In the midst of the joyful anticipation on this crisp September afternoon, I don’t remember who first noticed, but word spread quickly.
Our attention was directed to a lone figure, slowly walking on the narrow cinder warning track down the third base line. He might have emerged from the Yankee dugout, or the stands, but he was clearly headed in our direction.
It was Saturday, September 20, 2008. Our family was seated about midway up in the right field bleachers of the old Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY. The Yankees were about to square off against our beloved Baltimore Orioles in the second to the last game in this iconic theater that had housed the Bronx Bombers since 1923. The stadium was scheduled for demolition and the new stadium was well on its way to completion next door.
Our thoughtful son-in-law had gotten tickets for the family, and we made a full weekend of it including a train trip, nice hotel on the Park, and memorable meals. In Constance family tradition, we had arrived early at the Stadium to take in the sights, sounds, and joyful anticipation of the 9 innings to come.
It was my first trip to this historic venue, and I was a sponge for the atmosphere of this iconic piece of sports real estate.
I first saw that field during the 1956 World Series when Don Larsen pitched the only solo no-hitter and perfect game in Series history. I was six years old and doubt that I would have remembered the game had it not been for catcher Yogi Berra jumping into the arms of Larsen after the last pitch. My dad jumped off the sofa and shouted with joyous laughter that seared into my memory. It was game five and the Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games.
For my next glimpse of that field, I was sitting in front of a TV tray and watching the 1958 NFL Championship Game on the same flickering black and white set in our living room. Dinner in front of the television was a rare treat, but rarer still was the drama of what would come to be known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”
Under the lights of Yankee Stadium, bright enough for players and spectators, but barely adequate for television cameras, Steve Myhra of the Colts kicked a 20-yard field goal to tie the New York Giants and send the game into the sudden-death overtime, the first in NFL playoff history. The overtime ended when Alan “The Horse” Ameche plunged into the endzone, and Chuck Thompson yelled, “Ameche scores, the Colts are the World Champions.”
As I sat with my family that beautiful day in 2008, the black and white of my first memories now stretched before me in verdant green splendor, that emerald and clay brown loved by baseball fans throughout history. And what a baseball history that field had seen.
Babe Ruth’s home runs, DiMaggio’s hitting streak, Gehrig’s consecutive games and tearful farewell, the tape measure home runs of Mickey Mantle, the post 9/11 first pitch by President George W. Bush, and the All-Star Games when virtually every iconic player of the 20th Century took the field.
And that’s just the baseball history. In addition to the 1958 NFL Championship, the field had hosted the Joe Lewis versus Max Schmeling boxing match in 1938, the annual Notre Dame-Army game including the 1928 game when Knute Rockne gave his “win one for the Gipper” speech at halftime, a 1957 Reverend Billy Graham crusade to a crowd of 100,000, two masses conducted by visiting Popes, and a 1990 rally for Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison.
Now the lone figure was getting close enough for the fans to recognize the swagger and the familiar face. They began to yell.
“Reggie, Reggie, Reggie”
Unaccompanied by press or a supporting entourage, Reggie Jackson, who had retired from baseball in 1987 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993, was strolling toward the right field bleachers.
When he reached the base of the right field wall he disappeared for a couple of moments, but re-emerged walking down the aisle, right past us. He moved to a vacant seat four rows ahead of us and after a round of high fives and cheers, just sat down to take it all in.
Reggie had come to commune with the fans and put a capstone on his career in this place.
But why of all places the right-field bleachers?
Reginald Martinez Jackson was born May 18, 1946 in Abington Township, Pennsylvania. He played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, and California Angels. Branded “Mr. October” due to his hitting prowess in the post season, his clutch hitting led Oakland to three straight American League pennants and three consecutive World Series titles from 1972-1974. He also helped the New York Yankees win three American League pennants and back to back World Series in 1977 and 1978. Jackson hit three consecutive home runs at Yankee Stadium in the clinching game six of the 1977 World Series. Only one other player had ever performed that feat. Babe Ruth.
So, what about the right field bleachers?
Jackson spent his entire career as a right fielder and had roamed the verdant space just below those bleachers for his five years with the Yankees. But there was something else special about those bleachers to Reggie.
As a left-handed batter, he had pulled many a home run onto that famous right field porch of the old stadium.
Babe Ruth and his modern day chasers Mantle and Maris had all taken advantage of the short highway to right. The fences were pushed back a bit in the 1974 renovations but were still closer to home plate than in most modern-day parks.
Thurmond Munson, fellow teammate and rival for the affections of Yankee fans had sarcastically crowned Reggie “Mr. October”. The tag was permanently ratified on October 18, 1977, at Yankee Stadium in game six of a Dodgers-Yankees Series, when Jackson did the impossible.
In three consecutive at bats, Reggie Jackson hit three first-pitch homeruns off of the three different pitchers. The first two landed near where we sat that day, and the third, off knuckle ball pitcher Charlie Hough, sailed a prodigious 475 feet to center field. It was a massive blow, made even more impressive by the low velocity of the pitch.
Howard Cosell yelled, “Goodbye! Oh, what a blow! What a way to top it off” as the ball landed in the black painted portion of land past the center field fence.
So, on our special day in 2008, Mr. October had strolled out to the terminus of his performance that day.
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times recorded it this way in the next day’s paper.
Before the Yankees played the Baltimore Orioles, Jackson went to the spot in the Stadium with which he is most identified: the black bleachers in center field where his third home run landed in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. “I went out there because I had never seen that part of the ballpark and I was just alone in the black,” Jackson said after the Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 1-0. “I tried to find the spot where the last home run landed, and I just sat there and started to cry. I was not happy or sad. I was just humbled. I don’t know why I was the guy who got to hit the home run and play for this franchise and be a part of the Yankees and play for George Steinbrenner. I don’t know if I deserve it.”
Before Jackson sat down in the center-field bleachers — which spectators are forbidden from accessing and which is painted black so batters can see the ball more easily — he went to the right-field bleachers to be among the fans. “I had never been there,” Jackson said. “I wanted to be with the fans. I just sat with the fans and took pictures with them.”
And we were fortunate enough to be in that small circle of fans that day. It is filed away as one of my baseball memories that I will never forget.
Postscript: Jackson spent one season of his career with my beloved Baltimore Orioles. Jim Palmer, Hall of Fame pitcher for the Birds wrote “I would say Reggie Jackson was arrogant. But the word arrogant isn’t arrogant enough”. This from a guy not famous for his own humility.
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