People, Locations, Episodes

Reggie Jackson, Baseball Player born

Reggie Jackson

Reggie Jackson was born on this date in 1946. He is a retired Black baseball player and current minority baseball activist.

Reginald Martinez Jackson is one of six children from Wyncote, Pennsylvania. His father, Martinez Jackson, was Afro Puerto Rican. When he was six, his parents divorced, and Jackson grew up with his father, who was in jail for bootlegging when Reggie graduated from Cheltenham Township High School in 1964.

Jackson was a four-sport varsity athlete in high school; at Arizona State, he played baseball and football. After his sophomore season, the Kansas City Athletics selected him with the No. 2 pick of the 1966 Major League Baseball draft. He played for the As in Kansas City and Oakland from 1967 to 1975 and was traded to Baltimore in April 1976.

A free agent the following year, he signed a four-year contract with the New York Yankees. Jackson moved to the California Angels in 1982, where he played for five seasons. He finished his career with the team where he started, playing the 1987 season with the Oakland A's. In Jackson’s tenure with four American League franchises, all except the Orioles, the teams won at least two division titles with him on their roster. His Oakland teams won three consecutive World Series championships, the only organization other than the Yankees to three-peat, and his Yankee teams earned back-to-back titles in 1977-78. When he was with the Angels, California twice came within a victory of its first pennant and World Series appearance.

He holds the major league career record for most league championship series played (11), most games (45), most at-bats (163), and the American League records for most RBIs (20), most hits (37), and most singles (24) in LCS play. But in the World Series, he received the nickname "Mr. October." Playing in five World Series and 27 games, Jackson batted .357 with ten home runs and 24 RBIs. He also holds the career slugging percentage record of .755 and shares nine World Series records containing the phrase "home run."

Voted to the American League All-Star team 14 times, Jackson finished his career with 1551 runs, 2584 hits, 463 doubles, 49 triples, 1702 RBIs, and 563 home runs. Jackson was named on 396 of the 423 ballots in his first year of eligibility and elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. On August 1, 1993, he was the only player inducted into the Hall. Currently, Jackson lives in California; he connects with younger players regularly and is an executive with Upper Deck.

During the MLB at Rickwood Field tribute game in Birmingham, Alabama on June 20, 2024, Jackson joined dozens of baseball legends to celebrate the Negro leagues and honor the recently departed Willie Mays. On a broadcast before the game with Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, and Derek Jeter, Jackson spoke about the racism he faced when he was last in the city and the challenges he faced during his playing days.

To become a Professional Athlete