New York – The irony, of course, is that it was Thurman Munson who gave Reggie Jackson his nickname.
Annoyed by the media attention during the 1977 postseason, the grouchy Munson scoffed, “Go ask Mr. October” while pointing at Jackson.
The irony, too, is that Jackson, one of the most controversial, most polarizing sports figures to come through New York, vilified by the beloved Munson and the exalted Billy Martin, became a hero and a legend one night by hitting three home runs into the October sky to win the 1977 World Series.
And it is further ironic that the ’77 team often gets lost between the 1976 team that won the franchise’s first pennant in 12 years in the first season at the remodeled Yankee Stadium, and the 1978 team that came from 14 games behind Boston in July and won a one-game playoff at Fenway Park and the World Series.
There are several ways to relive that 1977 season. One is a recently released A&E DVD set of all six World Series games, plus the decisive Game 5 of the ALCS. One is the upcoming ESPN miniseries, “The Bronx is Burning,” which debuts Monday after the Home Run Derby.
My favorite remains Steve Jacobson’s book, “The Best Team Money Could Buy,” which really details how wild that season was.
“Cain killed Abel and Abel was his brother,” backup catcher Cliff Johnson said Saturday. “So when you look at 25 guys and throw them all together, there’s going to be times when there are going to be differences. It happened on this ballclub, but the thing that we were, we always had the oversight to come back in spite of, and win.”
“There were definitely conflicts,” Series-winning pitcher Mike Torrez said. “Billy- Steinbrenner. Reggie-Thurman. Billy-Reggie. (Nettles)- Reggie. But I think everybody respected one another.”
Yet Mr. October still harbors conflicted feelings.
Asked on the field if he’d come to terms with his relationship with the late Martin, Jackson zigged and zagged and went off on ESPN.
“I don’t know,” he said, his face twisting as if in agony. “I don’t know. I go in and out. I don’t really know. I mean, I’ll forgive. I can’t forget it. I can’t forget.
“They’ve got this thing coming out next week, this miniseries, they didn’t even ask me. I feel betrayed. I could have written stories and told about anti-Semitism and racism and all that. But why do that? Why talk about people that are dead? Why trample on a man’s grave and bring that stuff up?
“I worked for ESPN one time. I worked for ABC. They didn’t have the decency to ask me a question. You want to portray me when you don’t know the story? Very, very … I don’t know the word. Why would you do something like that? You’re doing a documentary? Why wouldn’t you ask somebody who was there, right in the middle of it?”
And Reggie is right in the middle of it, played by an actor in a cheap Afro.
Graig Nettles said he was an adviser on the set.
Torrez said he saw some of it, and that it should have been titled, “Reggie, Reggie.” And why not? Jackson’s feud with Munson was legendary, from the moment he arrived, when he was quoted in a magazine article saying he was “the straw that stirs the drink” and that Munson “can only stir it bad.”
But it was Martin who treated Jackson worst. Billy was the one who embarrassed Jackson in Fenway Park in June, sending Paul Blair to right field, believing Jackson loafed on a ball hit by Jim Rice, then having to be restrained by Elston Howard and Yogi Berra from fighting Jackson in the dugout. It was Martin who refused to bat Jackson cleanup, until he was persuaded late in the season by Lou Piniella and others. It was Martin who actually benched Jackson for Game 5 of the best-of-five ALCS, noting that he was “butchering” right field and not hitting.
And yet it was Jackson who hit the three homers – four, off four pitches by four different pitchers, if you count the one he belted at the end of Game 5 – who pulled it all together in the clinching game.
It was Jackson who had been added to a pennant-winning team at the record-setting cost of $2.93 million for five years. (The Yankees’ payroll that season, as a point of comparison, was $3.47 million, according to Jacobson’s book).
The 1977 Yankees were more than Reggie. They had an incredible pitching staff: Catfish Hunter, Torrez, Ed Figueroa and Ron Guidry. Closer Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young Award.
Watch the miniseries if you want to get an idea. Read the book if you really want to understand.
