He always said he would make his choice when the time was right. But his prodigious athletic gifts and the rewards they brought made choosing between pro football and pro baseball difficult for Bo Jackson, 28. For four remarkable seasons he didn't have to: in winter he was a devastating running back for the Los Angeles Raiders, and in summer a power-hitting outfielder for the Kansas City Royals. Last season he became the first player ever selected for both the All-Star game and the Pro Bowl. But last week, when the Royals suddenly dropped him because of a serious injury to his hip in a football game two months earlier, the incredible career of the two-sport superstar seemed in grave jeopardy, and quite possibly at a premature end.
"Don't count me out," Jackson said at a press conference last week in Haines City, Fla., where the Royals were in spring training. But also don't count on him for at least a year. While physicians disagreed on whether he could ever recover from his injury, most agreed that he would be out of baseball and football for that long, if not longer, and that if he returned, he most probably would not regain peak form. In general, Jackson stayed mum about his plans. "I don't talk about football in the baseball season, and I don't talk about baseball in the football season," he said.
It will be an expensive hiatus. By letting Jackson go before March 20, the Royals were obligated to pay only $395,000 of his one-year, $2.3 million contract. His $1.6 million salary for the Raiders this year is not immediately at risk, but it will be if the effects of the injury persist. And a foreshortened sports career may truncate his higher-paying second job as the endorser of Diet Pepsi, AT&T and various sports medicines -- plus his starring role in Nike's "Bo Knows . . ." commercials. All that off-the-field effort brings in about $5 million a year.
Jackson's injury occurred during the A.F.C. semifinal play-off game between Los Angeles and Cincinnati when he twisted his leg trying to escape the tackle of a linebacker. After he was helped from the field, the injury was diagnosed as a left-hip fracture-dislocation. When another exam two weeks ago showed that Jackson's hip cartilage had deteriorated further, the Royals' team doctor pronounced the prognosis for Jackson's return "uncertain."
As shocking as Jackson's release was, it made sense -- and dollars -- for the Royals. Because Jackson's injury occurred on the gridiron, the Royals have a contractual right to release him. If the damage had occurred on a baseball diamond, the Royals would have had to pay his full salary. Royals general manager Herk Robinson said the team considered keeping Jackson on the disabled list, but that would have tied up more than $2 million with very little hope of a positive return on the investment this season.