“Dayn Perry, a damn fine writer, brings an insightful, fresh analysis to the career of Mr. October.”
—Peter Golenbock, author of George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire
FoxSports.com baseball analyst and author of Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones, Dayn Perry brings us Reggie Jackson in all his glory—a thrilling, in-depth biography of the controversial New York Yankee slugger. A monumental sports story filled with such stellar baseball names as George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Thurman Munson, and Bucky Dent, Reggie Jackson is the first to cover the entire career of the colorful, outspoken athlete whom The Sporting News listed as one of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players of all time.
Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson earned the nickname "Mr. October" for the crucial clutch hitting that led his teams to the World Series six times and won him two series MVP awards, and this skill at the plate is perhaps what he is best remembered for. But behind the bat was a man many don't know—a man struggling to find his place in the world, at home, and in the sport that made him a star. Now, in the first biography of Jackson in more than twenty-five years—and the first to cover his entire career as a player—FOXSports.com columnist Dayn Perry provides an intimate, honest, and never-before-seen glimpse into the life and times of one of baseball's all-time greats.
A cantankerous man full of swagger with a fearsome talent to match, Jackson was an outspoken iconoclast as a player—a gift that made him friends and enemies of some of the most colorful characters in the game. As large a presence on the field as he was outside the ballpark, Jackson backed up his talk by establishing himself as one of the best sluggers the sport has ever seen.
Yet Jackson's story is about more than sports prowess. His life reflects a time, between Jackie Robinson and Ken Griffey, Jr., when black ballplayers were accepted but still considered inferior to their white teammates. There were unspoken rules to keep the racial waters still; Jackson not only ignored such conventions, he demolished them—paving the way for true equality for all black players.
From his childhood in a predominantly white neighborhood to heroics at the plate, from relationships with legendary players such as "Catfish" Hunter and Thurman Munson to battles with some of the sport's most powerful figures, including notoriously cheap Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley and the irascible George Steinbrenner, Reggie Jackson tells the full story of the man who was one of the first black baseball superstars—and one of the greatest players of all time.
