This was a few years ago, before Reggie Jackson made his way to baseball’s Death Star in Houston, when he still spent a few weeks in the spring in Tampa, imparting knowledge to young players who wanted it and entertaining those of us around.
When Gerrit Cole joined the Yankees as a free agent this spring, Reggie had spoken with him multiple times and felt he had a chance to make his mark in New York.
“You know what it is?” Jackson said one morning in his home clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field. “He doesn’t just want to be here. deliver “He’s here to stay. It’s not enough for him to just blend in. He wants to be a big guy in a big town.”
He flashed that everlasting 24-carat Reggie smile.
“Not everyone can do that,” he said with a wink.
In case you haven’t noticed, Juan Soto has done just that. He’s not only accepted the responsibility of stardom here, he’s embraced it and thrived. He’s not competing with Aaron Judge to see whose star shines brighter every night. They’re a chemistry pair that makes each other better game after game, week after week, month after month.
“They’re always cheering each other on,” Aaron Boone said.
He was one of 41,263 fans at Yankee Stadium watching the Yankees beat the Guardians, 8-1, on Wednesday night (Soto had five RBIs, Judge had three).Paul Simon may know better than anyone the power that can be created when two talented people combine their talents to play together — as in pop music as he does in baseball.
“We both give our all to the team,” Soto said after hitting a two-run homer and a grand slam double — a game-changing slice of a tennis shot that was smashed down the third base line — that ended the Yankees’ three-game losing streak and put them back in the lead in the Eastern Division by a half-game over the Orioles.
“Even when we’re training, all we think about is, ‘How can we help the team win?'”
Most of the time, they just show up, bat No. 2 and No. 3 in the order every game, knowing that sooner or later the pitcher is going to get in a tight spot and have to get one of them out, often both, to win the game. You can see how that affects the team most nights. It’s ingrained in their minds.
For Judge, it’s an otherworldly level of excellence that somehow turned the spectacle into the everyday, but he’s been here from the beginning. For Soto, it was a tougher challenge: He came here from somewhere else and was asked to instantly adapt to New York and raise his own star while also raising a new marquee.
For some, it’s a task that will consume their first year.
But not everyone. Reggie did it his first year here, better than maybe anyone has ever done after going through some growing pains. Cole did it in 2020, a forgettable season in which he finished fourth in the Cy Young awards but looked unhittable most nights. Roger Maris did it in 1960, a warmup for the amazing summer of 1961. Mike Piazza did it with the Mets in 1998, and Yoenis Cespedes did it in just two months in 2015.
Of course, Babe Ruth in 1920. He kind of invented the whole thing.
There have been similar players in other sports: Y.A. Tittle with the Giants in 1961, Curtis Martin with the Jets in 1998. Jason Kidd and Julius Erving, whose impact on the Nets was outsized, and, in fairness, Kevin Durant in 2020-21, would also qualify.
All Mark Messier did in his first year with the Rangers was lay the foundation for future glory. And no one made that change more immediately than the great Dave DeBusschere. He won 15 of his first 16 games with the Knicks. And Jalen Brunson knew within the first 15 minutes that the Knicks had something on him.
“It’s not easy,” Reggie said in 2020. “A lot of guys take a year to get the bright light out of their eyes.”
Soto? He showed up in Tampa one day, started hitting liners, and hasn’t stopped. And he seems happy to play Garfunkel in front of Simon the judge. Why not? Simon wrote one of the most beautiful songs of all time, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” but it was Artie who sang it. The best duos know how to play their parts with style.
