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Ray Negron was just 21 years old, but he was a dead-on witness to an incident that snapped a national viewing audience at attention. The feud between Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson had reached 212 degrees Fahrenheit and Negron's ears were fine-tuned to words muted to those staring at a tube in disbelief.

It was theater made for soap opera writers who build and tease for weeks before pushing the climatic red button. The year 1977 would be a challenging one for New York City. A blackout sapped New York of its power -- when temperatures were in triple-digits -- causing looting and riots that obliterated Crown Heights and Bushwick. President Jimmy Carter subsequently turned his back on a city whose mayor, Abraham Beame, was on his knees begging for federal aid. Partygoers flocked to Studio 54 for disco and drugs. The innocent hid from the Son of Sam.

Sheltered from one crazy summer were a group of players and coaches who composed the 1977 Yankees, a team off its first AL pennant in 12 years and still searching for its first World Championship since 1963. But to think the clubhouse was a peaceful haven is to be naïve. Jackson had alienated himself from his manager, Martin, and captain, the respected Thurman Munson, since accepting George Steinbrenner's big bucks and bringing his star from Baltimore as baseball's marquee free-agent.

Negron was the Yankees' bat boy responsible for all tasks menial and great, a kid who had a 20/10 view of the circus that surrounded a group under perpetual scrutiny from Steinbrenner, its impulsive, win-now-or-else principal owner. Yet Negron insists it was a lot of fun too, even though he often bore the brunt of tomfoolery, like the time Ron Guidry, Sparky Lyle and Dick Tidrow threw him in a garbage bin.

"It was a totally fascinating time," said Negron, 51 and now Steinbrenner's senior advisor. "New York was in turmoil per se."

Sports reporters were obsessed to feed the beast -- their competitive editors and the Yankees' captivated fan base -- with details of a situation ripe for an eruption. That lust was satisfied on June 18, 1977, at Fenway Park, where delighted Bostonians watched the hated Yankees implode faster than an out-of-commission Vegas casino.

Red Sox slugger Jim Rice hit a blooper into right field high enough for Jackson to make a routine catch, but it appeared he was in no hurry to retrieve it. To this point of the '77 season, Jackson's production had yet to match his bravado. He had hit only 12 home runs and had struck out 47 times.

With Jackson moving like an elderly woman crossing an intersection, Rice reached second without incident. Incensed, Martin, a manager who knew one way to play the game - foot to the floor -- sent Paul Blair to replace Jackson and waited for him to bring his star to the dugout.

Martin, 18 years older and about four inches shorter than his slugging superstar, got in Jackson's face and yelled that he had showed him up. Moments later, Martin charged towards Jackson and had to be restrained by coaches Yogi Berra and Elston Howard, but it wasn't just anything that lit Martin's inch-long fuse.

He was 49 years old, but Martin was forever "Billy the Kid." Negron knew this and cringed when two words crept out of Jackson's mouth.

"The thing that really stirred Billy was when Reggie called him 'Old Man,'" Negron recalled. "When he called him an old man, that's when Billy said, 'What?!' and that's when I ran to the other side of the dugout and I grabbed the towel."

It was a white rag, one used to wipe perspiration from brows and backs of necks. Professionally, Negron's instincts told him to erase public consumption, so he threw that towel over a camera stationed inside the dugout. The only problem was another one, stationed in the outfield, was recording a confrontation made for a movie, and on a personal note, this was cutting Negron deep.

Negron and Martin bonded from the day when the manager confronted him over his inability to throw batting practice and ordered him to put together and learn how to use video equipment. The first time he met Jackson, he was told to get him coffee, but the two also grew close to where they were frequent workout partners.

To this day, it's widely assumed that Jackson tanked. It's also the only time Negron ever disagreed with Billy the Kid.

"Reggie did not see that ball," Negron said. "He wasn't loafing on that ball like Billy thought. At that time Billy was just looking for any reason [to take him out]. It was such a big series he just took it out on him."

The next day, Bostonians enjoyed the Boston Globe's front-page story chronicling the incident and Martin arrived early to the park. He found Negron in the clubhouse and the two walked to the dugout, where Martin explained the incident.

"He told me, 'I know what you think of the guy,'" Negron recalled, "'but I did what I had to do.' Now what do you think?"

Negron was put on the spot, but stepped off quicker than it took Martin's center fielder, Mickey Rivers, to run 90 feet from home to first.

"I didn't say to him, 'I didn't think he saw it,'" Negron said. "I didn't have the [guts] to go against what he believed, even though I knew, because he firmly believed [Jackson] loafed on the ball."

The fact that Martin asked Negron his opinion was bizarre in itself, yet a perfect fit to what had gripped the Yankees since Steinbrenner gave Negron the scare of his life. Negron was caught painting a Yankee logo on a Yankee Stadium wall and taken to a police station within the building. Steinbrenner eventually decided he would not press charges and Negron was to work off the damages as a batboy, cleaning shoes and doing clubhouse chores. Little did he know that one day his infectious, high-pitched laugh infused a touch of innocence to a team that thrived on controversy. The players saw Negron as their go-fer, but treated and trusted him as one of their own.

"If Reggie asked me to get him a coffee, I would go and get Graig Nettles one without him asking," Negron said. "I would know exactly how he liked his coffee, right down to the amount of sugar."

Negron was especially fond of Jackson, a winner of three straight world championships in Oakland from 1972-74 and both the AL and World Series MVP in '73. His 254 home runs in nine seasons on the Bay seduced Steinbrenner into signing Jackson to a five-year contract worth $2.96 million on Nov. 29, 1976. Jackson seemed sold on New York's glittering lights and alluring nightlife. Wherever he was, he commanded and demanded attention, making it a perfect fit on the surface.

"Reggie was Clark Gable," Negron said. "He was a movie star. He was the biggest name in the game at that time. He was fun. He was exciting. The last time I felt that way about a player was Mickey Mantle, from the standpoint of a true superstar and being a Yankee."

Jackson was also not afraid to brag, telling reporters "I brought my star with me." He didn't care that Martin was the boss or Munson was the captain, and went as far as to question Munson's leadership during a controversial interview with Sport, when he told the magazine, "This team, it all flows from me. I'm the straw that stirs the drink. Maybe I should say me and Munson, but he can only stir it bad."

Many players' hatred of Jackson wasn't a secret. The slugger often unloaded his gripes about disrespect to the media, yet Negron is quick to note there was still something about Jackson that made those same players want to pull for him, want to see him do something great.

"Some of the players may have hated Reggie, but they respected his ability," Negron said. "I can honestly say that even though there was a dislike, they knew how to root for him. I've been other teams where the players don't root for each other. That was not the case with that club.

"In today's era, it would be called a stupid word, which is called 'distraction.' In that era there was no such thing as distraction because any kind of negativity in the clubhouse was always used as a positive. They knew how to, in essence, if there was bickering between one player and another, they knew how to take it out on the field."

Whether or not it was it a coincidence, a stubborn Martin finally relented and moved Jackson to the cleanup spot on Aug. 10. The Yankees won their next four and 23 of their next 26. They eventually broke a three-way tie atop the AL East with Boston and Baltimore on Sept. 14 with a 2-0 win over the Red Sox, that ended with a Jackson home run, en route to the division flag.

But with Jackson 1-for-14 in the ALCS against Kansas City, Martin was back to his defiant tricks, benching the Yankees' big-ticket acquisition in Game 5 and keeping him on the bench until the eighth inning with runners on the corners and one out. Jackson's single to center field scored Willie Randolph and cut the Royals' lead to 3-2 in a game the Yankees won the following inning.

"Billy finally got to a point where it was like, 'Listen, I have to win this thing. ... I gotta win," Negron said. "That's when the great manager just came out. Every move he made was the right move, right down to sitting Reggie down in that game against Kansas City in the playoffs.

"Whether it was luck or it was genius, it worked. He had Reggie in the dugout at the right time to bring him in to pinch-hit and get a big, big hit."

Penned in Martin's lineup for good in the World Series, Jackson scripted his signature moment in Game 6 against the Dodgers when he belted three straight home runs, each on the first pitch. After crushing his first off Burt Hooton, fans chanted "REGGIE!" in unison, but Jackson, refused to take a curtain call.

"I said, 'Take a bow,'" Negron recalled. "Reggie replied, 'No. After what I've been through with the fans this year, I don't think so. Then he hit second home run. I said "'Take a bow man. They're going nuts.'"

Again, Jackson refused. Ever the pest, Negron made Jackson a deal: "I said, 'When you hit the third home run, will you take a bow then?' He said, 'Man, you're crazy. If I hit a third home run, I will take a bow.'

"When he hit the third home run [off Charlie Hough, 475 feet into the batter's eye black, the first time a Yankee hit one that far since Yankee Stadium was renovated the year before], I ran up to him. I said, 'Reggie, take a bow. You promised.' He said, 'Okay ... And he took a bow. That was really the birth of the curtain call at that time.

"You got lost in his show. He didn't want to take a curtain call, but the only reason he did was because I made him."

Shortly after Jackson made his name by becoming the first to be named World Series MVP for two different teams, he stood at his locker getting changed. One of a few left in the clubhouse were Negron and Munson, and as the Captain headed for the exit, he turned to Jackson and said, "I still can't believe what a great performance you put on tonight."

"They looked each other in the eyes," Negron said. "And then Thurman left."

The two never became the best of friends, but Jackson had met his toughest challenge, one that dwarfed his battle for acceptance in New York. He earned Munson's respect. Manager and megastar competed all season for the bigger slice of the pie. The captain deftly massaged egos and played a role in Negron's rise from shoe-shine kid to Yankees executive and best-selling children's author.

"Thurman was a genius," Negron said. "He knew how to walk through the clubhouse and not say a word -- just be seen. It showed you the man is in the house, let's wake up. Every once in a while, we needed that. And when Thurman respected Reggie, the rest of the team accepted him."

"[Munson] was a psychologist in his own way. He knew psychology well, whether he was using the managers that way, or right down to the bat boy."