This Reggie Homer Is Another Knockout

So far this season, Reggie Jackson has sulked, simmered, swaggered, staggered, cheered, sneered, counseled, decked (a fan), defied (his manager), popped off, popped out, and all but phased out of the Angel picture.

Now Reggie, never one to fall into a rut, is trying a different tact.

He is hitting the baseball over fences.

It’s not a new act, not for Reggie, but it plays well in Anaheim, especially with a league championship series looming.

Jackson hit one Sunday. It came in the sixth inning of a 0-0 game against the White Sox. It pretty much changed the complexion of the game.

Three nights before, he hit three homers. In the last 13 games, he has 6 homers and 14 RBIs.

Sunday’s shot was a Reggie boomer, 400-feet-plus, with a rainbow arc. How did it compare with the three he hit Thursday night?

“They were all like this or better,” Reggie said.

Hey, when you get to be 40 years old, a part-time player, sometimes you have to be satisfied with mere 400-footers, especially if they win games, and so Jackson was feeling good Sunday.

And why not? His team had moved a notch closer to the division title, and each of the 25,322 fans had donated 50 cents to Reggie’s bank account. Every fan over 2.4 million in Anaheim Stadium earns Jackson 50 cents. Sunday he made $12,661, in addition to his salary.

“I’m not gonna knock ‘em (the Anaheim fans) as long as they keep those fifty centses coming,” Jackson said, laughing.

Then he actually broke into a few bars of the old song, “We’re in the Money.” Don’t look for Reggie to cut an album soon, unless he buys Motown Records with his fan bonus money.

This has been a season when Jackson has spoken out against the team owner and the owner’s wife, against the manager, the general manager, and everyone else he perceives as having a hand in stripping him of his dignity and his right-field position and his due respect.

Jackson is one of the Angels’ nine graduating seniors, the guys whose contracts are up at the end of the season, which could be around Christmas time, the way the playoffs and Series are now scheduled.

Jackson has talked about the Angels not wanting him back, not treating him with respect. You might say Reggie is now letting his bat do his talking for him, except that no bat was ever that verbose.

“I was swinging the bat good early this month,” Jackson said. “Then I sat down for four days in a row--one rainout and three left-handers (Manager Gene Mauch tends to bench Jackson against left-handers), and when I came back, my game was raggedy.

“When you sit out two days, you go to the plate just hoping to look good, not embarrass yourself.”

Translation: Play me.

“If I could play (regularly), you would see a different hitter,” Jackson said. “But I don’t, so I do the best I can.”

Sunday, Jackson and Doug DeCinces were a tag team. Before Reggie batted in the sixth, he had a discussion with DeCinces in the on-deck circle.

“(Chicago pitcher Rich) Dotson has a great change today,” Jackson commented.

“Look for the first pitch to be a fastball inside, and try to hit it out,” DeCinces said.

What DeCinces was saying was: “Forget that change-up bleep, Reggie. Are we banjo hitters, or are we real men? A change-up is a singles pitch, not your style. You gotta be aggressive, pal. Look for a pitch you can nail halfway to Laguna Beach.”

Which Reggie did, albiet on the fourth pitch.

DeCinces, realizing Dotson wasn’t likely to come in with a sissy off-speed pitch after being tagged for a Jaxbomb, looked for a fastball on the first pitch and drove it into the left-field bleachers.

So what if this was a nothing game at the end of a pennant race that’s already over?

“You have to put something in the opposition’s mind,” Jackson said. “I can contribute more than just the stats I’m putting up. There’s a character, personality and image we need to project.

“It’s time to earn some respect, get some stripes on your sleeves, some hash marks on your arm, some stars on your shoulder.”

I’m not sure what Reggie meant by that last part, but it sounded impressive and almost poetic, so I hated to leave it out.

He also said, “I’m getting my bat head now consistently in the danger zone, and if I get my pitch, I can do something with it.”

I’m not sure what that means, either, other than: “I’m hot.”

I do know this: If I was the manager of a baseball team heading into a playoff series and possible World Series, and I had a Reggie Jackson hanging around, I would hesitate to have the guy sitting on the bench.

If your team goes down in flames in October, it had better go down with Reggie in there swinging, every day, or you have some big questions to answer.

Not that I’m trying to tell Gene Mauch how to do his job. But how can you keep Reggie Jackson on the bench when he’s in an October groove?

If you’re Mauch, you know Reggie will be a pain in the butt from here on out, talking and criticizing and analyzing and pontificating.

But you also know, in any given situation, like in the 0-0 ballgame Sunday, he is capable of delivering the ultimate statement.