Reggie Jackson cemented his legacy as a World Series legend on the night of Oct. 18, 1977, at Yankee Stadium. Jackson was in his first season as a New York Yankee and it had been a controversial season for the slugger, signed in the first winter of full scale free agency by the Yankees after playing out his option for the Baltimore Orioles in 1976.
Jackson, never one to shy away from a reporter’s pad or a microphone, stirred up a controversy in spring training that year, angering team captain Thurman Munson and other teammates when he told Sport magazine reporter Robert Ward, “It all flows from me. I’m the straw that stirs the drink. Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink, but he can only stir it bad.”
It was three months to the day before Jackson’s World Series outburst that things came to a head between Jackson and manager Billy Martin. On June 18, 1977, in a nationally televised game at Fenway Park in Boston, Jackson allowed a double to Red Sox hitter Jim Rice to fall in and Martin believed it happened because Jackson loafed on the play. Martin immediately sent in Paul Blair to replace Jackson in right field and Jackson and Martin nearly came to blows in the dugout in the aftermath of the play.
But for all the controversy surrounding Jackson during his career, he didn’t earn the nickname “Mr. October” because he shrank from the spotlight in the biggest moments.
Jackson is one of only six players to hit 10 or more home runs in World Series play. His 10 Fall Classic bombs ties him with Lou Gehrig for fifth on the all-time list. Only Duke Snider (11), Yogi Berra (12), Babe Ruth (15) and Mickey Mantle (18) hit more. It’s worth pointing out that Jackson has the fewest plate appearances of any of the six players on that list with 116.
In all, Jackson played in five World Series. With the Yankees, he appeared in the 1977, 1978 and 1981 and he also played for the Oakland Athletics in 1973 and 1974. He missed the 1972 Fall Classic after suffering a ruptured hamstring while stealing home plate in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against the Detroit Tigers.
But it was that October night at Yankee Stadium in 1977 that secured Jackson’s place in both baseball history and in the mind and heart of an 11-year-old Yankee fan as the greatest World Series legend of them all.
Jackson hit three home runs on three consecutive pitches against the Los Angeles Dodgers to help the Yankees to a Series-clinching 8-4 victory. It was the Yankees’ first World Championship since 1962 and propelled Jackson to World Series MVP honors.
Jackson hit the first pitch he got from Dodgers’ starter Burt Hooton in the fourth inning for a line-drive home run into the right-field seats to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead.
In the fifth inning against reliever Elias Sosa, Jackson blasted Sosa’s first offering into the right-field stands and the Yankees took a 7-3 lead, giving Jackson four RBI on the night.
In the eighth inning, the Dodgers had turned to knuckleballer Charlie Hough. Jackson annihilated a floating knuckler from Hough, hitting a 450-bomb to the empty black seats in straight-away center field (click here for video). It was Jackson’s record fifth homer of the World Series, a mark later tied by Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies in 2009.
Jackson’s legacy is that of a player who took an all-or-nothing approach at the plate and who came up huge in the biggest moments. He was a lifetime .357 hitter in World Series play with 10 home runs and 24 RBI in 27 games. He also belted the longest home run in All-Star Game history off Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher Dock Ellis (click here for video) at Tiger Stadium in 1971.
But true to that all-or-nothing approach, Jackson is still baseball’s all-time leader in strikeouts. He fanned 2,597 times in his 21-year career that included stops with the Kansas City Athletics (1967), the Oakland Athletics (1968-1975 and 1987), the Yankees (1977-1981) and California Angels (1982-1986). But he also slugged 563 home runs, a total that was good for sixth on the all-time list when he retired and still ranks 13th even after the so-called Steroid Era of the 1990s and early 21st century.
Because of the strikeouts and his controversial nature, Jackson doesn’t favorably compare with other legendary power hitters such as Ruth or Hank Aaron. But only Ruth may have been able to make Jackson’s flair for the dramatic and his pure showmanship on the diamond.
Phil Watson is a 20-year veteran of the newspaper industry and a longtime New York Yankee fan who counts Reggie Jackson’s three-homer performance in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series as one of his fondest childhood memories.
