David Lennon
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist and author who has been a staff writer at Newsday since 1991.
It was this same week, back in 1977, that a frustrated Billy Martin was stuck with a Yankees lineup full of misfiring stars. Five straight losses, a shocking inability to score. A team bordering on late April desperation.
Sound familiar?
Long before the birth of analytics, Martin turned to the only tactic available to like-minded managers at that time. He wrote out names on slips of paper, put them in a hat, and had Reggie Jackson pick them out for the batting order.