Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October

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Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October (eBook) Pub. Date: 5/11/2010 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
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Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October Pub. Date: 5/11/2010 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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Overview

Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson earned the nickname "Mr. October" for the crucial clutch hitting that led his teams to the World Series six times and won him two series MVP awards, and this skill at the plate is perhaps what he is best remembered for. But behind the bat was a man many don't know—a man struggling to find his place in the world, at home, and in the sport that made him a star. Now, in the first biography of Jackson in more than twenty-five years—and the first to cover his entire career as a player—FOXSports.com columnist Dayn Perry provides an intimate, honest, and never-before-seen glimpse into the life and times of one of baseball's all-time greats.

A cantankerous man full of swagger with a fearsome talent to match, Jackson was an outspoken iconoclast as a player—a gift that made him friends and enemies of some of the most colorful characters in the game. As large a presence on the field as he was outside the ballpark, Jackson backed up his talk by establishing himself as one of the best sluggers the sport has ever seen.

Yet Jackson's story is about more than sports prowess. His life reflects a time, between Jackie Robinson and Ken Griffey, Jr., when black ballplayers were accepted but still considered inferior to their white teammates. There were unspoken rules to keep the racial waters still; Jackson not only ignored such conventions, he demolished them—paving the way for true equality for all black players.

From his childhood in a predominantly white neighborhood to heroics at the plate, from relationships with legendary players such as "Catfish" Hunter and Thurman Munson to battles with some of the sport's most powerful figures, including notoriously cheap Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley and the irascible George Steinbrenner, Reggie Jackson tells the full story of the man who was one of the first black baseball superstars—and one of the greatest players of all time.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

A well-rounded treatment of one of baseball's most celebrated and controversial figures. In the first Reggie Jackson biography in years, Foxsports.com baseball columnist Perry (Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones, 2006) reaffirms the notion that when it comes to sports superstardom, monstrous talent combined with enigmatic character truly yields the stuff of legend. Few Hall of Famers have done it with the path-breaking mix of panache, bombast and raw achievement that defined Jackson's career. Looking back on Jackson's childhood-his parents were largely absent-the author argues that he "was a lonely child grown into a lonely man," and he explores Jackson's roots alongside fleshy chapters detailing his turbulent years in Oakland and New York. Walking away with 563 home runs, 1,702 RBIs, 14 All-Star trips, five World Series rings and two World Series MVPs, "Mr. October"-the moniker was somewhat wryly bestowed, writes Perry, by then-teammate Thurman Munson prior to Jackson's historic three home runs in three swings in Game Six of the 1977 World Series-also had broken sports' racial barrier in unprecedented ways. Infamous for portraying himself as his own biggest fan, Jackson refused to take lightly his mistreatment at the hands of Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner, Charlie Finley and others. In June 1977, railing after Martin removed him from the field mid-inning, Jackson lamented to a group of writers that the "Yankees are Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle. I'm a nigger to them, and I just don't know how to be subservient. I'm making seven hundred thousand dollars a year, and they treat me like dirt." Interestingly, though, Perry points out Jackson's repeated reluctance to serve as a black icon, wishing instead to be appreciated for his talents and compensated in a fashion befitting his white teammates. A provocative portrait sure to win as many fans and detractors as its red-hot subject. Agent: Sydelle Kramer/Susan Rabiner Literary Agency

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061562372
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 6/21/2011
Pages: 352
Sales rank: 339,002
Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Dayn Perry wrote for ESPN.com and Baseball Prospectus before becoming a baseball columnist with FOXSports.com. He is the author of Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones, and he lives with his family in Chicago, Illinois.

Prologue: October 18, 1977, World Series, Game Six 1

1 "Aspirations" 8

2 "He Looks Whiter All the Time" 17

3 "Yes, Sir" 25

4 "I'm Not Working in One of Those Birmingham Steel Mills" 40

5 "If I Played in New York, They'd Name a Candy Bar After Me" 50

6 "Fuck You" 61

7 "The Worst Feeling I've Ever Had … Was the Day We Won the World Series" 81

8 "Superstar, My Ass" 93

9 "My Objective Right Now Is Money" 112

10 "Isn't My Name Reggie Jackson?" 132

11 "I Ain't Going" 147

12 "We Are Going on This Venture Together" 158

13 "Reggie Challenged Him in Every Way" 172

14 "I'm the Straw That Stirs the Drink" 177

15 "I'm a Nigger to Them, and I Just Don't Know How to Be Subservient" 188

16 "Reg-gie!" 208

17 "But I Know the Score Now" 215

18 "That Makes Me Angry, and It Hurts" 235

19 "I Don't Know If I'm Secure Enough and Mature Enough Not to Be the Top Banana" 244

20 "Steinbrenner Sucks!" 258

21 "Number 44, Reggie Jackson. Number 44." 272

22 "What Should I Do? Leave? Go Away? Come Back?" 278

Epilogue 291

Acknowledgments 293

Notes on Sources 295

Index 313

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