It is baseball's version of the chicken-and-egg conundrum. Which comes first, positive clubhouse chemistry or winning?

In search of insight, Reggie Jackson is always a nice place to start. Mr. October graced five World Series champions -- three with the Athletics, two with the Yankees -- and unloaded 18 homers in 17 postseason series. His intelligence quotient is top tier, like his monumental home runs.

Asked the question that cannot be definitively answered, Jackson -- traveling with the Yankees as a consultant, always happy to impart wisdom -- didn't hesitate.

"Winning creates chemistry," Jackson said. "It's all about strong leadership. You've got to have someone to keep everything and everybody in order. I've been on teams that didn't have great clubhouse chemistry, but won. We didn't always get along off the field, but between the lines we played the game hard, together.

"What those teams all had in common was leadership. That's what you have to have to win. In the NBA, you look at a guy like [Gregg] Popovich [of the Spurs]. He's got everything under control. That's how it was in the Lakers' "Showtime" days with [owner] Jerry Buss and Jerry West. They made sure they brought in good people. They weren't like the Oakland Raiders, who didn't mind having what you'd call incorrigibles on their roster."

In Oakland and later in the South Bronx during the tumultuous 1970s, Jackson was the star stirring potent drinks. The A's and Yankees, on his watch, shared an affinity for fighting among themselves before and after battling the opposition. Steve Garvey and Don Sutton fought in the visitors' clubhouse at Shea Stadium in 1978 while the Dodgers were en route to a second straight World Series against Reggie's Yankees.

You don't see or even hear of that kind of behavior anymore in Major League clubhouses. If there is discord, it's out of the media's view, in inaccessible back rooms.

Paul Konerko, on his way to another big season with the White Sox, comes down on the other side of the chemistry issue. When his 2005 South Siders rolled to a World Series title, the first baseman was convinced their collective attitude was the difference.

"When we left Spring Training," Konerko recalled, "no one thought we were a good team. Everyone on that team thought we had a solid team. We hung out together and started winning games, and it kind of took off. That was a team that had fun together, and it carried over to the field.

"We had a lot of close games. We didn't bomb a lot of people and put games away. We didn't score a ton of runs, but we put together rallies and won games late. Some of that has to come from being on the same page and pulling together. You have to believe in chemistry when you go through something like that."

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Role of team chemistry still up for debate