Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126)

by Jackson, Reggie; Baker, Kevin

  I didn’t have anything signed, but I had a handshake deal with George, and I wouldn’t break it. I couldn’t get out of it morally. My dad taught me better. I shook his hand. He made a big effort to fly to see me, to bring me to New York and introduce me to his friends and the organization—to tell his crowd that I was going to be a Yankee. He put his hand out, I shook it, and I gave him my word. We wrote the basics of the deal on a restaurant napkin. That was it.

  I thought later about how it all might have turned out. The different teams I could’ve signed with. Baltimore was a place where I was very comfortable, a wonderful franchise, good people involved; a lot of my family was there. Certainly, in Los Angeles, I would have had a wonderful time.

  Now, I know it’s true: I don’t think you ever get the fanfare and the recognition and the support that you can create in New York with the media and the fans there. It’s just not the same anywhere else. But there’ve been players who have done it other places. Look at what Michael Jordan did in Chicago, what Willie Mays and Joe Montana did in San Francisco, what Jim Brown did in Cleveland, or what Tiger Woods did worldwide for himself. If you’re great, it doesn’t matter where you are.

  You think about the other teams. Baltimore, even after the free agents they lost, when I went to New York, we beat the Orioles out by just a couple games every year. And when we met the Dodgers in the World Series, I would’ve been on the other team. I would’ve been there with them, instead of doing my best to beat them with the Yankees.

  I’m not saying I was the balance of power or that I would’ve made all the difference. But I represented a final piece at that time for a few different franchises. Things might’ve been very different if I had been on the Dodgers or the Orioles.

  I gave my word to George. So I signed with the Yankees, and he brought me back to New York for a press conference.

  Now, I had already played in two World Series. But I had no idea what a big press conference was until I got to New York. I mean, in Oakland, we had two or three regular beat writers. In Baltimore, there was the Baltimore Sun with Phil Hersh and Jim Henneman, I think, the Washington Post with Tom Boswell. That was it.

  In New York, there were thirty-plus beat writers. Thirty-plus. From three different states. And a lot more of them at that first press conference. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and occasionally Washington, D.C., and Philly scribes came to New York as well. It was—is—the media capital of the world.

  They had the press conference in the Versailles Terrace Room of the Americana Hotel. The room was full of reporters; there were TV cameras everywhere. Thurman Munson was there for it. I really appreciated that; I thought we were getting off on the right foot. Everywhere you looked was plus. George was there, Roy White was there, the media were there, my mom and dad were there. Everything was just wonderful. How could it not have been?

  But I had no idea that you had to be so aware of everything you said (and still have to). You had to really listen to what you said before it came out and in print. You had to understand that certain words projected different connotations, certain words were inflammatory. I had to learn on the spot how to say things. And I didn’t do a very good job of that my first year in New York.

  I tried to be honest, open. But you have to be guarded in what you say. I needed to learn to read what I was saying, when I was saying it.

  Look at someone like Derek Jeter, he’s got it down to an art. In addition to being a great ballplayer, he knows how to say exactly what he wants to say. And nothing else, nothing that somebody can take and twist. He’s the best, always has been remarkably mature for his years. He knew how to do that from the beginning as a Yankee. He knew how to say a lot and give nothing.

  I’m still learning.

  I didn’t understand how the media would take things. That very first day, in the Versailles Terrace Room, somebody asked me if I was afraid my star would get lost somewhere else, and I told him, “I didn’t come to New York to become a star. I brought my star with me.”

  That got some people started right away. But what was wrong with that? I was a star. I’d been a star for eight to ten years. I’d already been an MVP in the regular season, I’d already been an MVP in the World Series, I had won three World Series titles and a couple home run titles playing for Oakland.

  Somebody asked me then, “But wouldn’t your star have got lost if you’d gone to Montreal or San Diego?”

  I told him, “Fort Knox is in Kentucky. But Fort Knox isn’t lost. Everybody knows where Fort Knox is.”

  It got a lot of laughs. I honestly didn’t understand what they were getting at. I thought it was some kind of put-down of me. I mean, I’d been a star in Oakland, a small city. People knew who I was, even though I played in Oakland. Why wouldn’t they know me if I went somewhere else?

  I didn’t know yet how the media thought of New York. I didn’t get it yet, how the awareness of New York is so all-encompassing compared to anywhere else. I found that watching everything I said was a very difficult thing to do and still be me—but, oh boy, I was going to get a crash course in how to do it.

  But at that press conference, everything still seemed fine, everything seemed good. George was there. Thurman was there. Billy Martin didn’t show up, but that was all right. I’m sure he had places to be. Everything seemed perfect.

  There was just one thing that happened a little later, one thing that, thinking about it now, maybe should’ve rung some alarm bells.

  Someone put it out to the papers that when George first spoke to me on the phone, he told me, “I want you more than anything in the world. What do you want more than anything in the world?”

  He claimed that I told him, “A Corniche Rolls-Royce.” That was the top of the Rolls line then, went for $63,000.

  Supposedly, George told me, “It’s yours. All I’m asking in return is the right to be the last person to talk to you before you make up your mind.”

  Nice story, right?

  Only trouble was it didn’t happen. George never offered me anything to be the last person to speak to us. Only at the end of the negotiations did he throw in some more money to clinch the deal, another hundred thousand or so in bonus money. I used that money to buy the Corniche. And a Corniche Rolls-Royce was never “what I wanted more than anything in the world.”

  And that’s not how George told it to the press.

  Instead, it became a different story. One where he looked all the more generous, and daring, and smart. But I was someone who knew cars very well and was perfectly capable of taking his money and going out and buying what he wanted. Which is what I did.

  Not a big deal. I didn’t say anything at the time. I knew George didn’t mean anything much by it, that was just him trying to be the showman.

  But when I thought about it later, it was an early warning signal. I missed it. So many times, the headline is an eye-catcher but the real story is completely different.

  6

  “ANY SPECIFIC PLAYER”

  THE FIRST WARNING I got that things might not go so smoothly in New York was out in Hawaii.

  I was a broadcaster for the Superstars competition they would have in the off-season. You remember those, where they’d have top athletes—people like Pete Rose, Tony Dorsett, Bruce Jenner, O. J. Simpson, Walter Payton, and others—compete against each other in things that weren’t their sport, usually stuff like track and field, different events like a tug-of-war, sprints, volleyball. Then they started bringing in “SuperTeams”—the two teams that went to the Super Bowl and the World Series.

  I know it seems almost unimaginable now. That’s how different things were, back before free agency. In fact, right after that year, I believe George Steinbrenner put a clause in every Yankee’s contract prohibiting him from doing anything like it in the off-season. The talent just got too high-priced to risk on Sunday afternoon sports filler.

  That winter, they were having a SuperTeams competition out in Hawaii between the Yankees and the Reds, the two teams t
hat had just been in the World Series. It was a great chance for me to be out there with all the guys who were going to be my new teammates. There were ten Yankees altogether, guys like Chambliss, Graig Nettles, Sparky Lyle, Roy White—I don’t remember if Munson or Piniella was there.

  They really didn’t give me the time of day. I was a little stunned, but I was trying to be cool about it. Afterward, I was asked how it was being in Hawaii with my new teammates, and I said it was uncomfortable, and I tried to be diplomatic. I don’t remember being welcomed to the team by any of the Yankees. It was awkward.

  “When I walk outside, and it’s thirty degrees, I’m not comfortable,” I said. “Do you feel comfortable in a bathtub filled with cold water?”

  I thought that would be the way to brush it off, make light of it. But instead, that just set things off. Once what I said got published, another writer asked the Yankees who were there what they thought of it, and that started a whole back-and-forth thing.

  “What were we supposed to do? Take him out to dinner?” one of them said.

  And I read that and I thought, “Well, that wouldn’t be horrible, would it? That would’ve been a normal thing to do.”

  I didn’t understand that. I was going to be their new right fielder, and it didn’t seem they wanted much to do with me. And if you don’t feel welcome, then you don’t reach out. I had friends there because I’d been with ABC for a few years, I was broadcasting with Keith Jackson and Bruce Jenner, so I had plenty to do, places to go. I didn’t need people to hang out with. I just thought that a friendly visit would have been nice. I guess I could have asked them to go out as well.

  To me, once it was over, it was over. I didn’t think too much about it. I didn’t let myself think too much about it. But looking back, I should have picked up on that for a sign of how things might go.

  It became a pattern: I would say something to the press that I didn’t think was a big deal, didn’t think that much about. And then the reporters would run off to quote me—with a slant—to someone else, and see if they could get a response from the person. That someone always wanted to remain anonymous, I would notice. I was out there saying what I thought, putting my name on it, standing behind my words. And then somebody else on the team would take some shot without being man enough to put his name behind it—coming out as “an unnamed source”!

  Who knows if the person really said it that way? Who knows if he really said it at all? I don’t see how that’s journalism. Or if someone did say it, how’s that being a teammate?

  But that’s how it was, right from the beginning. There were negatives before I even played a game.

  Some of it was understandable. Some of it. The Yankees were a proud team. They’d just had a great year in 1976, got into the World Series. They had a right to be proud. I don’t think many of them liked the fact that so much attention was on me, all the stories about how I was going to “save” them. I could certainly appreciate their views.

  But you know, that wasn’t me so much as it was the press reacting to me—and a story. I was going to help the team. They had some terrific hitters, but they didn’t have that much power.

  Graig Nettles was a great defender; a very good power hitter, he’d led the league in home runs the year before. Chris Chambliss had power.

  But as a left-handed power hitter in Yankee Stadium, I would bring an additional dimension.

  To give you an idea: My best home run year in the Bronx, I hit forty-one in 1980. I was told that was the first time any Yankee hit more than forty homers in a season since Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris did it in 1961, the year Maris set the record. The next time any Yankee did it was Tino Martinez, when he hit forty-four in 1997. That really surprised me, considering the short porch in right field at Yankee Stadium and all the great hitters the team had.

  In other words, almost twenty years each way. That was a big difference. And I don’t think people fully understood it. They didn’t understand the power game the way they do today with things like sabermetrics and all these new statistics. They didn’t understand that I was good at getting on base. They didn’t understand all the ways one could make a difference.

  So yes, I was coming to a very good team. But I was bringing something with me. I was bringing something rare. I was a left-handed power hitter with the ability to get on base, a pretty good, seasoned pressure player.

  What was wrong with that? When I was on the A’s, we had guys joining the team all the time. Almost all of them made a real contribution, either as starters, or as platoon players, or off the bench. We accepted that. We were glad to have them. Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, the Alou brothers, and others. We didn’t act like we didn’t need them.

  People still didn’t get how free agency was going to work, and it would take time to evaluate it. The sportswriters didn’t get it; the fans didn’t get it. The players didn’t get it. Some teams got it; some refused.

  Nobody had a complete understanding yet, with the new system, with free agency, that the players would get their shots at their big payday every few years or so. In that way, baseball now was almost like any other business: Your contract’s up, you put your skills on the market.

  People didn’t get that—many fans, players, and even some owners. Some embraced it, and some didn’t. Most thought it should have stayed the way it was, where if you had a good year or the team won, you asked for more, hoping the general manager or the owner would grant it to you.

  Everyone thought every player should be measured against every other player on the team, every year. So when I came to the Yankees with the biggest contract in the game at the time, it wasn’t like everyone understood, i.e., “Okay, when it’s my turn, when I can declare for free agency, I’ll have my payday.” Instead, many players on the Yankees and other teams wanted to be paid right away, forgetting they already had a contract.

  When I got to camp in 1977, it seemed as though everyone was holding out. Checking back on it, I know several guys were unhappy with their contracts: Sparky Lyle, Roy White, Dock Ellis, Oscar Gamble, Chambliss. Even Fred Stanley, our shortstop, who hit .238 the year before. It was the situation that free agency was creating, but it was made to seem that I was the catalyst.

  I sympathized with all these guys, many of whom had been terrific players, and some of whom were probably too old now to get what they deserved. They had helped the team win the American League pennant. But it wasn’t my fault that they didn’t get paid what they felt they should, or what they could get on the open market. Some guys have the makeup to play out their option and some guys don’t. It’s not easy for some guys to deal with the pressure. I had played out my option. I took some risks. But somehow, part of the resentment these guys had was directed at me.

  It was reported that Mickey Rivers was deliberately not playing hard. He wanted a raise because he was having what he called “personal problems,” and that was his way of holding out.

  We all loved Mickey—but can you imagine what the reaction would’ve been if I’d done that?

  “I signed my contract because I thought it would be best at the time, but I didn’t really like it,” he said. “I’m sorry I signed it.”

  Can you imagine if I said that?

  Dock Ellis got into it with George Steinbrenner in the locker room, yelled at him, called him names. Before they traded him to Oakland in the spring, he told reporters that he hoped we’d lose more, because “the more we lose, the more often Steinbrenner will fly in. And the more he flies, the better chance there will be of the plane crashing.”

  Now, I do believe he meant that as a joke. Dock would never truly wish anybody’s death. Who would pray for someone’s plane to crash? That would be insane. But they went and printed it as if he was serious.

  It was just locker-room humor. The writers never should’ve printed it.

  But can you imagine if I had joked like that?

  It was reported that Oscar Gamble, when Gabe Paul told him he’d been traded in the Bucky Dent d
eal, said, “Mr. Paul, you’ve made a big mistake. You know I’m a better ballplayer than Reggie Jackson.”

  Huh? How did I get into this? Neither Oscar nor I was a shortstop.

  It went on and on. Graig Nettles was making $140,000 a year, but he was unhappy that Sal Bando, who was our third baseman with the A’s, had just signed a free-agent contract for $1.4 million with the Brewers. So Nettles jumped the team one day without saying anything to anybody.

  “It seems the only way to make money with the Yankees is to play for another team,” he told the writers later. “It seems the guys who make more money are the flamboyant, controversial guys.”

  Gee, I wonder who he was referring to.

  Sparky Lyle held out, too. He said he wanted $500,000 for three years, guaranteed, “even if the club goes defunct.

  “I’m not using any specific player as an example but as soon as a good player becomes available, there goes $2 million or $3 million to him,” he said. “But the guys who won for him [George] see very little of it.”

  Uh-huh. Wonder who he was talking about. I should’ve had “Any Specific Player” put on the back of my uniform. But I guess I should have been pleased. At least I had moved up to being a good player now.

  Nowadays, guys wouldn’t think twice if somebody came on the team after getting a big free-agent contract. Today’s player understands the timing, of having your option year and getting the money in your turn. Back then, many guys didn’t understand that.

  Just like every other free agent, I had played out my option and taken my risk. If I had blown out my knee or something before I signed a new contract, that would have been too bad for me. I would have been out of luck. That’s just the risk I took—and that’s just how a marketplace works.