(2 of 2)
Royals management had made no secret of its displeasure with the physical risks Jackson took moonlighting as a backfield star. Says Royals owner Ewing Kauffman: "It definitely was not best in the long run for Bo to play football. It destroyed potentially the best talent ever to put on a baseball uniform." Several major-league managers said they would never take a two- sport athlete, even one of Jackson's caliber, because of the risks of injury. New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner last week loudly announced that he wanted Jackson on his squad, but Steinbrenner is no longer allowed to speak for the team, and Yankees general manager Gene Michael said the "risk is just too great" to hire Jackson. At week's end, when no team had claimed him, Jackson became a free agent.
Bo's departure is the spectators' loss. In an era when less talented ballplayers pull down equally towering salaries and occasionally indulge in public temper tantrums, Jackson's grace and zeal on the playing field brought fans out in admiring droves. "When I'm playing, I'm relaxed," Jackson once said. "I'm like a fish in water." Fellow Royals star George Brett noted that fans fell out of the hot dog lines and hurried back to their seats when Jackson stepped to the plate. They were frequently gratified. In July 1988, he hit a blast off Boston's Oil Can Boyd that many said was the longest home run ever hit in Fenway Park. Last year Jackson hit a middling .272 and, despite missing 51 games, still led the Royals with 28 homers and 78 runs batted in.
One veteran American League team physician remarked that Jackson's stocky, heavily muscled physique was the only one that had made him gawk. But other players are bigger, stronger or faster, making the two-sport athlete a rare and endangered species. The only other active two-sport pro, Atlanta Falcons defensive back Deion Sanders, was dropped by the Yankees last season after several trips to the minors, but he has since been picked up by the Braves as an outfielder. There is an old sports dictum that Jackson should perhaps have studied with greater care: baseball pays more, and you get hit less.
CHART: NOT AVAILABLE
CREDIT: TIME Diagram by Steve Hart
CAPTION: Bo Jackson's dislocated-hip injury has 3 elements, the first of which has probably healed.