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Listen to Austin Jackson


Center fielder Austin Jackson loves to read a good mystery story. But it’s no mystery why the Tigers wanted to add him to the team.


Jackson has been a star baseball player since he was a kid. When he was in middle school in Denton, Texas, Baseball America magazine ranked him the best 12-year-old baseball player in the country. Three years later, Jackson was ranked the best 15-year-old player in the country.


So what did Jackson do? He started playing basketball. Jackson wanted to prove he was good at more than just baseball, and he was. He played basketball well enough to earn a college scholarship. But he wound up turning it down to go back to baseball, and took an offer from the New York Yankees. With the Yankees, and now with the Tigers, Jackson has to talk to a lot of news reporters about his career. He says that reading books as a kid helped him prepare. “It definitely helped me learn a lot of words … and it helped me out because when I see big words in maga- zines or books, I know them because I have already seen them in other books. I remember reading a lot of books that expanded my vocabulary, and took me places around the world. “It’s important because you sound more educated when you are talking to people and when you give interviews, something you do a lot in baseball.”


Whenever he can, Jackson likes to help others out with their reading, especially kids who are still working to improve their skills.


“I like reading to little kids,” the 23-year-old Tiger says, “and when they don’t understand something being able to help them out to pronounce a word or give them a definition.”


When Jackson is reading for fun, he prefers mysteries, because they “keep you on your toes.” He likes to read in his room, where it’s quiet, and he can concentrate. “The type of books I read are books about subjects I’m interested in,” he says. “I learn a lot of things I didn’t know — a lot of life lessons in books that keep me interested in books.”


Austin Jackson says reading helped him prepare for giving interviews.


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