Becoming Mr. October (9780385533126) (23 page)

That was an interesting choice, because before the playoffs started, Billy wanted to put Fran on the disabled list. He was hurting, and Billy didn’t want to play him, so he was going to put him on the DL, and the Yankees were going to put him in the broadcasting booth, as a color commentator.

Fran would go on to make a great career for himself as a broadcaster. But if he goes up in that booth just then, he’s not around to tell me. I wonder who Billy Martin gets to do what he was supposed to tell me as the manager—or if he ends up having to tell me himself.

That would’ve been interesting. Anyway, Fran comes into his office. Fran said he looked scared to death: “I need you to tell Reggie he isn’t playing.”

Fran was a little ticked off at how Billy was trying to get him off the team, too, and he told him, “You’re the f—in’ manager, you tell him.”

“I don’t wanna,” he says.

“So tell the coaches to tell him.”

“They don’t wanna,” he says.

Fran figured he better tell me, or I wouldn’t know I wasn’t playing. He told me he was thinking, “F—k, I’d better tell Reggie or he’ll be in right field. We’ll have two right fielders.”

Fran ended up telling me. I was in shock when I heard it. I was like, “Wow, this is a different dude.” I don’t think I ever fully realized before, even after everything I’d been through that year, just how different this guy Billy was.

Supposedly, he even went around to Catfish and asked him in front of the writers if I could hit Splittorff. The way they wrote it up the next day, Catfish told them, “Not with a f—ing paddle.” That’s what they wrote. I would doubt Catfish said it that way. He might have said, “Well, I’ve seen Reggie struggle with him,” or something like that, but he wouldn’t say, “Can’t hit him with a paddle.” I mean, I played with Catfish almost his whole career, thirteen seasons, and we were friends. The comment attributed to him didn’t fit the person.

But no matter what anybody else said, I wasn’t starting. Billy made Cliff Johnson the designated hitter and put him in my number four spot, and he put Paul Blair out in right field.

Both fine players. But you know, Cliff Johnson had played fifty-six games for us that year. Paul Blair played eighty-three. Neither one of them had two hundred at-bats. Counting the playoffs, Cliff was something like 3–5 against Splittorff. Blair was 1–3. That was no kind of measure; that’s not enough at-bats to make a decision like this one.

That season, even with all the distractions, I had thirty-two homers, 110 ribbies, thirty-nine doubles. I was fifth in the league in homers,
sixth in RBIs, third in slugging, tenth in on-base percentage, second in doubles. Anyway you sliced it, I was one of the premier hitters in the league, the premier hitter on the Yanks. It was crazy to play your biggest game of the year without your cleanup hitter being part of it.

It was an attempt to put me down, I felt. Billy had this opportunity, he had his reasons, and he wanted to show the world that he was in charge, that he could win the pennant without me.

The only good thing to be said about it all was that Fran did end up telling me I was benched for the game. Because he didn’t just come over and say, “You’re not starting.” He also said, “Make sure you don’t say anything negative. You’ve gotta be a team guy here. Watch what you do in the dugout. Whatever you do, make sure the camera doesn’t catch you emoting or doing anything they can tag a comment to. That camera will be on you. It will be looking for you to make some sort of scene or something. Just make sure you’re out there rooting for the team.”

Then he told me, “Stay ready. You never know, you could wind up winning the game for us. So make sure you stay in the game.”

It was great advice. I didn’t follow all of it. I didn’t really stay in the game. At times, I just thought about anything but the game. I was broken and couldn’t get past not playing.

I couldn’t be mad for three hours, so I just kind of checked out. I just sat there kind of emotionless. Somewhat removed. Thinking about why Martin would bench me. I was just thinking, “What are you doing? What are you trying to prove? You’re going to prove that you can manage me? Show people who you are?”

It was a crazy chance to take. If Billy had lost that game with me on the bench, he would’ve been fired immediately, or so I thought.

But I didn’t let any of those feelings show. I took Fran’s advice, made sure I looked like I was in the game all the way, for the TV cameras. Made sure it looked like I was leading the cheers.

When I went out to the dugout before the game, the press was all over the place, but Fran had told me what to say: “You’ve got to be down; your pride has got to be hurt. But if a man tells me I’m not playing, I don’t play. I sit down and pull for the club. I’m not the boss; I’m the right fielder. Sometimes.”

All of that was Healy. Except when I said “Sometimes.” I had to have a little authenticity.

It was a crazy night. I might’ve appreciated what a game it was if I’d been allowed to play in it.

Billy was starting Guidry with just two days’ rest, and he didn’t have anything; it’s lucky he didn’t end a great career right there. But he had the guts to keep trying. We were scrapping. Nettles got into a ruckus with George Brett when he came in hard at third on a triple. Thurman singled in a run, but we were still down, 3–1, with just one out in the third.

Billy brought in Mike Torrez. It was a desperation move, just like his move with Lyle had been the day before. Mike had only lasted five and two-thirds innings in Game 3 of the series, but he just had one day’s rest. Still, he was great; he mowed them down. Thurman threw out a couple guys trying to steal. But somehow we struggled to score off Splittorff, even with me on the bench. Ha!

Top of the eighth inning, we were still down, 3–1. Just six outs left. But Healy, who had caught Splittorff when Fran was in the Kansas City organization, was telling us, “Stay close. He’s coming out of the game, he’s gassed.”

He could see it, he knew it—and sure enough, he was right. Willie Randolph led off with a single, and Whitey Herzog decided to pull Splittorff for Doug Bird. Bird struck out Munson, then Piniella singled, and we had men on first and third, one out.

Bird was a righty—so Billy has no excuse now
not
to bring me in. I think maybe George might’ve made him the first manager ever fired in the middle of an inning if he hadn’t. I pinch-hit for Cliff Johnson. Over forty thousand fans in the seats, all of them booing me, of course.

I wanted to succeed more than at any time in my life. In all honesty, who wouldn’t feel that way? I mean, I had been in the postseason many times before, with the A’s. But this was different. This was unique. I think it would be normal to have that feeling, that need to succeed—and to say that would only make me normal.

It’s hard to recall everything I was feeling at that moment. But I was also kind of stuck between “Should I give it my all? Or should I
just say to Martin, ‘Dude, you think I stink? Let me just stand there. Take three strikes and go back to the dugout.’ ”

I knew that didn’t make sense. That would only make me look like a fool. And I thought, “We don’t need two fools. We just need one.” I wasn’t going to prove Billy right by being wrong, by looking foolish.

I knew better than to get up there and go for the fences. We needed a run driven in. Needed to keep the rally going. Nothing would be going on if I struck out. You can’t think home run there. A home run could happen, sure. But I needed to get that ball in play, get the run in.

If you’re raised as a baseball player to win, that’s what you do. It’s what you’re supposed to do, as a professional. If you want to say I did the right thing, and I had the right things in mind, great. But it’s not a tribute. Any professional would do the same.

I was always able to set aside the negativity when I played. To strike when the game was on, say what I wanted to say that way, with a bat in my hand. My dad would always say, “As long as you have the bat in your hand, you have the last say.”

The game itself was kind of my place to escape. People would say I was always so clutch in the big situations. No, I think it’s just that I didn’t let myself get distracted the way a lot of players do in those circumstances. I had the ability to focus and to keep it narrowed down to the need to hit the ball.

It all comes down to the nature of the person. Not everybody can be a shutdown closer. Not everybody can be a pinch hitter. Not everyone can hit cleanup. It’s just not in their nature, not in their DNA.

There’s a thousand reasons. Some guys can and some guys can’t, and it’s up to management to realize that. Look in a man’s eyes; they are the windows to his heart. They will tell you if he can or he can’t.

I remember when I was a kid, my father sent me to the grocery store one time to get a pint of Neapolitan ice cream. You remember that? The kind they used to sell, one-third chocolate, one-third vanilla, one-third strawberry? Called Neapolitan.

I had twenty-five cents—and there was no pint of Neapolitan ice cream. So I went to the corner gas station and borrowed a quarter from one of my dad’s friends, Bob Bradshaw. I then went to the grocery
store and borrowed a quarter from the grocery store owner, Bob Kelso. I then went to the store on the corner, Fleischer’s Drug Store, and I bought a pint of chocolate, a pint of vanilla, and a pint of strawberry. I went home and my father said, “Good job, son.”

You know, I wasn’t going to bring an excuse home. Nobody wants to hear an excuse. That’s the way it is with baseball and life in general.

Man on third base, and there’s one out, and you’re two runs down—you have to figure out how to get him in. I got to hit a ground ball to the second baseman if the infield’s back. If the infield is in, I got to square the ball and punch it through. If the pitcher’s a sinker-ball pitcher, I got to get the ball in the air. If the guy’s a left-hander and has got a good breaking ball, I have to try to figure out how to get the barrel on the ball.

You got to figure it out.
How do I get this run in?
You got a lot of choices. But some guys look at that situation and they just go, “OMG”—“Oh, my goodness! What the hell do I do?”

There are certain guys everybody knows in the clubhouse you want up in those situations. Guys who are going to be able to stay calm and figure it out. On the Yankees, Jeter’s the type of guy you’d want up there. There are some guys who aren’t supposed to be clutch, but they are.

You can get on a bad streak. That happens even to great players—even to clutch players. It can happen to anybody.

It happened to me sometimes. Not much. Not in October. A lot of people used to say that was because of my ego.

I don’t know. I don’t know how the ego goes. I don’t know the definition of ego.

But I think your ego helps you, if you want to be honest about it. I think knowing who you are helps. I don’t have to say, “I’m going to get it done,” because I’m Reggie Jackson. That’s who I am. Whatever that is, good or bad.

I go to home plate in a clutch situation, I look at it as an opportunity to succeed. It’s like my friend Gary Walker used to say, “Reggie, get your thoughts out of the way. Don’t get in the way of the ability that God gave you. Don’t create unnecessary clutter in your mind.”

All I would say, at certain times before the game, was, “Dear God,
guide me.” Because a lot of the time you can put doubt in yourself by thinking too much.

But I always knew that I had God on my side. And that 1977 season, I was praying more than I had at any other time in my life.

I just stayed in there, when I finally got to bat in that last game against the Royals. I figured out what I had to do.

I was only told I was going to pinch-hit at the last minute. I think it was by Fran Healy, who came in from the bullpen and sat next to me for a while on the bench. Not by Billy. I remember leaving from the end of the dugout, walking to the on-deck circle, taking a couple swings, then walking right up to the plate. I remember being announced as the pinch hitter—but not before you looked around to see who was going to hit.

It wasn’t like, a couple minutes before, “Reggie, you’re going to be the hitter if we get this far along in the eighth inning. You’re going to hit, go get ready.” I remember being by the end of the dugout, sitting with my bat for most of the game. I never walked down toward the bat rack to get a bat, grab some pine tar and a helmet. I was down there with my helmet by my side. I put on my helmet and walked from the dugout, up the stairs, out on the field, and then down to the on-deck circle. Swung the bat a couple times, I didn’t even pick up the leaded bat. Walked across home plate, not even around back, and got in the batter’s box, ready to hit.

Didn’t stretch, didn’t do any knee bends. It didn’t matter. I was locked in; I was somewhere between mad and disgusted. I just got in the batter’s box and just locked down. I figured out what I had to do, I didn’t let anything distract me, I stayed within myself even when I got behind, 1–2, in the count. Then Bird came in with a fastball, and I just took what he gave me and hit a line-drive single into center field. Not a lot, just what I could do. Just took what there was. It scored Willie and cut their lead to 3–2. Job done.