(7 of 8)
It was during the marriage breakup that Jackson started to see a psychiatrist. "I wasn't ready for the responsibility of having a woman love me," he recalls. "In those days I was concerned with only one thing—Reggie Jackson hitting home runs. I got some help. It was too late to save the marriage, but I think I've learned a lot about myself."
Divorce has stalked Jackson since he was six and his parents split up. The second youngest of six children, Reggie was raised with two of his siblings by his father Martinez, a tailor in Wyncote, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia. "He was a father during the day," recalls Jackson, "and a mother at night." Reggie traces his color blindness to the atmosphere at home. "My father didn't, and still doesn't know what color is," says Jackson. "I grew up with white kids, played ball with them, went home with them, and more than one time beat up some punk trying to hurt them. I didn't know what prejudice was until I got to college and the football coach told me to stop dating white girls."
Martinez Jackson, whose mother was Spanish, had played two years of semipro baseball, and he encouraged his son to take up the game. Reggie began by hitting a softball in the backyard when he was seven. By the time he reached high school, he was a star, pitching three no-hitters and batting .550 his senior year. "I told Reggie," says the senior Jackson, who is still a tailor in Philadelphia, "that if he didn't make the team, he'd have to work in my shop."
From Wyncote, Jackson went to Arizona State University as a promising halfback on a football scholarship. When he started blasting baseballs out of Phoenix Municipal Stadium, the big-league scouts turned up in droves and Jackson signed with the Kansas City A's after his sophomore year for an $85,000 bonus.
He has never since had to worry about working in the tailor shop. Aside from his $135,000 salary, Jackson earns another $100,000 a year from commercial endorsements and from the Phoenix land company in which he owns a half interest. United Development Inc. reflects the personalities of Jackson and his white partner and closest friend, Gary Walker, a former insurance salesman and Arizona State alumnus. Employees can take a break any time to play a piano placed outside office quarters, and they will soon be able to observe an "artist-in-residence" at work down the hall. They are encouraged to attend corporate encounter-group sessions several times a year to air both their office gripes and personal problems. When he is in Arizona during the winter, Jackson reports to work at United Development almost every day and takes an active part in the encounter gatherings.