Billy Martin, whose ego never would have allowed someone else to drive his truck -- sued Reedy for negligent driving, based on his statement to the police. She eventually collected a million dollars from Ford.
When I began interviewing friends of Billy's for a biography, one of the first people I called was Bill Reedy. "I wasn't driving that day," Bill Reedy said to me. "It's important for people to know that I didn't kill Billy." He then proceeded to tell me in great detail the events of that fateful day. I later contacted Reedy's private investigator, who showed me irrefutably photographic proof that Billy Martin was driving and Bill Reedy was the passenger. When Wild, High & Tight came out, the very first sentence of the book was, "Billy Martin was driving." By then Bill Reedy and I had become close friends, and after that, there wasn't anything Bill Reedy wouldn't have done for me, though there was really nothing I ever wanted from him other than his friendship.
Bill Reedy would call, and we'd chat, about his life in Detroit, about some of Billy's other friends, like Clete Boyer, who passed away this year. Clete had had a tough couple of years, and Bill Reedy did what he could to buoy his spirits. It was Clete who told me that had Billy not died, he was coming back for a sixth stint as Yankee manager in 1990.
Now Bill Reedy is gone, and I, for one, will miss his easy laughter and his camaraderie.
Monday, July 6, 2009