From The Huffington Post: October 26, 2012

It didn't take long for someone to bring up his name as soon as Pablo Sandoval slammed his third home run for the San Francisco Giants in the first game of the World Series.

Reggie Jackson. And it didn't take long for it to trigger the biggest regret of my life.

The former New York Yankee also hit three home runs in a World Series. I was supposed to be at Yankee Stadium to see it, but gave up a ticket to Game 6 of the 1977 World Series between the Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers because I stupidly believed in my naive youth that there would be a Game 7. (I instead covered a zoning board hearing for The Bergen Record as I tried to break into journalism.) But there wasn't. I missed out on history.

MasterCard called Jackson's three home runs off the first pitch of three different Dodgers pitchers one of the top 20 greatest moments in baseball history. And after Sandoval's third bomb, I learned Sandoval joined the most elite of clubs. There's only been four MLB players to hit three homeruns in a World Series -- Sandoval, Jackson, Albert Pujols and... Babe Ruth.

My disappointment over not seeing Reggie's epic event was not just because I was a lifelong Yankees fan. It was because I spent a weekend at spring training with him and got to see a glimpse of the Reggie Jackson his fans and loathers did not.

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