We easily could have signed him.
"That's not the way it was," Reggie said. "I wanted to stay. I liked the team. I liked the city. My mom was there. My dad was close by. I had other family close by. And I loved playing for Earl. When I got there, he told me, 'You know I like guys who can hit the ball over the fence, Reggie.' And I said to him, 'Earl, I can do that.'"
"Baltimore would have been a really good place for me," he said. "Really good lineup. Best pitching in the league. And they were good on fundamentals the way we'd been in Oakland. Get 'em on, get 'em over, get 'em in. But the way Earl liked best once we did get 'em on was with homers. I only played 134 games that year once I got there, still hit 27 dingers and knocked in 91."
"During the season, I made them an offer," he said. "One point five million for five years, average salary of $300,000, which would have made me the highest-paid player at the time. Then I wanted them to throw in $30,000 a year over the length of the contract for my mom, and $30,000 for my dad. So the total value would have been $1.8 million over five."
“They waited too long to make up their minds," he said. "And then once I had played out my option, the offers started to come in. The Expos offered me the most money, a deal for a million a year, but I didn't want to play there. Ted Turner came after me hard. But in the end, I signed with the Yankees for five years and three million. Mr. Steinbrenner threw in a Rolls-Royce."
Reggie paused and said, "It was my time, and I was gonna get paid."
https://www.mlb.com/news/reggie-jackson-1976-orioles