MARTINEZ, Calif. -- The estranged wife of Billy Martin has filed a $500,000 suit aimed at halting her eviction from the luxury home she shared for five years with the fiery baseball manager.
Heather Martin, 26, contends that Martin, 58, is reneging on a promise he made when she was a jobless teenager that he would support her for life.
The couple married in 1982 and separated in October 1985 after Martin 'failed to return home from a road trip,' according to the suit.
The suit filed this week in Contra Costa County Superior Court says Martin met Heather in New York in 1978 when she was an 18-year-old high school dropout with no job skills, courted her for two years, then persuaded her to move to Califonia.
During their life together, she said, Martin pledged everything he owned also belonged to her, including the $600,000 home in suburban Danville that Martin bought in 1980 while living with her and managing the Oakland A's.
Mrs. Martin filed for divorce earlier this year. The latest suit is aimed at keeping herself, her 43-year-old mother, 75-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old brother from being evicted, she said.
The suit charges that 'Martin repeatedly told (his wife) that he did not want her to work outside the home, and that he wanted a well-maintained home with (her) in attendance at all times.'
In return for financial stability for life, the suit contends, she was to do the housework, entertain Martin's baseball associates and fix his meals.
Because of Martin's alleged breach of promise, Mrs. Martin is 'without skills, training or prospects for gainful emplyment,' the suit alleges.
Martin, a longtime baseball player and several times manager of the New York Yankees, currently works as an announcer for that team.
