New York Yankees: Giancarlo Stanton, Reggie Jackson measuring stick
By Cory Claus
But They Did Get What They Needed
What the Yankees needed was baseball’s best slugger. They needed someone who could put the power back in the pinstripes and the intimidation back in their opponents. The team needed a star, a modern day Babe Ruth.
They needed Reggie Jackson.
And that is precisely who Steinbrenner went out and wooed prior to the 1977 season. He wined him, dined him, and then Ol’ George signed him.
The results speak for themselves. The Yankees went to three World Series in the next five years, winning two of them. And in 1977, former AL MVP Reggie did something only Ruth had ever done: Hit three home runs in one World Series game.
Even now, some 40 years later, it’s only been done four times, three of those by Yankees. That feat helped Jackson secure the WS MVP. Reggie so captured New York they even made an eponymous candy bar in his honor, as he predicted they would.
The Yankees got titles 21 and 22 out of the signing. And Reggie went from the Yanks to the Angels, to Cooperstown.
That was then.