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4.
    As Yankee pitcher Mike Torrez secured the last out, thousands of fans rushed the field. They ran after Jackson, who mowed some of them down as he dashed for the dugout. They tore the seats off their moorings. They grabbed handfuls of sod and second base. They tossed flying bottles at the mounted police. Near third base, cops gave a man a concussion. Above the chaos and confusion of the mob, three words cohered: “We’re number one!” 30
    In the locker room, the triumphant Jackson and Martin grinned ear-to-ear, wet with champagne. They gave each other a bear-hug. Jackson waved a gold medallion of Jackie Robinson at reporters, and said “What do you think this man would think of me tonight?” 31
    Columnist Dave Anderson caught Thurman Munson and Jackson as the celebration wound down:
“Hey coon,” called the catcher, grinning. “Nice goin’, coon.”
    Reggie Jackson laughed and hurried over and hugged the captain.
    â€œI’m goin’ down to the party here in the ballpark,” Thurman Munson said, grinning again. “Just white people, but they’ll let you in. Come on down.”
    â€œI’ll be there,” Reggie Jackson said. “Wait for me.”
    . . .
    Thurman Munson reappeared. “Hey, nigger, you’re too slow, that party’s over but I’ll see you next year,” the captain said, sticking out his hand. “I’ll see you next year wherever I might be.”
    â€œYou’ll be back,’ Reggie Jackson said.
    â€œNot me,” said Thurman Munson. “But you know who stuck up for you, nigger, you know who stuck up for you when you needed it.”
    â€œI know,” Reggie Jackson said. 32
    It was 1977. A new arrow of history was taking flight.
    In Kingston, Jamaica, the reggae group Culture sang a vision of Babylon beset by lightning, earthquake and thunder. The two sevens had clashed, they warned. The apocalypse was upon Babylon.
    But in their own way, the new generation—to whom so much had been given, from whom so much was being stolen, for whom so little would be promised—would not settle for the things previous generations had been willing to settle for. Concede them a demand and they would demand more. Give them an apocalypse, and they would dance.

Trenchtown youths, 1976 and 1995.
Photo 1976 © Alex Webb/Magnum Photos
Photo 1995 © Brian Jahn

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2.
Sipple Out Deh
Jamaica’s Roots Generation and the
Cultural Turn
You know how a thing and the shadow of that thing could be in almost the same place together? You know the way a shadow is a dark version of the real thing, the dub side?
    â€”Nalo Hopkinson
    In Jamaica, you drive from the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. Rounding the hill down into Montego Bay, you hug the curves on two-lane roads. Even at rush hour, you slow for cows and goats chewing grass along the gutter side, because apparently all the animals in Jamaica are free-range.
    It’s dusk on Thursday, a school night, but the youths have taken over Mobay’s narrow streets. Traffic is backed up along all of the roads into and out of the seaside town. Even transactions at the turnaround in Sam Sharpe Square—where unmetered taxis swoop in to drop off and pick up customers in a bewildering free-for-all—are slowed by the weight of teenage bodies.
    They stream through the streets like tributaries toward the ocean, where, in a waterfront spit of dirt called Urban Development Park, ten-foot high columns of speakers rise in a half-circle around a small stage. The pouting, Tupac-shirted boys and the spandexed, braided girls ripple through the 6:30 P.M . commute—concrete mixers, oil trucks, and family vans caught bumper to bumper on the Bottom Road—and in through a small gap in a low barbed-wire fence. On the field, they pass dice games played by kerosene lamp, higglers selling Red Stripe and Ting. The air smells faintly of ash from mountain