Jackson, Reggie 1946–

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Reggie Jackson 1946–

Hall of Fame baseball player, businessman

Early Life in Philadelphia

Signed with the Kansas City Athletics

Became a New York Yankee

Ended Baseball Career in Oakland

Sources

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During Reggie Jackson’s spectacular 20-year baseball career, he led his teams to five world championships and 11 division titles. He was the owner of what the Chicago Tribune termed “the most famous left-handed swing in the business,” earned 12 trips to the All-Star Game, and was the American League home run champ four times. During his stellar major-league career as an outfielder and designated hitter, he hit 563 home runs, the sixth-highest total in the history of the game. Conversely, he is the all-time leader in strikeouts with 2,597.

Jackson’s World Series performances were truly remarkable. In five championships series, he carried a .357 average. In the 1977 World Series, Jackson hit three home runs in three consecutive at-bats and carried a .450 average. This incredible performance earned Jackson the title “Mr. October.” His impressive talents made him one of baseball’s most popular players. Fans packed the ballpark to see Jackson play, whether at home or on the road. As he remarked to the Chicago Tribune,”I could put meat in the seats.” Jackson capitalized on his success by signing one of baseball’s first multimillion dollar free agency contracts.

Early Life in Philadelphia

Reginald Martinez Jackson was born on May 18, 1946 to Martinez and Clara Jackson in Wyn-cote, Pennsylvania, a mostly white Philadelphia suburb. His parents’ marriage was rocky and the family’s homelife suffered as a result. As Jackson explained in his book, Reggie: The Autobiography: ”I wasn’t exactly brought up in one of those Norman Rockwell paintings you used to see on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.” When Reggie was six, his parents divorced and his mother left, taking three of Jackson’s siblings with her. Reggie stayed behind with his dad, half-brother, and sister.

Martinez Jackson ran a dry cleaning and tailoring shop that occupied the first floor of the family home. Reggie helped out in the shop when he wasn’t in school, and, he claimed, “...to this day, if I had to put a pocket on a pair of slacks, or put cuffs on them, I could do it. And make a pretty good living at it.” The elder Jackson was Reggie’s hero and instilled in him a sense of self-discipline and a strong desire to succeed. “To this day,” he said, “my father is almost a mythical figure to me. . .. ’You’ve always got to show initiative, Reggie,’he’d tell

At a Glance…

Born May 18, 1946, in Wyncote, PA; son of Martin ez (a tailor) and Clara (a homemaker) Jackson; married Jennie Campos in 1968, divorced 1972.Education: graduated from Cheltenham Township High School, two years at Arizona State University.

Played for the Oakland Athletics, 1967-75, Baltimore Orioles, 1976, New York Yankees, 1977-1981, California Angels, 1982-1986, and Oakland Athletics, 1987; advisor to the Oakland Athletics, 1988-1993, advisor to the New York Yankees, 1993—.

Awards: American League Most Valuable Player, 1973;Sporting News Major League Player of the Year, 1973; American League home run champion, 1973, 1975, 1980, 1982; member of the Sporting News American League All-Star team, 1969, 1971-75, 1977-82, 1984; inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame, 1993.

Addresses: Agent-Matt Merola, 185 E 85th Street, Apt 18G, New York, NY 10028-2146.Office-New York Yankees, Yankee Stadium, 161 st Street and River Avenue, Bronx, NY 10451.

me, ’You’ve got to have ambition. Or you won’t amount to a hill of beans.’” His father was demanding, requiring excellence in everything from clothes to speech. As Reggie recalled in his autobiography,^>? Clean was the thing: Dad always demanded clean....Biggest sin in the

world was to get the school clothes dirty. If I did, there was no discussion, nothing to argue about. If there were any problems with the clothes, there was always an excellent chance that Martinez Jackson would be looking to give a lickin.’

Reggie’s tremendous athletic ability was obvious from an early age. By the time Jackson was thirteen, he was considered the best ballplayer in town. He was also the only black player on his team, the Greater Glenside Youth Club. As a member of the Greater Glenside Youth Club, Jackson experienced racial prejudice for the first time. During a game against a visiting team from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Reggie’s coach benched him and refused to let him play. It was, he recalled, “the first time I’d ever come up against anything like that; the first time I ever realized that black was different, that black could be a problem.” When the coach finally let him pinch hit in the last game of the series, Reggie was determined to prove his worth and hit a home run. He struck out instead. What made him feel worse was the fact that his father had attended the game and seen him fail. “I just felt so ashamed after the game, ashamed I had gotten that one chance and failed me, failed him, failed everybody. He asked me if I wanted to ride home with him in the truck. I told him I wanted to walk. . . . And I walked. Crying....And every time I put a foot down, I’d say the same thing. ’I’m gonna be a major leaguer.’”

Despite this disappointment, Jackson’s reputation as an athlete continued to grow. He played baseball, basketball, football, and ran track. By the time he was a high school senior, he said, “I had football and baseball recruiters practically camped out on the doorstep.” Reggie’s talents were apparent to his father as well, but Martinez saw athletics as a ticket to a college education, not a possible career choice.

After graduating from high school, Jackson went to Arizona State University on a football scholarship. The gridiron workouts were particularly grueling, and Reggie began to practice with the baseball team as a respite. After two ASU baseball team members made a bet with Reggie that he couldn’t make the team, he arranged a tryout and won a spot on the team. During the summer of his freshman year, he played with the Baltimore Orioles’ farm team, and returned to the ASU baseball team the following autumn.

Signed with the Kansas City Athletics

By the end of Jackson’s sophomore year in 1966, his reputation as a baseball player had begun to attract the attention of major league scouts. He was ranked second in the pro draft, and several teams expressed an interest in him. He signed with the Kansas City Athletics for $85,000 and a new Pontiac, a sum that would seem paltry later in his career. Charlie Finley, the A’s owner, knew he’d made a good deal. “’Reggie,’ Jackson remembered him saying, ‘you’re going to win me a World Series some day.’”

Jackson spent his first year with the A’s as a member of their minor-league team, which was based in Birmingham, Alabama, and traveled with the team throughout the South. The South’s segregation laws were a rude awakening for Jackson. He found that landlords wouldn’t rent an apartment to him, he was routinely refused service in restaurants, and threatened with physical violence. One of his staunchest supporters was team manager John McNamara. If the team stopped at a restaurant and was refused service because of Jackson, McNamara would order the team to reboard the bus.

“He’d just take the whole team out of the restaurant, we’d get into the bus and we’d keep driving until we found a place that would serve us all. To my mind, McNamara was a giant,” Jackson recalled.

Jackson was called up into the major leagues for two stints, the first so brief that he called it his “cup-of-coffee tour.” In his second appearance with the Oakland A’s, in September 1967, he hit his first major-league home run. He finished the season with the team, and never went back to the minors. He stayed with Oakland from 1967 until 1975.

In 1972, Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley ’s dream of a world championship was realized. However, Reggie was unable participate in the World Series because he’d torn a hamstring muscle in the fifth and final game of the American League championship series. Determined to score the tying run that would keep the A’s in the game, Jackson threw himself across home plate as the muscle tore, removing himself from any possible participation in the World Series. In addition to missing the World Series, his marriage to his college sweetheart ended in divorce.

The A’s won the world championship again in 1973 and Jackson was an integral part of the team’s success. He was named both American League Most Valuable Player and Sporting News Major League Player of the Year in 1973; he also led the American League in home runs. Jackson helped to lead the A’s to their third consecutive world championship in 1974 and was the American League’s home run leader in 1975.

In 1976, Jackson was traded to the Baltimore Orioles and became a free agent the following year. The Montreal Expos offered $5 million for five years, explained Reggie, “but I decided that I wanted to play in the United States, old patriotic me. . . . and I’ve got to admit, that hot lady called New York and that smoothie Steinbrenner swept me off my feet.” Steinbrenner offered Jackson $2.96 million over three years, with a $60,000 bonus for a Rolls Royce. “It was all written out on a hotel napkin,” he recalled. On it, at the bottom, Jackson wrote, “’I will not let you down. Reginald M. Jackson.’”

Became a New York Yankee

Jackson’s arrival in New York got off to a difficult start. His huge salary and reputation as a slugger caused both the press and Yankee fans to expect superhuman feats from each at-bat. In addition, some team members were jealous of Jackson’s superstar status and snubbed him. “I wanted to be part of the Yankee family, “he explained

later, “and when everyone didn’t greet me with open arms, I drew back, got more insecure, and started running my mouth a little.”

Jackson angered his teammates further after a supposedly off-the-record conversation with a sports writer. When the writer asked Jackson what he thought he could contribute to the Yankees, Reggie answered that he was “the kind of guy who can put a team over the top.” He compared the Yankees to a mixed drink, and talked about all of the gifted players that were part of the team. “And I said, ’Maybe I’ve got the kind of personality that can jump into a drink like that and stir things up and get it all going.” The interview appeared several weeks later in Sport magazine and, according to Jackson, was greatly distorted and filled with negative comments about teammates that he never made. His statement about being the catalyst that could pull a talented team together was condensed into an egotistical self-promotion: “You know, this team ...it all flows from me. I’m the straw that stirs the drink. It all comes back to me.” The story convinced many Yankee players and fans that Jackson’s ego was out of control.

In addition to his sometimes rocky relationship with teammates and fans, Jackson’s career in New York was also characterized by his contentious relationship with Yankee manager, Billy Martin. Martin and Jackson argued frequently and the animosity between them was palpable. During a nationally televised game against the Boston Red Sox, the tension between them boiled over publicly. The argument began after Martin charged that Jackson’s tentative fielding allowed a runner to reach second. As television cameras rolled, the two nearly came to blows in the dugout and had to be separated by teammates and coaches. “Neither man backed down,” reported the Boston Globe,”People knew Martin was tough. But after that incident, there was no doubting the toughness of Jackson. ”

Despite the difficulties, Jackson’s experience with the New York Yankees was not entirely negative. He helped the Yankees win world championships in 1977 and 1978, batting .450 in the 1977 World Series and .391 in the 1978 World Series. However, it was his remarkable feat of hitting three home runs on three first pitches from three different pitchers in three consecutive at-bats that earned Jackson a special place in the record books. Bob Oates of the Los Angeles Times called it, “the century’s peak [athletic] achievement.” “It was the happiest moment of my career,” Jackson said. “It is the happiest moment of my career.” In 1980, Jackson led the American League in home runs for the third time in his career. He also had a candy bar named after him, which led Catfish Hunter to quip in the Los Angeles Times,”When you unwrap a Reggie Bar, it tells you how good it is.”

Ended Baseball Career in Oakland

Jackson stayed with the Yankees through the 1981 season and then spent five years with the California Angels. Although he was still popular with the fans, age and time had started to erode Jackson’s skills. As the Chicago Tribune reported, “The straw that stirs the drink has been told the party’s just about over. “However, Reggie still loved the game, and when a reporter asked him if he was still having fun, he replied “Sure, I’m having fun! At my salary, you’d be having fun, too.”

As his playing career drew to a close, Jackson shared the American League lead in home runs with Milwaukee’s Gorman Thomas in 1982. During his final season with the Angels in 1986, he hit his 563rd home run, which placed him sixth among all-time home run leaders. “It meant a lot,” he told the Chicago Tribune.”I wanted to remember the whole time. I guess I ran a tape recorder in my own mind: The pitch, how I left home plate, how I went around the bases, how I touched home plate and people’s hands I shook.”

In 1987, Jackson signed with the Oakland A’s for his final major league season. “The best thing that happened to me [in that final year] was in Boston, “Jackson recalled. “I came up [to bat], and Sherm Feller, the public-address announcer, said, ’Ladies and gentleman, in maybe his last appearance at Fenway Park, a future Hall of Famer, No. 44, Mr. October.’ That’s all. No Reggie Jackson. Just Mr. October. It’s something I’ll cherish.” He played his final game in Chicago, and although he wanted to go out with a “dinger,” he had to settle for two hits. He left the field to a standing ovation.

Following his retirement from baseball, Jackson pursued many business ventures: automobile dealer, product spokesman, sports analyst, and real estate developer. He served as an advisor to the Oakland A’s from 1988 to 1993, and the New York Yankees beginning in 1993.

In 1993, Reggie Jackson was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. In a heartfelt speech, Jackson thanked his father for his insistence on education and excellence, and for teaching him to “climb the ladder of equality with dignity,” quoted the Los Angeles Times. The Chicago Tribune reported that Jackson paid special tribute to Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, “I know I wasn’t the best. All I have to do is look behind me. . . . Thanks, Jackie; thanks, Larry. We owe you.” He ended his speech, reported the Boston Globe, with the words of another famous Yankee: “Friends, in the words of Lou Gehrig, today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I’ve had a dream and I’ve been able to live it.”

Sources

Periodicals

Boston Globe, January 6, 1993, p. 61; January 10, 1993, p. 54; August 2, 1993, p. 37.

Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1985; March 5, 1985;September 19, 1985; March 13, 1986; May 12,1986; May 19, 1986; October 8, 1986; December 25, 1986; July 1, 1987; July 2, 1987; September 29, 1987; October 2, 1987; October 5, 1987; March 28, 1988; August 26, 1988; May 1, 1990; January 6, 1993; August 1, 1993; August 2, 1993; August 9, 1993.

Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 1980, p. 14; July 27, 1993.

Los Angeles Times, January 12, 1993; August 1,1993; August 2, 1993; March 5, 1995.