After four seasons as a special advisor in the Astros front office, Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson is leaving the team. The 78-year-old baseball lifer reportedly wants to spend more time with his family in California. He also has other business ventures to focus on, including a car dealership and various endorsements. Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of the New York Post were the first to announce the news.
Jackson was thought to be a highly influential presence in Houston’s front office. Speaking with Heyman and Sherman on their podcast “The Show” earlier this year, he named himself, Craig Biggio, and Jeff Bagwell as three advisors who were “very much involved” in the team’s decision-making, along with general manager Dana Brown and owner Jim Crane. His specific duties with the Astros were never entirely clear, although Chandler Rome of The Athletic explains that he was “a fixture in spring training, on select trips and behind the batting cages at Minute Maid Park.” He also worked with two of the team’s charitable foundations. Jackson described himself to the New York Post as a “pseudo executive.”
Presumably, his advisory gig with the Astros was more fulfilling than the special advisor role he previously held in the Yankees organization. Although Jackson spent twice as many seasons with the Athletics, he is perhaps best remembered as a member of the Yankees. It was in New York that he earned the nickname “Mr. October,” and it is a Yankees cap atop his head on his Hall of Fame plaque. Soon after his playing career ended, he joined New York’s front office as an advisor, a role he held for close to 30 years. However, speaking about his job in the organization for the documentary Reggie, he expressed frustration with his lack of influence in the front office, saying it reached a point where he “really couldn’t get heard.” In contrast, he said that in Houston he was genuinely “part of the decision-making process” and added that he “couldn’t have landed in a better spot.”
While Jackson is stepping away from the game for now, he has not closed the book on his career in Major League Baseball. It’s not as if he’s already looking for a new job, but he stopped short of shutting down the possibility. He didn’t even rule out a potential return to the Yankees. “I still like being around the game,” he explained. “[But] I don’t want to be gone as much.”
