Reggie Jackson
Reginald Martinez "Reggie" Jackson (born May 18, 1946 in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania) is a Hall of Fame right fielder who played for the 1967 Birmingham A's before starting a 21-year Major League career with four teams and earning the nickname "Mr October" for his late-season clutch hitting, including three consecutive home runs in the 1977 World Series. He was named to 14 All-Star teams and was the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1973. He was also a two-time World Series MVP and has had his uniform number retired by the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees.
Early life
Jackson was born in the predominantly-Jewish Wyncote neighborhood of Cheltenham Township, just north of Philadelphia], Pennsylvania. His father, Martinez Jackson, was a half-Puerto Rican tailor who had played in the Negro Leagues as a second baseman for the Newark Eagles. His mother, Clara, was full Puerto Rican. When they divorced in 1950, Jackson and one of his half-brothers stayed with his father while the other children remained with his mother.
He attended Cheltenham High School and was a standout athlete on the school's football, basketball, baseball and track and field teams. He injured his knee playing football in his junior season, but was able to return for the final game. In that game he fractured five vertebraw and spent six weeks in the hospital and another month in a neck cast. He was a star batter and pitcher on the baseball team, batting .550 and pitching several no-hitters. During his senior year, his father was arrested for selling bootleg liquor and served six months in prison. He graduated in 1964.
College
Jackson was recruited as a football player by the University of Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma, all of which then excluded African-American athletes but were willing to take a chance on him. Jackson was leery of moving to the deep south, and was put off by Oklahoma's request that he not date white women while in college.
Meanwhile San Francisco Giants scout Hans Lobert was very interested in Jackson, who also had interest from the Los Angeles Dodgers, Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies. His father urged him to get a college education, so he accepted a football scholarship from Frank Kush's Arizona State University Sun Devils, which would also allow him to play baseball.
After his freshman year, Kush wanted to move him from halfback to defensive back. Jackson, who had spent the summer breaking records in an amateur baseball league, decided to leave the football team and became a scholarship baseball player. He took Rick Monday's spot in center field and broke a team record for home runs in his sophomore season, earning All-American honors. Now clearly a top Major League prospect, Jackson made the decision to turn professional.
Birmingham A's
Jackson was selected by the Kansas City Athletics as the second overall pick in the 1966 Major League draft. He signed with the A's for $85,000 and reported to training camp that June with the Single-A Lewis-Clark Broncs in Lewiston, Idaho. He spent his first season there, and with another Single-A team in Modesto, California.
In 1967 Jackson reported to Charlie Finley's newly-created Double-A Birmingham A's, managed by John McNamara. It was the first racially-integrated professional baseball team to play for Birmingham and McNamara helped Jackson shrug off the lingering racism surrounding the club. He and fellow star Rollie Fingers helped the A's claim a Southern League title by three and a half games.
Major Leagues
After 114 games with the A's, Jackson made his Major League debut with Kansas City in a double-header on June 9, 1967. He recorded his first hit, a triple from Cleveland reliever Orlando Pena, in the second game.
In 1968 Finley moved the Athletics to Oakland. During the 1967 season Jackson briefly outpaced Roger Maris' 1961 home run count, but finished with 47 to Maris' record of 61. Jackson approached Finley to ask for a pay raise in the off-season, but was turned down. In the 1970 season Jackson's batting dropped off significantly, ending up at a .237 average with 23 home runs. After a brief demotion to a Puerto Rican league, Jackson returned as an All-Star in 1971. In the All-Star game he sent a Dock Ellis pitch soaring over Tiger Stadium's right field stands into an electrical transformer on the light standard.
In 1971 the Athletics won the American League's Western Division title, their first first-place finish since 1931, when they played in Philadelphia. They lost the American League Championship Series to the Baltimore Orioles. The A's won the Division again in 1972; their series with the Tigers went to five games, and Jackson scored the tying run in the clincher on a steal of home. In the process, however, he tore his hamstring and was unable to play in the World Series. The A's managed to defeat the Cincinnati Reds in seven games without him.
Jackson reported to A's spring training in 1972 sporting a mustache. Finley offered the other players $300 bonuses to grow mustaches and scheduled a "Mustache Day" with Frenchy Bordagaray as a special guest.
The 1973 Athletics returned to the World Series and Jackson was named the American League's Most Valuable Player that year. Oakland beat the Mets in a seven-game World Series. In the final game Jackson and fellow Birmingham alumnus Bert Campaneris both hit two-run homers off Jon Matlack. Jackson was named the series' Most Valuable Player. The team repeated as World Champions in 1974, dispatching the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
During his nine seasons with the A's Jackson earned major accolades, but also gained a reputation as a showoff at the plate and as an underachiever on the bases. His former teammate Darold Knowles was asked in 1977 if Jackson was a hot dog and replied "There isn't enough mustard in the world to cover Reggie Jackson."1.
Baltimore Orioles (1976)
The A's won the Division again in 1975, but the loss of pitcher Catfish Hunter, baseball's first modern free agent, left them vulnerable, and they were swept in the ALCS by the Boston Red Sox. With the coming of free agency after the 1976 season, and with team owner Finley unwilling to pay the higher salary that Jackson would ask for, Jackson was traded on April 2, 1976 along with minor leaguer Bill VanBommell and Ken Holtzman to the Baltimore Orioles for Don Baylor, Mike Torrez, and Paul Mitchell. Both his new team, the Orioles, and his former team, the Athletics, finished second in their respective divisions.
New York Yankees (1977–1981)
The Yankees signed Jackson to a five-year contract totaling $2.96 million ($Template:Inflation in current dollar terms) on November 29, 1976.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Upon arriving in New York, the number 9 that he had worn in Oakland and Baltimore was worn by third baseman Graig Nettles. Jackson asked for number 42, in memory of Jackie Robinson. But manager Billy Martin brought his friend Art Fowler in as pitching coach, and gave him number 42. So, noting that then-all-time home run leader Hank Aaron had just retired, Jackson asked for and received number 44, Aaron's number. On his first day in spring training the following February, however, Jackson wore number 20 (the number of Frank Robinson, who had also just retired) before switching to 44.
Jackson's first season with the Yankees, 1977, was a difficult one. Although team owner George Steinbrenner and several players, most notably catcher and team captain Thurman Munson and outfielder Lou Piniella, were excited about his arrival, Martin was not. Martin had managed the Tigers in 1972, when Jackson's A's beat them in the playoffs. Jackson was once quoted as saying of Martin, "I hate him, but if I played for him, I'd probably love him."
The relationship between Jackson and his new teammates was strained due to an interview with SPORT magazine writer Robert Ward. During spring training at the Yankees' camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jackson and Ward were having drinks at a nearby bar. Jackson's version of the story is that he noted that the Yankees had won the pennant the year before, but lost the World Series to the Reds, and suggested that they needed one thing more to win it all, and pointed out the various ingredients in his drink. Ward suggested that Jackson might be "the straw that stirs the drink." But when the story appeared in the May 1977 issue of SPORT, Ward quoted Jackson as saying, "This team, it all flows from me. I'm the straw that stirs the drink. Maybe I should say me and Munson, but he can only stir it bad."
Jackson has consistently denied saying anything negative about Munson in the interview and that his quotes were taken out of context.<ref>Wayne Coffey, "Bombers are champs again" Template:Dead link, New York Daily News. Retrieved August 3, 2007</ref> However, Dave Anderson of the New York Times subsequently wrote that he had drinks with Jackson in July 1977, and that Jackson told him, "I'm still the straw that stirs the drink. Not Munson, not nobody else on this club."<ref>Anderson, D: "1977: Reggie", "The Baseball Reader", page 11. Lippincott & Crowell, Publishers, 1980</ref> Regardless, as Munson was beloved by his teammates, Martin, Steinbrenner and Yankee fans, the relationships between them and Jackson became very strained.
On June 18, in a 10–4 loss to the Boston Red Sox in a nationally televised game at Fenway Park in Boston, Jim Rice, a powerful hitter but notoriously slow runner, hit a ball into shallow right field that Jackson appeared to weakly attempt to field. Jackson failed to reach the ball which fell far in front of him, thereby allowing Rice to reach second base. Furious, Martin removed Jackson from the game without even waiting for the end of the inning, sending Paul Blair out to replace him. When Jackson arrived at the dugout, Martin yelled that Jackson had shown him up. They argued, and Jackson said that Martin's heavy drinking had impaired his judgment. Despite Jackson being 18 years younger, about two inches taller and maybe 40 pounds heavier, Martin lunged at him, and had to be restrained by coaches Yogi Berra and Elston Howard. Red Sox fans could see this in the dugout and began cheering wildly, and the NBC TV cameras showed the confrontation to the entire country.
Yankees management defused the situation by the next day, but the relationship between Jackson and Martin was permanently poisoned. However, George Steinbrenner made a crucial intervention when he gave Martin the option of either having Jackson bat in the fourth or "cleanup" spot for the rest of the season, or losing his job. Martin made the change and Jackson's hitting improved (he had 13 home runs and 49 RBIs over his next 50 games), and the team went on a winning streak. On September 14, while in a tight three-way race for the American League Eastern Division crown with the Red Sox and Orioles, Jackson ended a game with the Red Sox by hitting a home run off Reggie Cleveland, giving the Yankees a 2–0 win. The Yankees won the division by two and a half games over the Red Sox and Orioles, and came from behind in the top of the ninth inning in the fifth and final game of the American League Championship Series to beat the Kansas City Royals for the pennant.
Mr. October
During the World Series against the Dodgers, Munson was interviewed, and suggested that Jackson, because of his past post-season performances, might be the better interview subject. "Go ask Mister October," he said, giving Jackson a nickname that would stick. (In Oakland, he had been known as "Jax" and "Buck.") Jackson hit home runs in Games Four and Five of the Series.
Jackson's crowning achievement came with his three-home-run performance in World Series-clinching Game Six, each on the first pitch, off three Dodgers pitchers. (His first plate-appearance, during the second inning, resulted in a four-pitch walk.) The first came off starter Burt Hooton, and was a line drive shot into the lower right field seats at Yankee Stadium. The second was a much faster line drive off reliever Elías Sosa into roughly the same area. With the fans chanting his name, "Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE! Reg-GIE!" the third came off reliever Charlie Hough, a knuckleball pitcher, making the distance of this home run particularly remarkable. It was a towering drive into the black-painted batter's eye seats in center, 475 feet away.
Since Jackson had hit a home run off Dodger pitcher Don Sutton in his last at bat in Game Five, his three home runs in Game Six meant that he had hit four home runs on four consecutive swings of the bat against as many Dodgers pitchers. Jackson became the first player to win the World Series MVP award for two teams. In 27 World Series games, he amassed 10 home runs, including a record five during the 1977 Series (the last three on first pitches), 24 RBI and a .357 batting average. Babe Ruth, Albert Pujols, and Pablo Sandoval are the only other players to hit three home runs in a single World Series game. Babe Ruth accomplishing the feat twice - in 1926 and 1928 (both in Game Four). With 25 total bases, Jackson also broke Ruth's record of 22 in the latter Series; this remains a World Series record, Willie Stargell tying it in the 1979 World Series. In 2009, Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies tied Jackson's record for most home runs in a single World Series.
An often forgotten aspect of the ending of this decisive Game 6 was the way Jackson left the field at the game's end. Ironically, despite everything Jackson had done for the Yankees that night, the uncontrollable behavior of Yankee Stadium fans left him feeling understandably worried for his safety. Fans had been getting somewhat rowdy in anticipation of the game's end, and some had actually thrown firecrackers out near Jackson's area in right field. Jackson was alarmed enough about this to walk off the field, in order to get a helmet from the Yankee bench to protect himself. Shortly after this point, as the end of the game neared, fans were actually bold enough to climb over the wall, draping their legs over the side in preparation for the moment when they planned to rush onto the field. When that moment came, after pitcher Mike Torrez caught a pop-up for the game's final out, Jackson started running at top speed off the field, actually body-checking past some of these fans filling the playing field in the manner of a football linebacker.<ref>ABC coverage of Game Six, as shown on the YES network.</ref>
The Bronx Zoo
The Yankees' home opener of the 1978 season, on April 13 against the Chicago White Sox, featured a new product, the "Reggie!" bar. In 1976, while playing in Baltimore, Jackson had said, "If I played in New York, they'd name a candy bar after me." The Standard Brands company responded with a circular "bar" of peanuts dipped in caramel and covered in chocolate, a confection which was originally named the "Wayne Bun" as it was made in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The "Reggie!" bars were handed to fans as they walked into Yankee Stadium. Jackson hit a home run, and when he returned to right field the next inning, fans began throwing the Reggie bars on the field in celebration. Jackson told the press that this confused him, thinking that maybe the fans did not like the candy.<ref>http://www.kevinbaker.info/a_nyt_tdircb.html Template:Dead link</ref> The Yankees won the game, 4–2.
But the Yankees could not maintain their success, as manager Billy Martin lost control. On July 23, after suspending Jackson for disobeying a sign during a July 17 game, Martin made a statement about his two main antagonists, referring to comments Jackson had made and team owner George Steinbrenner's 1972 violation of campaign-finance laws: "They're made for each other. One's a born liar, the other's convicted." It was moments like these that gave the Yankees the nickname "The Bronx Zoo."
Martin resigned the next day (some sources have said he was actually fired<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>), and was replaced by Bob Lemon, a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Cleveland Indians who had been recently fired as manager of the White Sox. Steinbrenner, a Cleveland-area native, had hired former Indians star Al Rosen as his team president (replacing another Cleveland figure, Gabe Paul). Steinbrenner jumped at the chance to involve another hero of his youth with the Yankees; Lemon had been one of Steinbrenner's coaches during the Bombers' pennant-winning 1976 season.
After being 14 games behind the first-place Red Sox on July 18, the Yankees finished the season in a tie for first place. The two teams played a one-game playoff for the division title at Fenway Park, with the Yankees winning 5–4. Although the home run by light-hitting shortstop Bucky Dent in the seventh inning got the most notice, it was an eighth-inning home run by Jackson that gave the Yankees the fifth run they ended up needing. The next day, with the American League Championship Series with the Royals beginning, Jackson hit a home run off the Royals' top reliever at the time, Al Hrabosky, the flamboyant "Mad Hungarian." The Yankees won the pennant in four games, their third straight.
Jackson was once again in the center of events in the World Series, again against the Dodgers. Los Angeles won the first two games at Dodger Stadium, taking the second when rookie reliever Bob Welch struck Jackson out with two men on base with two outs in the ninth inning. The series then moved to New York, and after the Yankees won Game Three on several fine defensive plays by third baseman Graig Nettles, Game Four saw Jackson in the middle of a controversial play on the basepaths. In the sixth inning, after collecting an RBI single, Jackson was struck in the hip–possibly on purpose–by a ball thrown by Dodger shortstop Bill Russell as Jackson was being forced at second base. Instead of completing a double play that would have ended the inning, the ball caromed into foul territory and allowed Thurman Munson to score the Yankees' second run of the inning. In spite of the Dodgers' protests of interference on Jackson's part, the umpires allowed the play to stand. The Yankees tied the game in the eighth inning and eventually won in the tenth.
Following a blowout win in Game Five, both teams headed back to Los Angeles. In Game Six, Jackson got his revenge against Welch by blasting a two-run home run in the seventh inning, putting the finishing touch on a series-clinching, 7-2 win for the Yankees.
1980–1981 seasons
In 1980, Jackson batted .300 for the only time in his career, and his 41 home runs tied with Ben Oglivie of the Milwaukee Brewers for the American League lead. However, the Yankees were swept in the ALCS by the Kansas City Royals.
As he entered the last year of his Yankee contract in 1981, Jackson endured several difficulties from George Steinbrenner. After the owner consulted Jackson about signing then-free agent Dave Winfield, Jackson expected Steinbrenner to work out a new contract for him as well. Steinbrenner never did (some say never intending to) and Jackson played the season as a free agent. Jackson started slowly with the bat, and when the 1981 Major League Baseball strike began, Steinbrenner invoked a clause in Jackson's contract forcing him to take a complete physical examination. Jackson was outraged and blasted Steinbrenner in the media. When the season resumed, Jackson's hitting improved, partly to show Steinbrenner he wasn't finished as a player. He hit a long home run into the upper deck in Game Five of the strike-forced 1981 American League Division Series with the Brewers, and the Yankees went on to win the pennant again. However, Jackson injured himself running the bases in Game Two of the 1981 ALCS and missed the first two games of the World Series, both of which the Yankees won.
Jackson was medically cleared to play Game Three, but manager Bob Lemon refused to start him or even play him, allegedly acting under orders from Steinbrenner. The Yankees lost that game and Jackson played the remainder of the series, hitting a home run in Game Four. However, they lost the last three games and the World Series to the Dodgers.
California Angels (1982–1986) and Oakland Athletics (1987)
Jackson became a free-agent again once the 1981 season was over. The owner of the California Angels, legendary entertainer Gene Autry, had heard of Jackson's desire to return to California to play, and signed him to a five-year contract.
On April 27, 1982, in Jackson's first game back at Yankee Stadium with the Angels, he broke out of a terrible season-starting slump to hit a home run off former teammate Ron Guidry. The at-bat began with Yankee fans, angry at Steinbrenner for letting Jackson get away, starting the "Reg-GIE!" chant, and ended it with the fans chanting "Steinbrenner sucks!" By the time of Jackson's election to the Hall of Fame, Steinbrenner had begun to say that letting him go was the biggest mistake he has made as Yankee owner.
That season, the Angels won the American League West, and would do so again in 1986, but lost the American League Championship Series both times. On September 17, 1984, on the 17th anniversary of the day he hit his first home run, he hit his 500th, at Anaheim Stadium off Bud Black of the Royals.
In 1987, he signed a one-year contract to return to the A's, wearing the number 44 with which he was now most associated rather than the number 9 he previously wore in Oakland. He announced he would retire after the season, at the age of 41. In his last at-bat, at Comiskey Park in Chicago on October 4, he collected a broken-bat single up the middle, but the A's lost to the White Sox, 5–2. He is the last Kansas City A's player to play in a Major League Baseball game.
Legacy
Jackson played 21 seasons and reached the post-season in 11 of them, winning six pennants and five World Series. His accomplishments include winning both the regular-season and World Series MVP awards in 1973, hitting 563 career home runs (sixth all-time at the time of his retirement), maintaining a .490 career slugging percentage, being named to 14 All-Star teams, and the dubious distinction of being the all-time leader in strikeouts with 2,597 (he finished with 13 more career strikeouts than hits). Jackson was the first major leaguer to hit one hundred home runs for three different clubs, having hit over 100 for the Athletics, Yankees, and Angels. Reggie Jackson is the only player in the 500 home run club that never had consecutive 30 home run seasons in a career.
Personal life
During his freshman year at Arizona State, he met Jennie Campos, a Mexican-American.<ref name="Perry 18"/> Jackson asked Campos on a date, and discovered many similarities, including the ability to speak Spanish, and being raised in a single parent home (Campos's father was killed in the Korean War).<ref name="Perry 18"/> An assistant football coach tried to break up the couple because Jackson was black and Campos was considered white. The coach contacted Campos's uncle, a wealthy benefactor of the school, and he warned the couple that their being together was a bad idea.<ref name="Perry 19">Template:Harvnb</ref> But the relationship held up and she later became his first wife. Jackson has been divorced since 1973. Kimberly, his only child, was born in the late 1980s.<ref name="Stir">Template:Cite news</ref>
During the off-season, though still active in baseball, Jackson worked as a field reporter and color commentator for ABC Sports. Just over a month before signing with the Yankees in fall 1976, Jackson did analysis in the ABC booth with Keith Jackson and Howard Cosell the night his future team won the American League pennant on a homer by Chris Chambliss. During the 1980s (1983, 1985, and 1987 respectively), Jackson was given the task of presiding over the World Series Trophy presentations. In addition, Jackson did color commentary for the 1984 National League Championship Series (alongside Don Drysdale and Earl Weaver). After his retirement as an active player, Jackson returned to his color commentary role covering the 1988 American League Championship Series (alongside Gary Bender and Joe Morgan) for ABC.
He also made appearances in the film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, in which he played the Angels' outfielder diabolically programmed to kill the Queen of England. He also appeared in Richie Rich, BASEketball, Summer of Sam and The Benchwarmers. He played himself in the Archie Bunker's Place episode "Reggie-3 Archie-0" in 1982, a 1990 MacGyver episode, "Squeeze Play", and the Malcolm in the Middle episode "Polly in the Middle", from 2004. Jackson was also considered for the role of Geordi LaForge in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation,<ref name="Star Trek:TNG Casting Letter">Template:Cite web</ref> a role which ultimately went to LeVar Burton. From 1981 to 1982 he hosted for Nickelodeon's Reggie Jackson's World of Sports.
He co-authored a new book in 2010, Sixty-Feet Six-Inches, with fellow Hall of Famer Bob Gibson. The book, whose title refers to the distance between the pitcher's mound and home plate, details their careers and approach to the game.
The Sega Master System baseball video game Reggie Jackson Baseball, endorsed by Reggie Jackson, was sold exclusively in the United States. Outside of the U.S., it was released as American Baseball.
Jackson has endured three fires to personal property, including a 1991 fire to his home in Oakland which destroyed his 1973 MVP Award. One of his warehouses holding several of his collectible cars was damaged in a fire, with several of the cars, valued at $3.2 million, ruined.<ref name="Stir" />
Jackson called on former San Francisco 49ers head coach and ordained minister Mike Singletary for spiritual guidance. Jackson credits Singletary, stating "he helped me drop that shell I put up."<ref name="Stir" />
Post-retirement honors
Jackson and Steinbrenner would reconcile, and Steinbrenner would hire him as a "special assistant to the principal owner", making Jackson a consultant and a liaison to the team's players, particularly the minority players. By this point, the Yankees, long noted for being slow to adapt to changes in race relations, have come to develop many minority players in their farm system and seek out others via trades and free agency. Jackson usually appears in uniform at the Yankees' current spring training complex in Tampa, Florida, and has been sought out for advice by current stars such as Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. "His experience is vast, and he's especially good with the young players in our minor league system, the 17- and 18-year old kids. They respect him and what he's accomplished in his career. When Reggie Jackson tells a young kid how me might improve his swing, he tends to listen", said Hal Steinbrenner, Yankees' managing general partner and co-chairperson.<ref name="Stir" />
Jackson was inducted to the Hall of Fame in Template:Bhofy. He chose to wear a Yankees cap on his Hall of Fame plaque<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> after the Oakland Athletics unceremoniously fired him from a coaching position in 1991.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The Yankees retired his uniform number 44 on August 14, 1993, shortly after his induction into the Hall of Fame. The Athletics retired his number 9 on May 22, 2004. He is one of only eight Major League Baseball players to have their numbers retired by more than one team, and one of only three to have different numbers retired by two MLB teams.
In 1999, Jackson placed 48th on Sporting News 100 Greatest Baseball Players. That same year, he was named one of 100 finalists for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, but was not one of the 30 players chosen by the fans.
The Yankees dedicated a plaque in his honor on July 6, 2002, which now hangs in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. The plaque calls him "One of the most colorful and exciting players of his era" and "a prolific hitter who thrived in pressure situations." Each Yankee so honored and still living was on hand for the dedication: Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and Don Mattingly. Ron Guidry, a teammate of Jackson's for all five of his seasons with the Yankees, was there, and would be honored with a Monument Park plaque the next season. Out of respect to some of the players who Jackson admired while growing up, Jackson invited Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks to attend the ceremony, and each did so. Like Jackson, each was a member of the Hall of Fame and had hit over 500 career home runs. Each had also played in the Negro Leagues.
Jackson expanded his love of antique cars into a chain of auto dealerships in California, and used his contacts to become one of the foremost traders of sports memorabilia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He has also been the public face of a group attempting to purchase a major league team, already having made unsuccessful attempts to buy the Athletics and the Angels.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His attempt to acquire the Angels along with Jimmy Nederlander (minority owner of the New York Yankees), Jackie Autry (widow of former Angels owner Gene Autry) and other luminaries was thwarted by Mexican American billionaire Arturo Moreno who outbid Jackson's group by nearly $50 million for the team in the winter of 2002.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In a July edition of Sports Illustrated, Jackson talked about several issues, and also was critical of the Baseball Writers' Association of America as he believes they have lowered their standards when voting for prospects in the Hall of Fame.<ref name="Stir" /> He has also been critical of players associated with performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), including distant cousin Barry Bonds, stating "I believe that Hank Aaron is the home run king, not Barry Bonds, as great of a player Bonds was."<ref name="Stir" /> Of Alex Rodriguez, whom Jackson has worked alongside as special assistant to the Yankees, Jackson remarked, "Al's a very good friend. But I think there are real questions about his numbers. As much as I like him, what he admitted about his usage does cloud some of his numbers."<ref name="Stir" /> On July 12, the Yankees released a statement from Jackson after the Sports Illustrated interview had been released. The press release included Jackson saying, "In trying to convey my feelings about a few issues that I am passionate about, I made the mistake of naming some specific players."<ref name="One-eighty">Template:Cite news</ref> It had been reported <ref>Template:Cite news</ref> he had been told by the Yankees to steer clear from the team, although general manager Brian Cashman stated he had not been banned but only told to not join the club on a road trip to Boston and would later be free to interact with the club.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> After the SI article became known and Jackson's status with the Yankees being talked about, Jackson confirmed in his statement "I continue to have a strong relationship with the club, and look forward to continuing my role with the team."<ref name="One-eighty" />
In 2007, ESPN aired a mini-series called The Bronx is Burning, about the 1977 Yankees, with the conflicts and controversies around Jackson a central part of the storyline. Jackson is portrayed by Daniel Sunjata. In 2008, he threw out the first pitch at Yankees Opening Day, the last one at Yankee Stadium. He also threw out the first pitch at the first game at the new Yankee Stadium (an exhibition game).
On October 9, 2009, Reggie Jackson threw the opening pitch for Game 2 of the ALDS between the New York Yankees and the Minnesota Twins.
Notes
- Sports Illustrated-1977
References
- "They Said It" (January 24, 1977) Sports Illustrated
- "Video" (May 11, 1987) CNN
- Sandomir, Richard (August 26, 2005) ""Who's a Latino Baseball Legend?" The New York Times
- Green, G. Michael & Roger D. Launius (2010) Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball's Super Showman. New York, New York: Walker Publishing Company ISBN 9780802717450
- Perry, Dayn (2010) Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October. New York, New York: HarperCollins ISBN 9780061562389