Reggie and the Rookie

By Tom Callahan

They first met, recalls the rookie, in the shower. "It was spring training a year ago. He looked at me kind of funny, and I said, 'Hello, I'm Wally Joyner.' "

The California Angels do have a funny way of looking at youth. Don Sutton, 41, still pitches. Bob Boone, 38, still catches. From Pitcher Ken Forsch, 39, to Second Baseman Bobby Grich, 37, one could go on for quite a while in this varicose vein. But it is probably enough to say that Jimmie Reese, the Angels' "conditioning coach," is 80 and used to room with Babe Ruth. And the designated hitter, Reggie Jackson, has just turned 40.

"Where'd you play last year?"

"Double A," Joyner replied, still soaping.

"Pitcher, right?"

"First baseman."

"Line-drive hitter, huh?"

"I've hit some line drives."

"How many jacks (home runs)?"

"Twelve."

"What about rib-eyes (RBIs)?"

"Seventy-two."

"Hey, pretty good year."

"That's why I'm here."

"I'm Reggie Jackson."

"Reggie who?"

Though Joyner failed to make the team, Jackson could quickly see that besides being bright and a little droll, he was "hitterish," and Reggie's interest extended to sending Joyner bats and calling him in Edmonton (home of the AAA Trappers). Again Joyner accumulated only a dozen homers for the season, but proceeding directly to a winter league in Puerto Rico, the smoothest left-hand swinger on the island hit 14 more in 54 games. Without a break, he continued on to the major leagues.

"No one, not even Branch Rickey," Jackson says, "could have foreseen this kid was going to hit 15 home runs in his first 37 games in the big leagues (a 16th in the 38th was washed out last week). But I could see he had the tools." The way Jackson looks at it, the tools are the minimum. "A lot of players have superstar capability," he says, "but how many have superstar copability? Some can pull their weight, but few can pull the wagon." When he says Joyner might be special, Jackson means very special indeed.

Wallace Keith Joyner, nearly 24 but as callow as a bat boy, is the latest contribution from Brigham Young University to the world's sweatshops. Chicago Bears Quarterback Jim McMahon and Boston Celtics Guard Danny Ainge may be hard to think of as latter-day saints, but Joyner is easily pictured on the side of the Angels, a paragon on the order of Atlanta Outfielder Dale Murphy. The gray manager of the Angels, Gene Mauch, 60, says, "Joyner has a graceful way about him, at bat, on the field and in the clubhouse."

In this way, he is a subtler find than fellow Phenoms Jose Canseco of Oakland and Pete Incaviglia of Texas, whose muscles show. "I didn't expect to hit 15 the whole year," Joyner admits. "I never think about hitting a home run. Sometimes I sit down, and it doesn't feel like I've ever hit one. I'm in dreamland. Because I've been playing baseball for a year straight now, I'm hard-pressed to think where everything started and stopped. But I've kept a fairly even keel, I hope, thanks to my family." He has a wife and two daughters. "And Reggie has taken me under his wing, telling me things about hitting but also showing me how to be a major leaguer. He's been the catalyst to my success."

At 40, what Jackson modestly refers to as "the magnitude of being me" remains enormous. Excused from playing the outfield and segregated from the best left-handed pitchers, Jackson is off to his sharpest start in 19 years, joining Joyner in the .300s. With his 537th home run two weeks ago, Reggie breezed by Mickey Mantle and set sail for Harmon Killebrew. And away from the field, he has been as newsworthy as ever. When Jackson is not delivering affirmative-action lectures in Minneapolis, he is whiling away the dead hours throttling obnoxious autograph seekers in Milwaukee. Reggie says he has sworn off signing his name but still seems more than amenable to speaking it.

With ten division titles and five world championships on his Kansas City, Oakland, Baltimore, New York and California log, Jackson has been one of baseball's historic winners. But the fading away without ceremony of Angels First Baseman Rod Carew has lately made Reggie lament a sojourning life. His time is near enough, and Jackson worries, "There really isn't anyplace to go home to, is there?"

Wisely, Joyner has been savoring his fleeting obscurity. "Nobody knows me out of uniform yet. I have mixed feelings about becoming famous. Naturally I want to be good enough to be recognized away from the game, but I also want to have a life of my own. This is a team of stars, and I've seen what happens to them off the field." Reggie has offered counsel. "He's told me about some of his stumbles, how to avoid them. We've talked about handling the good and the bad, the slump that is bound to come and sure to be magnified." Proving he is vincible, Joyner was bucked on the left shin by a mean grounder last week, but X rays proved negative. As Jackson says, the "ultimate test of any phenom is whether he has the psychological makeup to match the talent. Is he going to be a champion?"

The Angels have only to improve by one game over last season to win the American League Western Division. After 25 dusty years, their singing owner, Gene Autry, 78, is still looking for another horse to call Champion. "A real cowboy," enthuses Reggie. "His word is his bond, his saddle is his ride, his horse is his best friend." And his team, with one blushing exception, is getting as old as Pat Buttram.