My Story
Family Members
Mother: Clara Jackson
Father: Martinez Jackson
Spouse(s): Jennie Campos
Children: Kimberly Jackson
Reggie Jackson
Biography
Reginald Martinez Jackson (born May 18, 1946) is an American former professional baseball right fielder who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City / Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, and California Angels. Jackson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993.
Jackson was nicknamed "Mr. October" for his clutch hitting in the postseason with the Athletics and the Yankees. He helped Oakland win five consecutive American League West divisional titles, three straight American League pennants and three consecutive World Series titles from 1972 to 1974. Jackson helped New York win four American League East divisional pennants, three American League pennants and back to back World Series titles, in 1977 and 1978. He also helped the California Angels win two AL West divisional titles in 1982 and 1986. Jackson hit three consecutive home runs at Yankee Stadium in the clinching game six of the 1977 World Series.
Jackson hit 563 career home runs and was an American League (AL) All-Star for 14 seasons. He won two Silver Slugger Awards, the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award in 1973, two World Series MVP Awards and the Babe Ruth Award in 1977. The Yankees and Athletics retired his team uniform number in 1993 and 2004. Jackson currently serves as a special advisor to the Houston Astros, and a sixth championship associated with Jackson came with Houston's win in the 2022 World Series.
Jackson led his teams to first place ten times over his 21-year baseball career and suffered only two losing seasons.
Jackson was born in the Wyncote neighborhood of Cheltenham Township, just north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Martinez Jackson, who was half Puerto Rican, worked as a tailor and was a former second baseman with the Newark Eagles of Negro league baseball. He was the youngest of his mother Clara's four children. He also had two half-siblings from his father's first marriage. His parents divorced when he was four; his mother took four of his siblings with her, while his father took Jackson and one of the siblings from his first marriage, though one sibling later returned to Wyncote. Martinez Jackson was a single father, and theirs was one of the few black families in Wyncote.
Jackson graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1964, where he excelled in football, basketball, baseball, and track and field. A tailback in football, he injured his knee in an early season game in his junior year in the fall of 1962. He was told by the doctors he was never to play football again, but Jackson returned for the final game of the season. In that game, Jackson fractured five cervical vertebrae, which caused him to spend six weeks in the hospital and another month in a neck cast. Doctors told Jackson that he might never walk again, let alone play football, but Jackson defied the odds again. On the baseball team, he batted .550 and threw several no-hitters. In the middle of his senior year, Jackson's father was arrested for bootlegging and was sentenced to six months in jail.
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