Ever since Billy Martin was a street kid in Oakland, getting into fights under his square name of Alfred Manuel Pesano, he has been characterized by what Joseph Conrad called "an open, generous, frank, barbarous recklessness."

He was a rookie riding the Yankees' bench in 1952 when the Marines called up Jerry Coleman, the best second baseman in the American league, for service in Korea. This gave Martin a chance to play regularly but he did not exclaim, "Oh, goodie!" Finding his name eighth in the batting order, he sought out Casey Stengel. "What is this, a joke?" he demanded. "I suppose tomorrow I'll be hitting behind the groundskeeper."

"Where do you think you should be hitting?" the manager asked. 'Third?"

"Where else?" the young man said.

Still a museum piece among heedless World Series plays is one Martin employed to insure the Yankees' defeat in the fourth game of their 1953 struggle with the Brooklyn Dodgers. With the Dodgers leading, 7-3, Gene Woodling and Martin singled in the ninth inning and Gil McDougald walked, filling the bases. There was promise of a big Yankee rally, but Clem Labine relieved Billy Loes, struck out Phil Rizzuto and got the second out on a fly by Johnny Mize. Mickey Mantle singled to left, scoring Woodling with the Yankees' fourth run, and Martin gambled that he could get home from second base with a meaningless fifth. Running with great resolution, not to mention open, generous, frank and barbarous recklessness, he ran the Yankees plumb out of the ball game.

Those were Martin's salad days, when he was green in judgment. In fairness, it should be added that he was the star of the series, which the Yankees won in six games. He batted .500 and his 12 hits equaled the World Series record that Pepper Martin had set 22 years earlier in seven games.

On May 16, 1957, when Martin attained to the wisdom of 29 years, he celebrated the birthday in the Copacabana, a popular waterhole in New York, in company with Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and their wives. Toasts were drunk, words spoken, a stranger awoke the next day with a lump on his jaw, and Martin wound up in Kansas City.

"I never dared to be a radical when young," Robert Frost has told us, "for fear it would make me conservative when old." It didn't work that way as Billy Martin matured. As a coach with the Minnesota Twins, he punched Howard Fox, the traveling secretary.

When he succeeded to the dignity of manager, he slugged his star pitcher, Dave Boswell, stiff as a straw hat, in a brawl outside a saloon. He complained publicly about the work of the club's personnel director, a relative of the boss, and when the Twins finished first in the American League West, under Martin's direction, Calvin Griffith, the owner, handed Martin his head as a token of his esteem.

This is Martin's second season as licensed wonder worker for the Detroit Tigers. Since training camp opened he has been promising that his team would win in the American League East.

Arriving in New York last week with his club in first place, he said that if it hadn't been for the players' strike last spring the Tigers would be out of sight.

The Tigers lost three of their four games in Yankee Stadium. They went home, lost twice to Cleveland, and dropped out of first place.

So Martin tried a novel experiment. Before Sunday's doubleheader with the Indians, he put the names of his eight regulars in a hat, shook well, and had Al Kaline select the batting order in a blind draw. Norm Cash, the club's leading power hitter, led off, and Ed Brinkman, hitting .205, batted clean-up. Detroit won, 3-2. For the second game, Martin revised the batting order according to his best judgment. For the sixth time in eight games, Detroit lost.

John E. Fetzer, owner of the Tigers, has not yet fired Martin and hired Martin's hat, but if he should, Martin will know where he got the idea.

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