12-25-89 . . . The baseball world is in mourning this evening over the loss of one of its most fiery players and managers, Billy Martin [1928-1989]. Martin was killed today in a single-vehicle crash near his home in Binghamton, New York. He was sixty-one years old. Although I’ve never been a fan of Martin’s, I always respected him as a manager. He had a way of bringing the best out of his players, which explains his success wherever he went. He won divisional titles in Minnesota, Detroit, Oakland, and New York. He even led the lowly Texas Rangers to a second-place finish years ago, a plateau they haven’t reached since. Ah, Billy. He lived a hard, fast life. I always thought he would die of a heart attack (perhaps on the playing field) or be shot in a bar. It’s not right that he should die in a pickup truck in the dead of winter—the victim, it appears, of a friend’s drunkenness and poor driving. The baseball world will miss him.
In other news, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega has turned himself in at the papal nunciate after eluding United States troops for several days. I neglected to mention the other day that President [George Herbert Walker] Bush sent troops to Panama to apprehend Noriega and reinstitute democracy. Noriega, who once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, has apparently been involved in drug-running during the past few years. He has been indicted in United States federal court. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to him now that his whereabouts are known. Will the Vatican give him asylum? Will United States troops storm the papal nunciate to apprehend him? Will he be tried? In other news, longtime Romanian leader Nikolai Ceausescu [1918-1989] and his wife have been executed by their people. They were “tried” for crimes against the people and for “ruining” the Romanian economy. Following conviction, the elderly couple was taken outside and shot by firing squad. Is this just? I can’t say; I don’t know enough about the situation. I’ve heard that Ceausescu ruled with an iron fist and made life miserable for the Romanian people. Whether that justifies death is another question. I wonder how the Soviet Union will react to events in Romania.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 