A Chance Encounter With Reggie Jackson: ‘Mr. October’

By JIM PURCELL

Between 1994 and 1995, I worked part-time, writing press releases for B&J Collectibles, in Lakewood, New Jersey. B&J was a sports memorabilia company, and it sold signed balls from all the major sports, as well as photos and bats or helmets from nearly every period of sports history.

   My regular job was working as an editor for a nearby weekly newspaper, so the money I made at B&J was for extras I might want. I loved the work, though, because I’ve always been a fan of baseball and football, as well as hockey to a lesser extent.

Reggie Jackson circa. 1978

   The work was good: I wrote releases for products that were coming out, like the Raiderette Dance Team and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders computer screen savers, or the anniversary of the Joe DiMaggio 56-game hitting streak and the like. I even had an opportunity to work on an account that required me to interview former Giants Head Coach Bill Parcells, who is really a great gentleman and a truly nice guy.

   But, the sports celebrity I remember the best from those days was Reggie Jackson, who had an exclusive contract with B&J for several years, as I understood it. And, I just happened to see him walk in the office. Let me be clear: Though I am not and have never been a Yankees fan, I have always been an enormous Reggie Jackson fan.

 Reggie Jackson was a unique kind of hitter. It seemed like he never got a hit when his team didn’t need it. But, when the pressure was on and the game was riding on one swing of the bat, Reggie was Superman.

   When he came in, he asked me if he saw my boss, who was the president of the company. I told him I hadn’t seen him and then I recognized him and said, ‘You are Reggie Jackson…”

   Reggie smiled and said, “Yes, I know. You are a baseball fan, I guess.”

Reggie Jackson today

   Far from the maverick personality he projected during his playing days, Reggie actually took the time to talk to me about baseball.

   ‘You know, you projected this kind of personality when you were playing. I never thought it was real, though,’ I said.

   “The Yankees of that time needed a lightning rod and that was the part that I played. If another ball player had a bad game, the New York media would be all over them. But, then there was ‘Reggie’ in the clubhouse saying this or doing that and it took the pressure off of those guys. And, it was a persona that I put on, I admit,” Reggie said.

   Reggie said that playing in New York was like performing on baseball’s largest stage. “New York is not for every player, but I loved playing there,” he said.

   He recounted that there have been times when he has been treated rudely by fans because they have preconceived notions of who he is based on the way he played ball and handled the media back in the 1970s and ‘80s. “I think, though, that I try to stay close to the Golden Rule, treating other people the way I want to be treated,” Reggie said.

   I thanked him for taking the time to talk to me, even though I was basically a nobody there. He said, “It was my pleasure. I love talking about baseball.”

   During his days of patrolling right field for the “Bronx Zoo” version of the Yanks, Reggie was my favorite player. Ask any New York sports fan and they will have a favorite Reggie ‘moment’ where he stunned crowds and won games. By far, he is one of my favorite on-field players ever. Yet, after meeting him, Reggie Jackson struck me as an amazing representative of the game and he is just a really nice guy.

   It must be hard for him to have to contend with his old public persona, but he handles himself with grace and congeniality. I don’t think anyone could want anything more from a great sports icon.

  

Commentary: Colin Kaepernick is acting like a punk...there it is

Colin Kaepernick: Disrespectful to the US

FEATURE COMMENTARY

 By JIM PURCELL

Colin Kaepernick and his protests during the playing of the National Anthem before football games should never have begun. America is not perfect. Since it is a democratic republic, the United States exists by the rule of law. Leaders are elected. There is a lot of bureaucracy in this country. America struggles with hate, conflicted politics, unending wars, an economy that is sometimes predatory, and the span between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ has never been wider. So, Kaepernick thinks his protest will do…what?

Let’s see…is Kaepernick’s taking a knee at the National Anthem change anything? No. Will his protest put anyone back to work? No. Just what is he ‘raising awareness’ about? I haven’t heard anything. He just decided to protest because the United States isn’t perfect. Well, as imperfect as this country is, it is still the freest nation in the world. Don’t believe it? Go shopping for another country and move. Try it out.

I respect protest. I have protested for peace during the early days of the Iraq War. I have protested for civil rights in New Jersey during my tenure as an NAACP volunteer. In both cases, both kinds of protest were specific. I protested the war in Downtown Manhattan as part of a group that had its specific ideas about Iraq – and why the U.S. shouldn’t be fighting there – broadcast on television, in the newspapers and online. When it came to the NAACP, we protested establishments that were, in the group’s view, demonstrating bias based on race and color. Before and during the protests, the targets of those protests were met with and very specific goals for policy changes were submitted to the persons concerned.

How is Kaepernick’s protest different? Because he doesn’t make a clear case about what he is protesting. Without that, I suppose he is just protesting an imperfect world. He is not protesting whomever he believes is doing wrong. He is protesting in front of scores of people who neither know nor care about what he doesn’t like. He is protesting as part of his job as an over-paid, only so-so quarterback talent for a poorly performing 49er team. His message is to disrespect the American flag and our National Anthem because it’s fun and can be done.

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson

According to CBS Sports, Kaepernick does give about $1 million per year to charity. Meanwhile, I guarantee you that the money he gives to charity does 1000 percent more for real problems than taking a knee and telling the country responsible for his success to ‘go blow.’

I haven’t watched much of the NFL this year, because I am sick and tired of over-indulged, high-priced, mediocre players who have been given everything and seem to give back only nonsense, guff and headlines for stupidity. This Kaepernick is just the icing on the cake for me.

Reggie Jackson was a free thinker. I have met Reggie before, at a job I used to work at for a sports memorabilia company. By the way, he was nothing like the showman he portrayed during his Yankee days. He was a prince: modest, affable and just a total gentleman. 

Reggie was probably the most dangerous two-strike hitter ever in MLB ever, but certainly so in the late 1970s. He was considered a showboat and not a team guy by some people. He made fun of most everything – but never the United States, its flag or its National Anthem. Why? It’s a matter of class. Class can’t be bought or paid for, it cannot be ordered through Amazon, someone can only fake class for so long and then there is knowing that there’s a line and being cognizant of where it is so someone doesn’t cross over it.

All-time great Roy White

Colin Kaepernick gives the game a bad image. His actions reflect not just on him and the 49ers, but the National Football League. By the by, why the heck hasn’t anyone at the top of the NFL stopped this mockery?

The problem doesn’t begin or end at with Colin Kaepernick, the 49ers or even the NFL. The problem is that athletes today act like spoiled children, not role models. I weep for sports.

I have met, a few times, Roy White, the steady handed outfielder for the New York Yankees during the Bronx Zoo days of the late 1970s. I have never asked him about how he would feel about someone protesting during a game. So, what I am giving is my own opinion, not his. 

Roy was a steady .290 hitter against some of the toughest major league pitching talent that ever existed, from Nolan Ryan, in his prime, to Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, Luis Tiant, Bill Lee, and so on.  He is grateful for his playing days, for the fans that followed his career. He is a real gentleman and created his own business from the ground up during and after his playing days. Roy White was also a black ball player when it wasn’t an everyday thing. He suffered being under-paid, harassed for his color and a mercurial fan base and club house that might make many of us shrink.

Why didn’t Roy White protest? Oh yeah, he is a grown man, unspoiled by life. He understands the world as it is. He respects people, especially his fellow players and fans, and he loves this country. Roy White got noticed for his exceptional play at a time when the talent pool of MLB was extraordinarily high, before expansion when people who should have still been playing AA or AAA ball were in the minors and not playing in the show. He didn’t get noticed because he took a knee for some ridiculous protest.

The NFL will little note nor long remember the career of Colin Kaepernick. Yes, he is a good quarterback – not great, not very good, not particularly all that talented. What he will be remembered for after his playing days won’t be his touchdown to interception ratio, or his passing statistics or anything that happens on the field. He will be the guy who told the United States to go shove it on some of the biggest stages of his day. He’s a punk and there it is.