Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid

Excerpt from Chapter 1 A Mr. October Afternoon Listen. You can hear it in the crowd. The 49,333 at Oakland Coliseum that afternoon. Tense. Excited. Sold. They believe their A's can spoil this Mets miracle-the tremendous dash from last place at the end of August to within a game of the world championship. No matter, it's Game Six, the Mets up 3–2 in the Series. These fans have assigned their allegiance to these A's, the star-studded lineup of the defending champs: Bando, Tenace, Campaneris, Rudi, Hunter, Holtzman, Fingers, Blue, and Reggie. Reggie. Reg-gie! Reg-gie!! REG-GIE! He steps to his place. First inning, man on, two out. Reggie digs in. The white Pumas anchor in the dirt, the Sonny Liston-sized biceps wiggle the 37-ounce bat in his powerful hands. Reg-gie! His swagger, his manner, his style-he's like no one else. He's Reggie. He feels the eyes of the 49,333 on him, along with those of the millions in front of television sets from the Bay Area to Flushing Meadows. Feels good. His first World Series. The big stage. An October afternoon promise to supersize his status. Reggie stands poised to bust open his own image. Watch this. The 1973 season had already proven itself a watershed year that changed baseball forever. Race, money, rules-raging factors in the country's social revolution-had marked the national pastime. A black man who had begun his career in the Negro Leagues threatened the supremacy of a white man's legend, a mythical landmark universally identifiable by a simple number, 714. In New York, a multi-millionaire shipbuilder with an ego the size of Yankee Stadium bought America's team at a bargain-basement price and began to flex his wealth in the league's largest market, sparking baseball's economic revolution. In a culture reluctant to change, American League owners had broken ranks with their National League counterparts and introduced the designated hitter, a marketing measure desperate to reclaim fan interest dissipated by the growing popularity of professional football. Already that season, baseball had undergone an extreme makeover that provided a demarcation in its history. There was baseball before 1973 and baseball after 1973-two distinctive eras. Now Reggie at bat in the Fall Classic would animate the season's final act. While Willie Mays watched from the bench, Reggie would enact a changing of the superstar guard so complete that it would transform the media's coverage, the fans' perception, and the game's image. That afternoon, the age of the modern superstar was about to dawn. Willie Mays was the best player of his generation-some argue of all time. An All-Star 24 times, a two-time MVP, he was the kind of player for whom the Hall of Fame was built. The Sporting News had recently declared Mays the best player of the past decade. He held more Major League Baseball records in more categories than any other player in history. His day was nearly done. By October 1973, he was ready to retire, but he wanted to close out his career as a champion. In Game Six, the forty-two-year-old Mays watched Reggie bat from what had become Willie's customary spot at the back end of the Mets dugout. Fail or triumph, Reggie did everything big. He was coming off an MVP season-batting .293 and smashing a league-leading 32 homers and 117 RBIs while scoring more runs (99) than any other American League player. Yet, that same season, he struck out 111 times, or once every fifth at bat. Shame claims the flip side of glory's skinny coin. Reggie could be the victim of his own hype. After hitting 47 home runs in his sophomore season, he had started calling himself Mr. B&B-as in bread and butter, the guy who delivered the big hits-then endured a three-year slump for a player of his potential, averaging fewer than 30 home runs and less than 75 RBIs a year. He batted .261 over those seasons. Before the Series began, Reggie had announced to his teammates with charaRosengren, John is the author of 'Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid', published 2008 under ISBN 9781402209567 and ISBN 1402209568.