​The year before Tony Oliva won the American League batting title as a rookie in 1964, he headed to Triple-A Dallas-Fort Worth after tearing the cover off the ball in spring training. He was upset when he didn’t make the Opening Day roster, and he soon discovered there were two unanticipated occupational hazards playing for that Triple-A club.
 
The team owned its own plane, a DC-3 aircraft, which had been in vogue in the 1940s. This particular plane had seen better days by the time Oliva, César Tovar, Sandy Valdespino and their teammates were flying between Triple-A destinations in the mid-1960s. Smooth flights were rare, with a few trips more alarming than others.
 
Oliva recalls two or three hair-raising flights that summer, including one between Dallas and Seattle, which had players wondering if they weren’t living out their final minutes. One of the plane’s engines developed a problem, and as the decrepit DC-3 sputtered, the pilots warned passengers that an emergency landing was a distinct possibility. The flight crew managed to land the plane without incident, but the white-knuckle affair had the young men contemplating their mortality with every turbulent hiccup and dip in altitude. 
 
Even with both engines working properly, Valdespino says the players called the plane “the Knuckleball” for the way it danced and darted in the air. Even getting back on solid ground could generate anxiety, as one touchdown in particular took the phrase “hard landing” to new heights.
 
“I remember a time we were flying to Oklahoma City,” Oliva recalls. “We hit the runway so hard that the plane took off again. We had to go around and get in line to land again.” Jim Rantz, a promising pitching prospect in the early 1960s who went on to oversee the Twins’ minor league system, shared many of those scary airborne moments as Oliva’s teammate, including the crazy carom on the runway in Oklahoma City. 
 
“It was, like, five in the morning, and the explanation was that the pavement was blacktop and it was so hot that the heat made the plane bounce,” Rantz explains with a heavy dose of skepticism. He notes the plane had more issues than overheated pavement. Weight was often a concern, and luggage and cargo had to be distributed evenly to keep the Knuckleball on course. Despite that concern, the players played a key role in the balancing act.
 
“The DC-3s were a plane where the tail sits almost on the ground,” Rantz recalls. “When you got on, you had to walk uphill. When the luggage rack would get filled up in the tail, the 25 players would make a human conveyor belt and we’d have to pass the equipment up the aisle to the front luggage. So we helped load the plane.” Whether it was a matter of weight or its distribution—or simply the age of the plane—Rantz says the DC-3 always struggled to gain altitude once it was in the air. 
 
“I remember when we had to go to Denver,” says Lee Stange, who mostly pitched for the Twins that summer but made eight starts for Dallas. “We couldn’t get over the mountains, so we used to go in between them. That Denver flight was the scariest one to me. I’d sit up front behind the pilots. You could see the mountains coming at you.”
 
Before long, Oliva and Valdespino had to all but drag Tovar onto the plane for a road trip. Oliva remembers a time after that hellish Seattle flight when Tovar, approaching the plane, got down on his knees and pleaded, “Oh please, oh please, I got three kids in Venezuela. I don’t want to get on that plane!” Oliva often was at Tovar’s side at takeoff. 
 
“A lot of times, Tony and César, you’d see them sitting in the back,” remembers Rantz. “They’d have the blankets over their heads when you’d take off, and they’d have it for the whole flight until you landed … I would get a little nervous when the copilot would come down the aisle and it’s the middle of the night. He’s got his flashlight and he’s leaning in front of you, looking at the wings. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m just looking to see if we’re picking up any ice on the wings.’ Yeah, that’s not a comforting feeling.”
 
No one on the team liked to fly the Knuckleball. Lefthander Gerry Arrigo, who pitched parts of four seasons with the Twins, refused to even set foot on the aircraft. Oliva says Arrigo showed up for his initial team flight, vomited before boarding, and went home instead. 
 
“I didn’t like to fly to begin with,” Arrigo says. “When they started weighing the players at the airport, that was it, I went home. I went back to Amelia, Ohio, and stayed there for a week or so. They called me and wanted to know why I went home. I told them why, and I said, ‘I’m not going to fly on that plane, period. Send me to a bus league if you want.’ So they sent me to Charlotte, and I played in the bus league there. I only played about 10 games and I was sent back to Minnesota.”
 
Another less-threatening but unavoidable hazard of playing in Dallas was the requirement to dress the part of a Texas rancher while on road trips. The players, traveling in Western clothing, leather boots and 10-gallon hats, were quite a sight walking through airports. Oliva could only laugh when he first saw Valdespino and Tovar, his Latin friends, in their Western duds. Valdespino says Tony O, amused by the getup they were forced to wear, called the trio the Black Cowboys. 
 
 
—From “Tony Oliva: The Life and Times of a Minnesota Twins Legend”
 

While Washington and Houston square off in the 2019 World Series, several teams are shopping for new managers. For this Minnesota Twins fan, it comes to mind that 50 years ago, while the New York Mets were shocking the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in the 1969 World Series, the Twins were in search of a new skipper after club owner Calvin Griffith had fired first-year manager Billy Martin. 
 
Martin’s first pink slip came after directing the Twins to a 97-65 finish and a berth in the first American League Championship Series. The Twins had improved by 18 wins after a disappointing 1968 season, as Martin restored the aggressive approach that he brought to the club as their third-base coach during their run to the 1965 World Series. 
 
In 1965, Martin had made the Twins multidimensional by running more, forcing opponents to react. The Twins had mostly been sluggers when Martin arrived, but soon began executing the hit-and-run and running wild, stealing or taking the extra base. When the owner turned to Martin in 1969, he hoped his new manager could use a multidimensional offense to again breathe life into his team.
 
Martin was a gambler in the dugout. Rod Carew, Tony Oliva and César Tovar had the green light to run if they thought they could steal. Oliva said that if an attempt failed, Martin did not second-guess the decision to run as long as the player was hustling and playing hard. Trust ran both ways. Jim Kaat said a player could question or stand up to Martin, and he appreciated that the skipper would hear him out. Players respected that, and Martin’s approach inspired them to give their best. 
 
That spring, players found that Martin as a rookie skipper was just like Martin as a coach. Fundamentals were emphasized and practiced in camp, and Martin was on the field long before workouts or exhibition games began, giving instruction and working on the little details with young players. “The thing I think that he was best at was trying to keep the guys from making little mistakes,” Harmon Killebrew said of Martin in 2010. “He was really big on fundamentals and the little things to win games. He knew as much about the game as anybody that you want to be around.” Martin also urged veterans to make adjustments to gain an edge, encouraging Killebrew to occasionally hit the ball the other way, Carew to master bunting, and Oliva to abandon his spray approach and focus on pulling the ball to right field in RBI situations. 
 
Despite Martin’s reputation as an excitable boy—and he had to be excited by his first major league managerial gig—spring training 1969 was orderly and quiet. Still, he was planning some excitement for once the meaningful games began. In spring camp, he tutored Carew in the art of stealing home. Carew says Martin taught him to time a pitcher’s delivery and start for home from a walking lead when he knew he could make it safely. The student mastered beating a pitch to the plate, stealing home seven times in 1969—one short of Ty Cobb’s single-season record. 
 
Carew tied a big league mark by stealing three bases in one inning against Detroit on May 18, and Tovar also stole home that afternoon. After Tovar opened the third inning by beating out a slow roller to shortstop Mickey Stanley, Carew drew a full-count walk. They executed a double steal to move into scoring position, then both stole home to score two runs on one infield single and five stolen bases. 
 
“Billy would try stuff only high school coaches would try. He loved to pull off the unexpected play,” said Frank Quilici, who was on the 1965 club, played under Martin in 1969, and later became the Twins manager. In what he dubbed one of those high-school maneuvers called by Martin, Quilici stole home on May 4. He led off third base and Ted Uhlaender was on first with the White Sox’ Tommy John on the mound and rookie pitcher Dick Woodson at the plate. Uhlaender lingered off base long enough after a pitch to coax a throw to first from White Sox catcher Duane Josephson. As soon as the ball left Josephson’s hand, Quilici headed home. He slid past Josephson and beat the belated tag to score the game’s first run in a 4-3 come-from-behind victory.
 
Everybody ran with Martin calling the shots. The 32-year-old Killebrew, who had never stolen more than three bags in a season, stole two in one inning on June 4 and finished with a career-high eight in 1969. Killebrew also led the majors with 49 homers and a career-best 140 RBIs. At season’s end, he claimed the American League’s MVP Award. Martin also made the astute move of returning 33-year-old Jim Perry to the Twins rotation that summer, and both he and Dave Boswell won 20 games for the first time.
 
For the Twins, the 1969 season ended with the power-laden and pitching-rich Baltimore Orioles sweeping the ALCS. Soon after, Martin was fired. The news shocked Twins players and fans. The intense outcry by fans was immediate. Telephones rang incessantly for days at Metropolitan Stadium. Angry callers also flooded the switchboards of the sports departments of local newspapers, and Griffith was hung in effigy on the University of Minnesota campus. Fans grabbed up more than 10,000 bumper stickers imploring the Twins to “Bring Billy Back.” Thousands of Twins fans swore off the team—a common retort for years after Martin was gone.
 
Martin’s dismissal, however, wasn’t a complete surprise to newspaper writers. The stubborn owner and combative manager were never a match made in heaven. In announcing the firing, Griffith cited Martin’s propensity to ignore organizational policies and guidelines—and undoubtedly several incidents contributed to the final outcome. One was an angry mid-May confrontation between the manager and farm director George Brophy regarding the minor league assignments of Twins prospects Charley Walters and Bill Zepp. Martin took his beef to the press instead of Griffith, who forced his manager to apologize to Brophy.
 
Then there was Martin’s brawl with Boswell in August at the Lindell AC bar, a small hole in the wall not far from Tiger Stadium in Detroit. It began after Martin called out the pitcher at the bar for not running his required laps earlier in the day. An angry Boswell stormed out of the bar and tussled with teammate Bob Allison, who had tried to calm down the righthander, and Martin came outside and entered the scuffle. Both Martin and Boswell claim the other threw the first punch in their rumble, and some say that Martin had some help in the fight. The specifics of that alcohol-fueled altercation were hazy, and the protagonists are now gone, but the seven stitches Martin needed in the knuckles of his right hand and the nearly 20 stitches required to sew up Boswell’s facial wounds were there for all to see.
 
The fray also put a sizable dent in Boswell’s wallet, as Griffith fined him $500 for the incident. Martin didn’t get off scot-free either. Although he wasn’t asked to open his pocketbook, the skipper drew the owner’s wrath and inched closer to cementing a one-and-done tenure in his first big league managing assignment.
 
The final straw might have been Martin’s decision to start Bob Miller in Game 3 of the ALCS. The righthander had excelled as a reliever and spot starter, and Martin cited his pitching as “one of the main reasons” the Twins won the AL West title. Griffith favored using Kaat, who had won two of three starts and posted a 1.80 ERA facing the mighty Orioles that season. When Miller didn’t complete two innings in an 11-2 loss in the ALCS finale, the second-guessing began immediately in postgame interviews. “What if Miller had won today and what if Kaat had started and lost?” Martin retorted angrily at one point. Someone asked Martin what he thought the Twins needed to produce a better result in 1970. A new manager, he said, with a straight face.
 
That’s what the Twins got, as Griffith fired Martin during the Mets-Orioles World Series. It was Martin’s first pink slip, but it wouldn’t be his last in a 16-year managerial career that produced two AL pennants and a World Series title with the New York Yankees.