It would have been more of an ah-ha moment if Reggie Jackson had dropped a bomb about the late Yankee manager Billy Martin being a pleasant pacifist who collected butterflies and signed checks with a smiley face.
But history has shown us that Martin was a brawling, alcohol-swilling irrepressibly intriguing character who could be brilliant and daring inside the lines and brutally nasty outside of them.
So it?s hardly a shock to hear Jackson reveal that Martin, dead now nearly 22 years, was known to utter racist and anti-Semitic epithets back in the crazy hazy days of the Bronx Zoo.
"I never had an understanding of Billy Martin. I did not accept the way he managed me," Jackson said in an interview with Bob Costas scheduled to air Monday on the MLB Network. "I did not accept the way he managed Ken Holtzman. I thought there was anti-Semitism there.?
This isn?t new ground. A few years ago in the airing of ESPN?s mini-series The Bronx Is Burning, Jackson spoke of Martin?s attitude toward Holtzman, a pitcher who happened to be left-handed and who also happened to be Jewish. As he was preparing to hit, Jackson said he overheard ?a group of players and Billy telling an anti-Semitic joke" about Holtzman.
?I wonder if they know I am standing here and they are talking about that and I am in a minority? Why would they do that?? Jackson recalled in an outtake. He also questioned whether this was the reason Holtzman?s playing time became increasingly limited.
On the downside of this career, Holtzman went 12-10 with a 4.64 ERA with the Yankees, but his role as union representative and quarrels with owner George Steinbrenner were then the accepted versions of Holtzman?s contentious time in Pinstripes.
Several months after that mini-series aired, Jackson and I were chatting near the backstop at Yankee Stadium during batting practice.
He began telling stories about some of the turmoil that trailed those Yankees of the late '70s, when barely anyone budged at a racist joke and nobody blinked at anti-Semitism.
It was a fascinating glimpse behind the dirty curtains, and soon more reporters gathered, and some pulled out their notebooks and began to write, because Jackson has always been a terrific quote who?d gladly provide filler for our early newspaper deadlines.
Alarmed, Jackson, now in the official role as Yankee ambassador, ordered all notebooks to be shut, as this was a heavy topic and it didn?t belong stuffed below the injury report.
Over the seasons he?d circle back to the subject, always off the record, and when I once asked why he didn?t elaborate publicly so that newer generations might understand the culture that shaped those teams and players, Jackson nodded and said, ?Some day I will.?
Some day is again nigh.
Here is what Jackson told MLB Network about Martin, the extraordinarily successful yet tortured manager who was hired five different times by the Yankees: ?I couldn't accept the racial epithets in reference to players like Elliott Maddox or Billy Sample. There are players that played for him that would tell you that. So there was uneasiness, knowledge about the person that I was very uncomfortable with. ... I wasn't his choice and he wanted to show George (Steinbrenner). So that was kind of an oddity, a craziness that I never could follow, and I struggled to have respect for Billy as a person and had it reinforced with the anti-Semitism that I witnessed."
In the movie Ocean?s Thirteen, when Al Pacino?s character is given a second chance to redeem himself, it?s referred to as a Billy Martin. In an odd way, Jackson isn?t, as he says, ?jumping on the guy's grave.? But he is using another chance?and a massive forum with Costa?s audience?to add context to tales that for decades have been shared in Manhattan saloons and behind batting cages.
Jackson, 65, is not trying to re-write history, he says. ?I?m old enough now where I think the truth should be told when somebody asks,? he told me. ?This is how we educate younger generations, by telling them what it was like and why those words were wrong to use. We should be able to discuss socially sensitive subjects, especially as they relate to history.?
He says he?s forgiven Martin and has no wish to bring pain to Martin?s family. (In phone calls to reporters, Billy Martin Jr., said his father was not a racist, and used players based only on their ability.) Jackson?s wish is for that juncture in time to be examined with empathy, not hostility or blame. For instance, Jackson wonders why the Yankee beat reporters?some of whom were Jewish?who covered those teams giddily chronicled the club?s more raucous moments but willfully ignored the incendiary language.
It?s understandable if they feared stirring that drink, but as we evolve as a country and as thinking humans, so does the dialogue.
?My social plight in my era in the ?70s, and the things that went on in our club were omitted by the media.?? Jackson told The Record, a New Jersey newspaper. "If I would?ve said it, it would?ve been a great story. It should?ve been reported by someone who writes opinions on the Yankees. It never was.
"When Muhammad Ali would speak out, he was considered a militant. (In baseball) I was one of the few blacks that spoke out, and I was considered egotistical or too big for my britches. It was a different social picture. The landscape was different ? that?s all changed. But in speaking about things that are socially sensitive, the memories creep back once in a while."
It?s fair to wonder what Jackson?s friends and enemies will divulge about him once he is gone. It?s his right to reveal his truth, just as the day will come when Jackson?s in the grave, and the stories, some of them unflattering and unkind, might up and haunt him.
There might not be enough space on the interwebs to rehash his exploits both on and off the field, and Jackson knows this. Whatever you think about his brashness, or his big-time October hits, or his complex relationships with Martin and Steinbrenner, he seems ready to fill in some of the cracks.
In the interview with Costas, Jackson said he removed his glasses during the infamous dugout confrontation with Martin in 1977, after the manager had pulled Jackson from a game. ?I knew Billy was a sucker puncher,? Jackson said. ? ? And I said, 'Well, all the alcohol you've been drinking must be going to your brain.' ''
Low blow or clarifying history? Jackson also said he was aware of players taking steroids during his baseball career, which stretched from 1967-87.
"I went 'Wow' when I saw (Mark) McGwire and (Sammy) Sosa in the Home Run Derbies, and (Jose) Canseco of course. But I knew why,? Jackson said. ?The sad part of that, too, is when you see the great players like Prince Fielder and great players like (Albert) Pujols, it makes you unfairly question (them)."
Most anyone who?s ever had a working relationship with Jackson has heard him utter similar sentences, many not for attribution. My only gripe is he would not go on record with his observations years ago, when the public thought some of us were evil witches for reporting on the obvious scourge that would eventually tear apart baseball.
That, too, is how we might have educated younger generations.
Across the decades, from dugouts to boardrooms to charter flights zipping around the globe, Jackson has witnessed and heard things that would make delicate heads explode. Here come details from his memory bank that he hopes will spark conversations about how it might have been, and how it should be.
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