Doug Newton, Billy Martin's Former Agent, Remembers George Steinbrenner

Doug NewtonDoug Newton, president of the retail brand Billy Martin’s USA and Martin’s former agent from 1976 to 1988, joked today that Martin had “a few go rounds” with the late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who died yesterday at the age of 80.

When Newton first met Martin, who was then managing the Yankees, Martin immediately showed him the “good boy clauses” Steinbrenner had put in his contract.

“It said, ‘You’ve got to, at all times, conduct yourself in a manner that is in keeping with the absolute best traditions of the New York Yankees,’” Newton recalled from his home in Rancho Mirage, California. “You can never get into any kind of altercations with anybody, and you must always speak very highly of the management of the New York Yankees.”

Newton admitted he never thought Steinbrenner and Martin, whom Steinbrenner fired and re-hired numerous times, would ever see eye to eye. “They both had mule-headed personalities,” said Newton. Fittingly, their views on spring training differed as well.

Billy Martin“Billy didn’t care about a spring training game. He said, ‘We don’t need to win this, this is ridiculous,’” said Newton. “George said, ‘We’ve got to have that momentum, gotta have that special drive going into the season.’ Billy thought the guy was nuts.”

Thinking about Steinbrenner stirred up many emotions for Newton, who cared for the man a great deal. “He was a spectacular showman, he was a wonderful guy,” he remarked, but owed, “He put the fear of God into a lot of people.”

Unfortunately for Newton, his client was not one of those people. “Billy was feisty as can be. He said, ‘Steinbrenner is just a lot of hot air, but he’s the owner of the team. So can you figure out a way for us to get along?’” Newton recalled.

Both men, he told Imus, hated to have anything negative printed about them in the paper. “They kind of became so much impressed with and focused on what was written about them in the media that it ended up, in many ways, to their detriment,” he said.

Though Steinbrenner had a soft and sweet side, Newton said he was also very mean. “He had this other side that would come out, and you thought you were dealing with the devil,” he said. “The guy could speak in a very articulate, wonderful, accommodating manner, and in a heartbeat he could use language as vile as Tony Soprano.”

One time, Steinbrenner threatened Newton that he had information about Martin that he would use if Newton didn’t get him to fall in line. “The guy was almost engaging in some kind of extortion,” said Newton. “Turns out, he swore later he was just BS-ing me.”

As for where Steinbrenner stands in Yankees history, Newton will leave that analysis to the sportswriters. But he thinks Steinbrenner’s mellower demeanor in his later years made up for some of the aggressive behavior of his earlier years.

“He called me a couple of years ago, and we talked about the old days,” said Newton. “He said, ‘Don’t tell anybody, but I wish I could get Joe Torre back.’”

-Julie Kanfer