It had been a nocturnal day, the dampness and gloom relieved only by the lights in the office buildings, but now, at dusk, shafts of sunlight separated the clouds. From the windows of Reggie Jackson's Fifth Avenue apartment the orange leaves of Central Park could be seen glistening below. Jackson ignored this fleeting victory of light over darkness. For him day and night had become indistinguishable, so frenetic had been his pace, so numberless his obligations during the previous 60 hours. He was sprawled on a living room chair, apologizing for the bareness of his walls. "Most of my paintings have already been shipped to California," he said. "They're too expensive to be left here over the winter. How about some wine. White or red? I'm going to have me a Heineken."
He looked for all the world like a political candidate after a hard day on the hustings. His tie was loose, and the knife-edge creases of his trousers were intersected with fresh wrinkles; he was coatless, and his vest was unbuttoned. Jackson insisted he was not tired, only dazed. He had been that way, he said, since the last of his record-tying three home runs had dropped behind Yankee Stadium's center-field fence in the sixth and, because of him, final game of the 1977 World Series, which New York won 8-4. All three of those homers were hit on the first pitch, and each hammered the Los Angeles Dodgers deeper into a hole from which they never emerged. Jackson, sipping his beer and smiling, recalled them with pleasure.
"Well, the first [a two-run shot in the fourth off Dodger starter Burt Hooton] put us ahead 4-3, so that was real enough. It was a hook shot into the stands. Before the second one [a two-run line drive in the fifth], I talked to Gene Michael [a Yankee operative in the press box] and asked him what Elias Sosa threw. I knew I was going to hit the ball on the button after hearing from Gene, but I didn't know how quick it would come. That one iced the game 7-3. Before the last one I saw Charlie Hough warming up. A knuckleballer. Frank Robinson taught me how to hit that pitch in 1970 when he managed me in winter ball. I thought if I got a decent pitch I could hit another one out. Anyway, at that point I couldn't lose. All I had to do was show up at the plate. They were going to cheer me even if I struck out. So the last one was strictly dreamland. Nothing was going through my mind. Here it's a World Series game, it's going all over the country on TV, and all I'm thinking is, 'Hey man, wow, that's three.' "
