After a decade-plus of vacillating between poor play and mediocrity, the Yankees returned to baseball prominence again in 1976. The team couldn’t overcome the rather large obstacle of the Big Red Machine in the World Series, but a 97-win season followed by an unforgettable victory over the Royals in the ALCS had the Yankees on the precipice of greatness again.
That offseason, the team signed the self-proclaimed “straw that stirs the drink” to push them over the top, and Reggie Jackson did indeed stir things up in 1977. From a dugout confrontation with manager Billy Martin in June to a historic World Series performance against the Dodgers, we fans saw that not only was Reggie a great player, but he had a proclivity for turning baseball games into spectacles, usually to our benefit.