Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Been enjoying poking my nose through my baseball library and selecting some cherce quotes, so here's another one for ya. This one if from Foul Ball: Five Years in the American League, by Alison Gordon, who covered the Blue Jays from 1979-83. Gordon describes herself as "a socialist, feminist, hedonist with roots in the sixties, a woman who had marched against the bomb, done drugs, and never, ever even wanted to date the head jock at school, had nothing in common with these children of Ozzie and Harriet, locked in a fifties timewarp." Some combination, huh? I enjoyed her take on Mr. October:
Undeniably a star with an extraordinary sense of the moment, Jackson was one of the most fascinating, but unpleasant, characters I encountered in baseball. It's only a fluke I feel that way. There were some reporters I respect whom he liked and who assured me that Jackson was a sensitive and intelligent man, unfairly at the mercy of the sharks that surrounded him. It could be. I wouldn't know because he thought I had a fin on my back, too. He was a bit like Billy Martin in that way. If you encountered either one on a good day you came away thinking he was a prince. On a bad day there were jerks. I never hit a good day with either one.Had I not been a print reporter it would have been a different matter. Jackson loved television interviewers once the camera was turned on because this was an image he could control. He was wonderful in front of the cameras, self-effacing and God-fearing, all "Hi, Mom" and five-dollar words. Out of their range, he was completely unpredictable.
Being a reporter from the boonies didn't help either. What importance could a reporter from Toronto have in the world of baseball, for heaven's sake? I wasn't Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe or Tom Boswell of the Washington Post, so why bother? I didn't cover the Yankees or the Angels when he played for those teams. I wasn't in the inner circle.
On the fringe, I wastched as he manipulated my colleagues, who practically tugged their forelocks in deference. He sighed at what he considered dumb questions while winking at the reporters who covered him daily, exempting them from his scorn. They ate it up. Then he would turn and snarl at the offender, asking him exactly what he meant by his question. He reduced the meek to jelly and enjoyed it. It made me ashamed of my profession to be reduced to acting a role in Jackson' drama of the moment. The man was only a ballplayer, after all, whatever inflated importance he placed on it, and not that great a ballplayer either, day in and day out.
That these men are perceived to be more important than doctors or scientists or firemen or teachers, on the evidence of what they are paid, struck me often, but the disproportion never seemed greater than when I dealt with Jackson. Here was a supreme egotist with one skill, the ability to hit a baseball out of any park in the major leagues when the game was on the line, and for that he was deified by the fans…He exemplified none of the greater virtues of sport, team play and sportsmanship, but he was a greater hero than those who did.
And yet there was another side to him. He was kind to young players, dispensing bits of himself to star-struck rookies and making them feel at home on his turf. Once, in 1979, in Toronto, he was walked by Phil Huffman. He yelled at the young pitcher all the way to first base, accusing him of not having the guts to throw him a pitch he could hit. Huffman, cocky himself, yelled right back. A week later, in New York, in the last game Huffman would pitch in the major leagues, in his eighteenth loss of the season, Huffman struck Jackson out. When the game was over and Huffman was packing up his stuff, the clubhouse attendant walked up to him at his locker and handed him a baseball. It was inscribed "To Phil—I admire your toughness. Reggie Jackson."
I admired the gesture, which meant a lot to Huffman, but I also saw it as an extraordinarily condescending thing to do to a player who was, after all, a fellow major leaguer, not a beseeching twelve-year-old fan. But I'm sure that baseball now holds a place of pride among Huffman's souvenirs.
The story about Huffman is classic Reggie. The part about how he approached TV vs. print reporters is good too, and reminded me of another story that is featured in the forthcoming, The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan. It is a piece on Deion Sanders. Here's Pat:
I wrote Deion Sanders for Special Reports which was a little magazine outside of Knoxville. Deion was in Hagerstown, Maryland where he was playing with the Albany-Colony Yankees. But he really didn't want to be a baseball player. He was using that as leverage to get more money from a football contract. Football was his first love. He was a very difficult interview, but he was trapped with me because we were in this hotel and there was no place to go, he couldn't leave, and I was always there. He was surly, unpleasant, with a girlfriend that literally fed him from a plate. So I followed him. We worked out in the gym together. He got annoyed with me, because at that time I was preparing for a bodybuilding contest and I was in pretty good shape even though I was 48-49. He was doing bicep curls and I was lifting more than him and that really irked him. He was not a big, muscular guy, not your typical football player. He was tall and thin.However when a camera crew from the Hagerstown TV station came to interview him, he perked right up. Became "Primetime". He was like an imitation Muhammad Ali, sparkling, flapping his gums. When I talked to him, he gave me one word answers, because print didn't mean anything to him. He knew that television was it. You make your persona, you make your bones, in front of camera not in front of a print journalist.
It's hard to believe that Reggie once asked a reporter, "Do you think we'll ever see the day when a player makes $1 million a year?" From Ali to Reggie to Deion to T.O. dumping popcorn on his face, we still need plenty of mustard to cover all those sharp cookie hot dogs out there.
Often times, sportswriters develop the same over-inflated egos that players do. Unfortunately, the arrogance that comes from the modern day sports columnist seems to only be growing. Thankfully, the proliferation of other kinds of distribution has made this filter much easier to bypass.
In any given year, there are less than 400 people in America who can hit major league pitching on a more or less daily basis. The public finds value in paying billions of dollars a year to see those few people perform this feat. So, who should that money go to? Should we pay the ballplayers minimum wage and give the rest to the owners? You show me one owner who can step down on the field and do the same thing Reggie did and I'll concede that point.
The only other choice would be to convince the public to stop going to baseball games and instead give their money to their local school districts. That, by the way, would put Alison Gordon out of a job.
Anyone who makes that comparison makes me question whether they, themselves, have an over-inflated ego and whether they deserve their salary.
That's an odd statement. I wonder if other sportswriters of the time thought that Reggie was "not that great a ballplayer." I think you could make a case that he was the best everyday player of the 1970s. Morgan had a higher peak ('75 and '76) but Reggie produced big numbers every single year.
Joe Morgan's OPS+ average during the 1970s: 138.7
Morgan added great defense and superb baserunning, but as Alex points out, Reggie was not bad at either of those things when he was younger. Also, if you include 1969 and 1980 into his 1970s averages, his OPS+ average shoots up to 153, which seems like a pretty staggering 12-year norm.
Also (and I know I'm off on a tangent here) I think Pete Rose deserves consideration as player of the 1970s. As Bill James said, he was overrated when he played and has become a little underrated afterward. The thing he's got over Morgan and Reggie and Stargell is games played. The man helped his team win every single day.
Pete Rose's OPS+ in the 1970s was 128 (30th among batters with at least 3,000 PA appearances/12th among batters with at least 5,000 PA). Rose did have by far the most PAs of any player in the decade, however. Rose came to bat 7,399 times in the decade; Bobby Bonds was second with 6561 (OPS+ of 129).
1 Willie Stargell 156 5083
2 Reggie Jackson 148 5912
3 Rod Carew 142 5916
4 Reggie Smith 142 5352
5 Joe Morgan 140 6320
6 Ken Singleton 139 5778
7 Johnny Bench 132 6001
8 Bobby Bonds 132 6561
9 Bob Watson 132 5625
10 Tony Perez 129 6155
11 Cesar Cedeno 128 5482
12 Pete Rose 128 7399
It's pretty impressive to see Kenny Singleton on this list. I don't think many people realize how good Singleton was.
Can you imagine Billy or Thurman's day in day out kind of grind it out drive coupled with Reggie's overall physical talent? What could that man have done on a ball field?
Even so, I don't think Reggie took off that many days. I just think that's the excuse people come up with when superstars fail to live up to our expectations.
Oprah Winfrey, $260 million
Jerry Seinfeld, $60 million
Simon Cowell, $45 million
David Letterman, $40 million
Donald Trump, $32 million
Jay Leno, $32 million
Dr. Phil McGraw, $30 million
"Judge" Judy Sheindlin, $30 million
George Lopez, $26 million
Kiefer Sutherland, $22 million
Regis Philbin, $21 million
Tyra Banks, $18 million
Rachael Ray, $16 million
Katie Couric, $15 million
Ellen DeGeneres, $15 million
Ryan Seacrest, $14 million
Matt Lauer, $13 million
Barbara Walters, $12 million
Diane Sawyer, $12 million
Meredith Vieira, $10 million
Speaking of Trump and a certain show of his I'm intimately familiar with, throughout the production the crew I drove around practically recited from memory the challenges and locations before I even got to see the crew list, meaning that much of the show is recycled from past seasons. I guess that's a good way to save money and time, but it says a lot about what producers expect people to like; or does it say something about what people like anyway? Either way, I don't think much of the choices on TV. It won't kill to read a book (or look at the pictures anyway >;)
Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Hank Aaron, Dick Allen, Dave Parker, George Brett, Greg Luzinski, Frank Robinson and George Foster?
As an example, A-Rod is railed against because (in perception) its all the regular folks buying tickets and concessions at games that pays his salary - and that's why those prices keep going up. (Not true.) In reality, most (if not all) of his salary comes from TV money, not ticket/concession money.
I would bet a huge chunk of Oprah's earnings also comes from TV money; how much can the magazine and book club and other properties bring in? But of course, tickets to Oprah's show are free!
People don't see a link between their bottom line and what Oprah earns - but they (think they) see a link between their bottom line and what A-Rod earns. Hence, A-Rod is roasted for his salary, and Oprah is not.
The choices we make about what is important in our society are at times a head scratcher. A little more bread and circus I guess. To paraphrase Calvin Coolidge: the more I see of life the more I like my dog.
God does this crap make me cranky. Rachael f'ing Ray, are you kidding me? She's a semi pleasant enough person but is that really a reflection of the value of her marginal product? I used to be a Reagan Republican, now I'm teetering on the verge of socialism. Oye, I'm out.
Reggie understood baseball to be entertainment. So he was going to play up the idea of him being an entertainer. If Ms. Gordon was a Hollywood reporter she would have encountered the same attitude from many stars there.
Aaron was pretty outspoken, too; if I remember correctly he used the (racially-charged) spotlight from his Home Run King chase to lobby baseball to hire black managers and general managers.
Jim Rice - 141(3456 PAs) / 9th
Fred Lynn - 142(3035 PAs) / 7th
Hank Aaron - 145(3413 PAs) / 4th
Dick Allen - 148(3624 PAs) / 3rd
Dave Parker - 143(3607 PAs) / 5th
George Brett - 130(3815 PAs) / 24th
Greg Luzinski - 134(4879 PAs) / 18th
Frank Robinson - Under the 3,000 PA cutoff
George Foster - 139(4063 PAs) / 12th
Reggie Smith is the name that jumps out at me, a sorely underrated player then and now. He was easily the best player on the 1977-78 Dodgers, though Garvey got the acclaim; in fact, he was arguably the best player in the league. Foster and Parker weren't bad choices, but Smith could have been MVP both those years. He finished fourth.
Put him in with Jimmy Wynn as criminally underrated players.
But the kid in me says that people will seek out a camera when they have something to say or show, regardless of how important it really is. YouTube, for example. And most children always jump in front of an unsuspecting camera if you let them (some will even if you tell them not to.) Is this a conditioned reflex or the vanity within? Hmmm...
Reading baseball books in the off season ain't the same as reading box scores, but it sure beats watching the results of the Iowa caususes.
Wondering if there are more books, other than the obvious ones, written about the game by women? Have the Kofax book and Doris.
This all being said, last year I was on a fishing trip out of San Diego. I was hanging out with a retired Japanese doctor who was maybe one of the best fisherman I have fished with. Turns out he lives next door to Reggie in So. Cal. and he often gives his extra fish to Reggie or had Reggie over for dinner. He says Reggie is the nicest most gracious guy you ever wanted to meet. I guess age mellows even superstars.
Neither was Bing Crosby. Or Joan Crawford. At least towards their families. I think the media (and us media consumers) like to boil stars down to one dimension, when in fact they are as complicated as the rest of us, but with the added burden of having to be on stage nearly all the time.
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