8601220680
DETROIT FREE PRESS
860518
Sunday, May 18, 1986
METRO FINAL CHASER
1G
Photo Color MARY SCHROEDER;Chart
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO STATE EDITION PAGE 1G
Copyright (c) 1986, Detroit Free Press
MR. OCTOBER HITS HIS AUTUMN
Reggie turns 40. Well, let's see. What might the New York tabloids do with
that one?
MR. OCTOBER HITS HIS SEPTEMBER
JAX TO OLD AGE: DROP DEAD!
REG SEZ: I'M NOT OLDER, I'M BETTER
That last one might be a bit too tame for the Big Apple. But it rings true.
Jackson, who is now, of course, a California Angel, not a New York Yankee,
celebrates his 40th birthday today in the middle of a surprisingly fine
season: a .323 batting average, with seven home runs and 17 RBIs as a
designated hitter. Last week, Jackson passed Mickey Mantle for sixth place on
the all-time home run list with 537.
Surprise. And no surprise. For Jackson has always done the most when he
felt the wall against his back. Mostly, he hits home runs. He once took a
pitch in the face in Baltimore, sat out five days, then hit a homer in his
first return at-bat. He hit three in three swings to clinch the seventh game
of the 1977 World Series -- and be forever christened Mr. October. Easy
things bore him. He admits it. But knock the chip off his shoulder, and
watch out.
So we could have seen this season coming when, over the winter, the Angels
told him they didn't want him anymore. Too old, they said. Hmph. Why not just
wave a red flag at El Toro? Jackson took two inches off his waist, started
doing 700 sit-ups every other day, went down to spring training and came out
swinging. "Why are you still playing?" someone asked him recently.
"I have miles to go before I sleep," he answered. "I'm not finished yet.
I'm not done yet. I haven't quite reached the end. I don't want to wring the
rag out. I haven't quite made my total statement. The thesis isn't done . .
."
Well. OK. What did you expect? This is, after all, Reggie Jackson we're
talking to here, the eternal spotlight man, and for all the time he's been
around, for all the home runs and World Series, for all the fireworks in
Oakland and New York, for all the video recorders and colognes he has sold us,
I still don't think we've fully figured the guy out. Maybe he's sticking
around the ballpark until we get it right. Or maybe there's no place else for
him to go.
He gets there four hours early these days. For extra batting practice. On
Friday he traded cage time with Wally Joyner, the Angels' rookie who's off to
a blazing start. In the clubhouse earlier, Jackson had lectured Joyner on the
joys of Tiger Stadium, which Joyner was playing in for the first time.
"This is a real park," Jackson said. "It has tradition." Joyner looked on,
wide-eyed. It was a nice scene. Veteran. Rookie. And after they took their
swings, Jackson sat down on a stool next to the dugout, a man of tradition in
a park of tradition, discussing the headline of the weekend.
Reggie turns 40.
"Yes, there are certain things I can't do anymore," he said. "Last week I
hit a long ball to right-center field. I came around first and all the
instincts were there to go for a sliding double. But I didn't. I rounded the
bag wide and slowed down. Held to a single."
He paused. He still has those chipmunk features, still wears the glasses,
still has an upper torso the size of a Buick. His hair is thinning on top, but
typically, it is forming a crown on his head.
Reggie turns 40.
There are those who may wonder why any ball player's 40th birthday should
be noteworthy, what with all the athletes now playing beyond that. But I think
this one means something. And here is why:
The Ty Cobbs and Babe Ruths and Mickey Mantles played a different baseball,
a simpler baseball, before sports celebrity included sneaker endorsements and
guest spots on "Diff'rent Strokes." It was a different era. It was not this
era.
Reggie Jackson was in on the ground floor of this era, of what we now
reflexively call superstardom. TV commercials. Daily headlines. Free agency
millions. Paparazzi flashbulbs. Candy bars. It may be old hat now. But Jackson
caught the wave right at its crest and rode that sucker all the way in to
shore.
How much of Reggie is huff and how much is puff, I'm not quite sure. But
if today, he has reached some landmark of middle age, then in a certain
fashion, so has baseball fandom. Put a candle on the cake for John Q. Public.
In a lot of ways, we've made Reggie what he is.
And what is that? Well, one part, undeniably, is the baseball player. No
one hit those 537 home runs for him. Yet for all those dingers (as he likes to
call them), for all the shots off light towers and over the walls and into
the parking lots, there are those who downplay Jackson's baseball talent.
"Reggie Jackson is an average player," Jim Palmer once said.
"A total phony," said former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee.
Critics point to his lifetime .264 batting average. But playing numbers
against Jackson is a losing game. He hit more home runs in his first 14 full
seasons than any man in baseball (424 from 1968 to 1981). And his teams have
won 10 division titles and five world championships -- with him almost always
the cleanup hitter. You can't call that coincidence.
So why the criticism? This is why. For too many, Jackson's personality was
like sandpaper rubbed against an open wound. He was abrasive, outspoken and
then suddenly humble, and it all played itself out in front of cameras and
tape recorders. "I would not," Jackson admits, "be what I am today without the
media attention." But it was always a chicken-or-the-egg thing -- did the
things Jackson did bring him attention, or did getting the attention lead him
to the things he did?
Whatever. The encounters came. And there were some doozies. Jackson ticked
people off. And he was belligerent when they came back after him.
"Superstar, my ass," Dick Williams once mumbled while he was with Oakland.
"Hey, man, who the bleep are you to talk to me like that," Jackson said
to his manager. "I remember when you played, you didn't do bleep."
To his manager?
Why not? Jackson has, at one point or another, gone toe- to-toe with
George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, the IRS, a Manhattan gunman, Charlie
Finley, every decent pitcher in the American League, the New York Times, Graig
Nettles, SPORT magazine, the Minnesota Twins, and just last month, a Milwaukee
bar patron, who is now suing him for six figures.
Reggie turns 40.
The excitement never ends.
"That Milwaukee incident," he said Friday, "has really soured me. Just the
way it was blown out of proportion. It was a grandstand play. If I was just a
regular guy who worked a 40- hour week, they wouldn't be seeking $150,000
damages for grabbing a guy by the shirt. That's gonna hold me back for a long
time."
Jackson already refuses to go out in public alone. Nor does he sign
autographs in public. When asked what he has sacrificed to be in the game of
baseball, he says, "I've never really been married (there was one brief
attempt at it when he was much younger), never had any kids, never really have
the time to spend with friends. No carefree, leisure time. I've sacrificed
that."
That is quite a lot. And yet, he'll receive no sympathy from many
contemporaries. They'll argue that there's no room in Jackson's life for
anyone else, that it is a bright spotlight that falls on him, but a
deliberately narrow one.
And they are probably correct. Jackson's biggest fault over the years has
been the transparency of the legend he is trying to manufacture. He wants to
appear intelligent yet tough, bold yet humble, the hero yet the villain. He
wants to keep the faucet of attention flowing over his head. His sin is he
lets it show.
On Friday, for example, after nearly an hour of questions on Reggie Turns
40, a reporter asked Jackson about Wally Joyner. Reggie replied, "That's not
really on the subject we were discussing," and turned to the next question.
The subject he was discussing, of course, was himself, and while others might
have felt too self-conscious to shrug off a question about a teammate, this
man was not. Reggie Jackson has always been a worthy enough subject for Reggie
Jackson.
When you interview him, you are not unpeeling a quiet hero from layers of
humble skin. More often you are simply a witness to an unveiling; as if
Jackson were simply painted in Day-Glo colors and decided there was no point
in hiding it.
"I'm the straw that stirs the drink," he was once quoted as saying,
although he denies it. Doesn't matter. He has reached that vaulted status in
America where one name is enough. Elvis. Pele. Reggie.
Call him Mr. Big.
And Mr. Alone. Because he spins in his own galaxy, none of us really knows
what goes on inside Reggie Jackson, the highs or lows. During that early
batting practice on Friday, his hits stayed conspicuously inside the ballpark.
Doubles and singles stuff. He then leaned behind the cage, his chin resting on
his forearms, and stood alone as he watched Joyner stroke ball after ball
into the seats. The stadium was empty. A cool wind blew a wax wrapper across
the field. The scene had an autumn feel to it and it was hard not to sense
that Jackson's thoughts, as he watched this kid nearly half his age, were not
at least tinged with mortality.
Reggie turns 40. For today that's the story. And after this, of course, the
inevitable next story: How much longer?
"I don't know," Jackson said. "Physically I think I could play three more
years (he is, indeed, in excellent shape, if looks are any indication). But
mentally, I just don't know. This could be my last year."
"Which team should retire your number?" he was asked.
"I don't know," he said. "Oakland feels the most like home. The New York
fans, I think, understand me the best. And California gave me a chance. It's
hard to say."
"The Hall of Fame?" someone asked.
"I think I'll get in," he said, "but I don't know about the first ballot.
I've hit a lot of my home runs as a designated hitter and there may be guys
who I've offended with things I've said over the years."
True. But if you take away points for Jackson's bombastic ego, give him
credit for never popping up in stories about cocaine, or gambling, or
prostitution busts. For a guy who has played most of his career in New York
and California, that's something.
"I'm pretty much a loner," he said. "People have this image of me as a
guy who's uncaring and selfish, very into himself. I get that image by never
throwing my helmet, by always running to my position, by rarely arguing with
umpires. Yet, people say, there's a guy who doesn't care."
"Can you change what people think of you anymore?" he was asked.
"No," he said quietly. "I don't think so."
The thought occurred that we may ultimately come to admire Reggie Jackson
for surviving the very storms he created.
But OK. Say what you want about Reggie -- he's still the only baseball
player I know to have his own candy bar. There is still no one in the game
quite like him. Eddie Murray? Dale Murphy? Mike Schmidt? Sure, they put balls
into the seats. But there are no brass bands playing when they land. That is
the difference.
So yes, Reggie is unique, and yet, what he started has now become
commonplace. The superstar status, the no-such-thing-as- overexposure that has
touched players such as Goose Gossage, Pete Rose, Steve Garvey, Fernando
Valenzuela, and Kirk Gibson, was really birthed with Reggie. That's neither
good nor bad. It just is. Today is its anniversary. And there may be a few
more.
Back in the clubhouse on Friday, Joyner was listening to Jackson talk about
coming to the park early.
"When I was a young man," Reggie said, "I used to come out here just for the
joy of hitting in this park. Now, I have to come out four hours early just to
stay in shape. This old body gets rusty very fast."
Joyner laughed. "It's not old, Reggie," he said, "it's just . . . been
around."
Been around and back. Forty years today. "JAX TO OLD AGE: DROP DEAD!" Mr.
Big goes on.
Reggie Jackson's career at a glance
Reggie's fast facts
* BACKGROUND: Born May 18, 1946, in Wyncote, Pa. . . . 6 feet, 206 pounds .
. . throws left, bats left.
* HIGHLIGHTS: Holds major league records for: most strikeouts lifetime, 2,835
(at end of '85 season); most years (17) 100 or more strikeouts; most
consecutive years (13) 100 or more strikeouts; most strikeouts season (171)
for left-handed batter. Tied American League record for most years leading in
errors, outfielder (5). Led AL in homers (32) and RBIs (117) with Oakland in
1973. Tied for AL homer lead with Oakland in 1975 (36), with New York in 1980
(41), with California in 1982 (39). Major league and AL player of the year and
AL MVP with Oakland in 1973. Holds playoff record with 10 series played.
Holds World Series record for most homers (7) two consecutive years (1977-78).
Has 10 World Series home runs in five series.
* TRANSACTIONS: Selected by the Kansas City (later Oakland) A's on first
round, June 1966; traded to Baltimore, April 1976; signed with Yankees as free
agent, November 1976; signed with California Angels as free agent, January
1982.
The ups and downs
A look at Jackson's highs and lows:
CATEGORY HIGHS LOWS
RBIs 118 (1969) 49 (1983
Home runs 47 (1969) 14 (1983)
Average .300 (1980) .194 (1983)
Hits 157 (1971) 77 (1983)
Errors 13 (1977) 0 (1984) *
Strikeouts 161 (1971) 105 (1974) *
Comparisons do not include 1967, when he was called up from minors and
played 35 games for the Kansas City A's, and 1981, the strike season.
* Designated hitter 134 games, outfield 3 games.
Homers vs. age
Jackson hit more homers than age in:
YEAR AGE HR
1968 22 29
1969 23 47
1971 25 32
1973 27 32
1974 28 29
1975 29 36
1977 31 32
1980 34 41
1982 36 39
Home run leaders
1. Hank Aaron 755
2. Babe Ruth 714
3. Willie Mays 660
4. Frank Robinson 586
5. Harmon Killebrew 573
6 Reggie Jackson-x 537
7. Mickey Mantle 536
8. Jimmy Foxx 534
9. Ted Williams 521
(tie) Willie McCovey 521
11. Eddie Mathews 512
(tie) Ernie Banks 512
13. Mel Ott 511
14. Lou Gehrig 493
15. Stan Musial 475
(tie) Willie Stargell 475
x-active
CUTLINE
Reggie Jackson: "I have miles to go before I sleep."
REGGIE JACKSON; BASEBALL;BIOGRAPHY;AGE;STATISTIC;BIRTHDAY;
QUOTE;COLUMN;MAJOR STORY