To quote from Shakespeare — OK, not verbatim — all the World Series is a stage.
Significant now, because beginning next week and in the following days of the postseason it will be a stage that those players still playing will be trying desperately to mount.
An October stage where what is little more than routine in May, June or July becomes the colossal, the stupendous, the incredible and the devastating. No one exploited that phenomenon more completely, nor more skillfully than the self-absorbed man we now know as “Mr. October” (Reggie Jackson).
To review the reason why Jackson acquired his exalted nickname, in Game 6 of the 1977 ”Series he hit three consecutive pitches by three different Dodger pitchers out of Yankee Stadium (in consecutive at-bats).
It was an act without equal. In terms of the ”Series, right next to Babe Ruth, the only other player to hit three home runs in a single game. For this and other Series feats, including being a team member for six winners and hitting for an average more than 100 points higher in the ”Series than his career regular-season mark, Reggie earned a share of immortality.
As a member of three ”Series winners in Oakland, he got as much media attention as anyone on the field in 1972 when he was injured in the League Championship Series and unable to play.
Having followed Jackson through most of his career, I can tell you that October wasn”t the only time he came up big. In Boston”s Fenway Park, I watched him drive in 10 runs — an A”s record — in a single game.
But Jackson did not become the object of our affliction only for his bat. Certainly not his glove. “The only way I”m going to win a Gold Glove is with a can of spray paint,” he said in a rare moment of self-depreciation. Love him or hate him — and I”m among many who could never make their mind up about that — what put Reggie in a class of his own was his 175 IQ, his wit and his ego.
For the beat writer, whose life sometimes is a treadmill of innings, Reggie was the postgame interview who could talk life into a game that was decided by a bases-loaded walk. He was eminently quotable on any topic. I suspect even on basket weaving had the subject ever come up.
During one of his occasional hitting slumps, he was heard to say, “I”m like the bad-luck buzzard. Can”t kill nothin” and nothin” won”t die.” To define the mastery of pitcher Tom Seaver, he said, “Blind people came to the park to hear him pitch.” To give full measure to his self-aggrandizement, he said, “The only reason I don”t like playing in the World Series is that I can”t watch myself play.”
To borrow again from Shakespeare, Reggie “bestrode this narrow world like a Colossus.” At least he talked like one. Unfortunately, the act didn”t play well in New York. But you have to give the man credit for coming up with the concept of being the “straw that stirs the drink,” or bringing his own star with him. His insistence that there should be a Reggie candy bar didn”t fly, except from the stands at Yankee Stadium where fans showered him with “Reggie” wrapped candy bars that were made up special for just that purpose.
Jackson”s well-publicized feud with Yankee manager Billy Martin may have begun years earlier when Martin, then the manager at Detroit, ordered a pitcher to throw at Reggie. Jackson had no choice but to charge the mound. But when he got there he never threw a punch. He wrestled, kicked and scratched, prompting the comment from Martin, “Reggie fights like a girl.”
Even when Jackson”s stratospheric ego was affronted he was something to behold. In a ballpark that no longer exists in Kansas City, I saw Reggie and teammate Rick Monday launch rocket homeruns. Monday”s shot appeared to be still on an upward trajectory when it hit a scoreboard. And in the postgame ritual I suggested to Jackson that it might have traveled farther than his own had that not been the case.
“What!!” said a suddenly aroused Reggie. “Hand me that ball over there.” On the ball, he wrote “500,” and added, “That”s how far I hit my home run.”
During the A”s 1974 Series against the Dodgers, a cohort had written a Sports magazine article about visiting Jackson at home, noting a revolver resting on a Bible and the presence of a teen-aged “ball girl,” hired by the club to run down foul balls and look good doing it.
When the cohort showed up at Oakland Coliseum between Series games with the Dodgers, naturally, a heated discussion that drew a crowd of reporters looking for an off-day story occurred.
“If you ever write another line about me …” Jackson postured to the writer, “you will be getting your mail by gopher.”
Jackson could be just flat mean, such as when a young boy on an elevator asked him if he was going to hit any “dingers” (home runs) that day. “I got your dinger,” said Reggie, putting his hand to his crotch.
Briefly, he was married and less than a year after the wedding I asked him if his new bride was accompanying him.
“Hell no,” he growled. “Having her around is like being 0-for-30.”
Reggie also said that after Jackie Robinson he was the most important black player in the history of baseball. But as a young player bigotry was a part of Reggie”s persona. When passing women on a downtown street, he would say, “Hi mullion” to them. Mullion, he explained, meant ugly.
He was disliked by most of his teammates both in Oakland and New York.
Still, baseball-wise, he will always be the Othello of October.
Editor”s note: John Lindblom is a former Bay Area sports beat writer who now covers sports and writes a column for the Record-Bee.
