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Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball's Mr. October
“Dayn Perry, a damn fine writer, brings an insightful, fresh analysis to the career of Mr. October.”
—Peter Golenbock, author of The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire FoxSports.com baseball analyst and author of 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.
—Peter Golenbock, author of The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire FoxSports.com baseball analyst and author of 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.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
17 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Dayn Perry
9 books3 followersDayn Perry is an author and baseball journalist. He was also a special consultant for the San Diego Padres from 2001–2003.
Perry is a Mississippi native who now lives in Chicago. He got his bachelor's degree in English and master's degree in Creative Writing from Mississippi College.[28] He describes himself as "a husband, father, dog owner, sports writer, practicing Catholic, non-proselytizing vegetarian, Mississippi native, Chicago resident, and zealous and abiding fan of the St. Louis Cardinals."
Dayn is the uncle of Kimberly, Neil, and Reid Perry, siblings and members of The Band Perry.
Perry is a Mississippi native who now lives in Chicago. He got his bachelor's degree in English and master's degree in Creative Writing from Mississippi College.[28] He describes himself as "a husband, father, dog owner, sports writer, practicing Catholic, non-proselytizing vegetarian, Mississippi native, Chicago resident, and zealous and abiding fan of the St. Louis Cardinals."
Dayn is the uncle of Kimberly, Neil, and Reid Perry, siblings and members of The Band Perry.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 31, 2021
For a long time, I've had something of a fascination with baseball, in terms of reading about it. Arguably my favorite sport (though I no longer follow any specific team during the season), baseball and the men who play it have provided miles of print for aspiring mythmakers and journeyman beat reporters alike in all the time that it's been played, and cycles of that history have played out along obvious paths: first the epic myth-making, then the knocking-down-from-a-pedestal phase, and everything in between. Safe to say that many figures in the sports' past are often portrayed, as time goes on, in either a flattering or demeaning light, and the writers who chronicle them have a different view from those who come along well after the fact. But often, it's the ones after the fact who get the facts correctly.
"Reggie Jackson," by Dayn Perry, is one of those after-the-fact biographies that, I suspect, gets the facts of Jackson's mercurial, enigmatic superstar career right more often than not. I've read books about the Yankees of the Seventies, the "Bronx Zoo" that won two World Series championships back-to-back almost in spite of themselves, written primarily by the writers who were there, and often those same writers can't fathom why Jackson, the first Black superstar to wear pinstripes, felt so neglected and persecuted. But Perry, well removed from the actual moment, has penned a very good, very moving, and very honest portrayal of the "straw that stirs the drink" from those Yankee teams.
Jackson was a product of a mixed-race, broken home in Pennsylvania, never really experiencing the toils of racism until a baseball contract with the Oakland A's took him to the minor leagues in the Deep South. There, in the turmoil of the mid-Sixties, Jackson began to do his dance of identifying as a Black man when it suited him, in Perry's words. Jackson went on to play for two of the most iconoclastic owners in major league baseball, Charlie O. Finley and George Steinbrenner, and Perry's recounting of Jackson's interactions with both men speak to the disconnect that Jackson felt as a Black man in a sport primarily run by white faces. Jackson would go on to be a World Series champion five times (three with the A's, twice with the Yankees), but the ultimate goal of becoming an owner himself has eluded him thus far. Reggie's teammates from both of his championship teams couldn't always get along with him, and his penchant for dating white women made it hard for some in the Black community to embrace him as one of their own. Reggie Jackson, by any measure, was and continues to be a complicated man.
Perry, unable to secure interviews with Jackson himself, has nonetheless fashioned a sympathetic but objective view of his subject and the highs and lows that Reggie has endured, and the portrait that emerges here is of a baseball player always caught between two worlds and uncomfortable with not being in the spotlight, no matter how much that spotlight discourages the kind of intimacy and friendship that he has sought on the field and off it throughout his life. Reggie Jackson is a Hall of Famer, but he's also a very lonely man who hasn't yet achieved all that he hoped to when he set out on the path towards baseball immortality. Perhaps one day he could own his own team, or buy the Yankees from the Steinbrenners? I have no doubt, after reading this book, that even that high could never truly fulfill the man who became "Mr. October," but it would be nice to see Jackson and other Black and Latino former players end up in control of the game that they played so well, often for people who looked nothing like them and who couldn't comprehend the lives that they led.
And so, on a personal note, my 2021 ends much as it began, with a book about baseball (my first completed book of this year was a re-read of Jim Bouton's classic "Ball Four"). As I type this, it's four in the afternoon on December 31st, I doubt I'll finish anything else before midnight, and I'm glad that I ended my year of reading with this book, because it proved to be very much worth my time. I would also recommend Roger Kahn's "October Men" (about the 1978 Yankees) and Jason Turbow's "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic" (about those three-peat Oakland A's that Reggie played on, which I read earlier this year), if you're interested in all things Reggie and the 1970's in term of baseball.
"Reggie Jackson," by Dayn Perry, is one of those after-the-fact biographies that, I suspect, gets the facts of Jackson's mercurial, enigmatic superstar career right more often than not. I've read books about the Yankees of the Seventies, the "Bronx Zoo" that won two World Series championships back-to-back almost in spite of themselves, written primarily by the writers who were there, and often those same writers can't fathom why Jackson, the first Black superstar to wear pinstripes, felt so neglected and persecuted. But Perry, well removed from the actual moment, has penned a very good, very moving, and very honest portrayal of the "straw that stirs the drink" from those Yankee teams.
Jackson was a product of a mixed-race, broken home in Pennsylvania, never really experiencing the toils of racism until a baseball contract with the Oakland A's took him to the minor leagues in the Deep South. There, in the turmoil of the mid-Sixties, Jackson began to do his dance of identifying as a Black man when it suited him, in Perry's words. Jackson went on to play for two of the most iconoclastic owners in major league baseball, Charlie O. Finley and George Steinbrenner, and Perry's recounting of Jackson's interactions with both men speak to the disconnect that Jackson felt as a Black man in a sport primarily run by white faces. Jackson would go on to be a World Series champion five times (three with the A's, twice with the Yankees), but the ultimate goal of becoming an owner himself has eluded him thus far. Reggie's teammates from both of his championship teams couldn't always get along with him, and his penchant for dating white women made it hard for some in the Black community to embrace him as one of their own. Reggie Jackson, by any measure, was and continues to be a complicated man.
Perry, unable to secure interviews with Jackson himself, has nonetheless fashioned a sympathetic but objective view of his subject and the highs and lows that Reggie has endured, and the portrait that emerges here is of a baseball player always caught between two worlds and uncomfortable with not being in the spotlight, no matter how much that spotlight discourages the kind of intimacy and friendship that he has sought on the field and off it throughout his life. Reggie Jackson is a Hall of Famer, but he's also a very lonely man who hasn't yet achieved all that he hoped to when he set out on the path towards baseball immortality. Perhaps one day he could own his own team, or buy the Yankees from the Steinbrenners? I have no doubt, after reading this book, that even that high could never truly fulfill the man who became "Mr. October," but it would be nice to see Jackson and other Black and Latino former players end up in control of the game that they played so well, often for people who looked nothing like them and who couldn't comprehend the lives that they led.
And so, on a personal note, my 2021 ends much as it began, with a book about baseball (my first completed book of this year was a re-read of Jim Bouton's classic "Ball Four"). As I type this, it's four in the afternoon on December 31st, I doubt I'll finish anything else before midnight, and I'm glad that I ended my year of reading with this book, because it proved to be very much worth my time. I would also recommend Roger Kahn's "October Men" (about the 1978 Yankees) and Jason Turbow's "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic" (about those three-peat Oakland A's that Reggie played on, which I read earlier this year), if you're interested in all things Reggie and the 1970's in term of baseball.
June 18, 2023
This was a quick and enjoyable read. Other than a few insights about his relationship and interactions with Charlie Finley (which I was too young to remember) there wasn't much new here.
Being a baseball fan as a kid I remember Reggie being with Oakland (barely) and his "flash" through Baltimore. I do remember well his days with the Yankees though and the information in this book was like reading the press reports of that day. I didn't find anything new, no in depth or behind the scenes views that I had hoped for. I found, for me, a recap of what I remember. What I read in the news papers and saw commented about on Monday Night Baseball.
The book was not bad, just seemed a bit superficial.
Being a baseball fan as a kid I remember Reggie being with Oakland (barely) and his "flash" through Baltimore. I do remember well his days with the Yankees though and the information in this book was like reading the press reports of that day. I didn't find anything new, no in depth or behind the scenes views that I had hoped for. I found, for me, a recap of what I remember. What I read in the news papers and saw commented about on Monday Night Baseball.
The book was not bad, just seemed a bit superficial.
November 17, 2020
A mostly superficial treatment of Jackson's life, it was at least an enjoyable read.
August 7, 2011
This was a quick and enjoyable read. Other than a few insights regarding the race issue however, it was a shallow examination of Reggie Jackson.
It seemed like all the quotes were from the time-period at whatever point the book was at. And there were few quotes other than from Jackson although the stories of Charlie Finley were interesting.
I would have liked to have read perspectives on Reggie from Joe Rudi, Sal Bando, Catfish Hunter, Willie Randolph, Loe Pinella, various GM's etc., but there was none of that. I'm almost surprised the author found a publisher for this book.
Someone like David Marannis could have done a much better job on this subject.
It seemed like all the quotes were from the time-period at whatever point the book was at. And there were few quotes other than from Jackson although the stories of Charlie Finley were interesting.
I would have liked to have read perspectives on Reggie from Joe Rudi, Sal Bando, Catfish Hunter, Willie Randolph, Loe Pinella, various GM's etc., but there was none of that. I'm almost surprised the author found a publisher for this book.
Someone like David Marannis could have done a much better job on this subject.
June 11, 2011
I love to read about baseball as long as it isn't just stats-- and this one isn't. It includes one of the most interesting times of baseball when Reggie played for the Yankees, Martin was managing, and 'the Boss' owned them. It's a familiar story to me but I always enjoy reading about it [for those of you that don't like reading Sports book there's always the great HBO series The Bronx is Burning].
August 3, 2011
Excellent baseball book....not into takign cheapshots for no reason, and yet seemingly an honest portrait of a ballplayer who's monicker always made him bigger than life. Insecure, unsure, and very, very human, this book is for anyone who likes baseball but feels like they can't relate.
May 21, 2014
Even though I truly did not read this book cover to cover, I did skip through reading pieces and parts. Some parts were very interesting, while others were sssnnnooorrreee boring.
February 3, 2016
The wild story of Reggie Jackson from childhood to the 3 HR Game 6 of the 1976 WS and beyond
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews