Becoming Mr. October

Book excerpt: A soul-baring, brutally candid, and highly colorful memoir of the two years--1977 and 1978--when Reggie Jackson went from being an outcast to a Yankee legend. In the spring of 1977 Reggie Jackson should have been on top of the world. The best player on the Oakland A's dynasty teams, he was the first big-money free agent wooed by George Steinbrenner into coming to the New York Yankees. But, as Reggie writes in this vivid and surprising memoir, until his initial experience with the Yankees, "I didn't know what alone meant." Persevering against an alcoholic manager, ostracism from teammates, and negative stereotypes in the New York City press, Jackson fought against the odds to become "Mr. October." Filled with revealing anecdotes about the notorious "Bronx Zoo" Yankees of the late 1970s, bluntly honest portrayals of his teammates and competitors, and especially of manager Billy Martin, Becoming Mr. October is a revelatory self-portrait of a baseball icon at the height of his public fame and private anguish.