- [Narrator] This photo contains
four outstanding sports careers.
Bo Jackson played pro baseball and pro football,
and he played them both well.
The same goes for Deion Sanders,
who followed closely behind Jackson
into major league baseball and the NFL.
Attempting the same dual career at roughly the same time,
Bo and Deion managed many of the same pressures
and logistical challenges.
Each had his own approach,
and each had plenty to say about the other.
Amid all that hype and comparison,
these simultaneous year-round athletic spectacles
only shared a ball field on a few occasions.
One of those occasions was special.
Let's see what happened,
how two different athletic forces
opposed and influenced one another.
Let's examine the brief, fascinating overlap
between Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders.
(soft upbeat music)
Bo and Deion actually met once in college.
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner
tried to sign Jackson out of high school in 1982,
but the Alabama native chose to attend Auburn University,
where he did track and field, and baseball,
and played running back for the Tigers football team.
Supposedly without lifting weights,
Jackson bulked to well over 200 pounds
with startling speed and mythic-sounding feats of strength.
Bo was already a living legend in 1985,
when Florida high schooler Deion Sanders
passed on an offer from the Kansas City Royals
to attend FSU, where he'd play
the same three sports as Jackson.
As a freshman defensive back,
Deion got a little taste of the Bo Jackson experience.
In a game at Auburn, the soon-to-be Heisman winner
bulldozed the visiting Florida State defense.
Jackson scored one long touchdown by stiff-arming Sanders,
just face smushed him into oblivion.
After peeling himself off the turf,
Sanders spent the late '80s
building his own collegiate legend as a multisport terror,
leaner than Bo, but dynamic and clever and incredibly fast
in a way that worked for all the same sports.
While Sanders matriculated,
Jackson embarked on an unusual forked pro career.
Initially, it was just MLB.
The NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers had misled Jackson
into breaking some dumb NCAA rule,
which screwed up his eligibility
and cost him most of his senior baseball season.
So even though Tampa drafted Bo first in 1986,
he stiff-armed the NFL
and signed with the Kansas City Royals.
Baseball, after all, was his first love.
Nevertheless, during Jackson's second season as a Royal,
L.A. Raiders boss Al Davis took a flyer on Bo
in the seventh round of the '87 NFL draft,
then made him an enticing proposal.
Keep playing baseball,
but whenever that season ends, come play with the Raiders
for the rest of football season.
And so he did.
For four straight years,
Jackson played a full season with the Royals,
then relocated to join Marcus Allen
in a mighty Raiders backfield.
It worked for a few reasons.
The Raiders promised from the outset to be patient
and accommodating, and crucially,
the Royals never tested that patience
by qualifying for the postseason.
Jackson was usually free to pick up his hobby
by mid-October around week seven.
It also worked because Bo was good as s*** at both sports.
He struck out a lot, but also slugged and ran
and generated absurd outfield highlights,
becoming an American League All Star in 1989.
And even in half seasons as a Raider,
Bo racked up impressive rushing stats,
enough to be named a 1990 Pro Bowler.
Around this time, Nike made Bo a signature athlete,
airing ads like this
that hyperbolized his all-sport excellence.
It was also around this time that Deion Sanders
entered the chat.
Sanders conveyed preferences opposite Bo Jackson's.
Football was his wife, baseball, his girlfriend.
But Deion was careful not to commit.
Before his senior football season,
he played some minor league ball in the Yankees system.
Sanders referred to that as leverage,
and that's exactly how he operated after college.
After the Atlanta Falcons picked him
early in the 1989 NFL draft,
Sanders kept right on playing baseball.
The Yankees actually called Sanders up to the majors
for some games during the 1989 season.
People said he'd have to let one sport
take priority like Jackson.
As Falcons contract negotiations dragged
late into the summer, Deion and his agent publicly hinted
that the priority might be baseball.
After getting called up again in September,
Sanders spoke about divorcing his football wife.
He drew dollar signs on his baseball socks. Leverage.
Steinbrenner stirred the pot
by saying Deion could eventually be an everyday starter
and that he projected to have a longer career
than Bo Jackson.
Bo did not like Deion's style.
The man known as Prime Time and Neon Deion
was brasher, flashier, chattier
than the understated Jackson.
Deion's crackers did not sit well in Bo's bowl of soup.
So Bo told him to shut up.
He said Sanders would get knocked off his high horse
if he ever made it to the NFL.
He said Sanders had diarrhea of the mouth.
Diarrhea of the mouth!
Fittingly, Sanders expressed every possible opinion on Bo.
He said he was tired of hearing Jackson's name.
Then he called Bo his hero.
Sanders was featured in a 1989 "Sports Illustrated"
with a cover that Bo definitely wouldn't want
in his bowl of soup.
In there, he called Jackson a sorry dude,
jealous someone else caught the limelight.
Jackson made patronizing comments
about Sanders' call up.
Sanders didn't like being called a kid.
His agent said that so-called kid was more like Bo
with a personality.
Deion also thought Jackson's quieter persona,
even in those Nike commercials, sold him short.
Anybody can say the three words, just do it.
Dion wanted to talk, wanted to show people
he was an intelligent person.
On the "Arsenio Hall Show,"
Bo reiterated that Deion could follow the forked path,
but he should let his game do the talking.
- I wish him the best of luck,
but the way to do it is not with his mouth,
because he has to go out and show what he can do
instead of sit up and talk about it.
- [Arsenio] He talks a lot?
- You could say that.
(both laughing)
- [Narrator] Speaking of which,
the Falcons eventually delivered the offer Deion wanted.
So he literally walked out in the middle of a Yankees game
to go be a football player.
In the same week he'd hit a homer,
Sanders scored a touchdown in his NFL debut.
Deion played the full season
as a budding shutdown corner and slippery return man
for the '89 Falcons,
but he hadn't closed the door on baseball.
And indeed, Sanders made the opening day roster
for the 1990 Yankees.
Sanders, though, wasn't an everyday player
in the crowded New York outfield.
He spent most of May in the minors
and was still there when Bo and the Royals
visited Yankee Stadium.
But the Dave Winfield trade cleared space for Sanders,
who got a much longer call up in late May and June.
That freaked out the Falcons,
who worried Deion might get hot in the majors,
then pull a Bo Jackson and make them wait
for the end of Yankee season.
In the meantime,
the Yankees visited K.C.
Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders played baseball
against each other for the first time
without much on-field excitement.
Media-wise, though, it was comparing season.
Their performance had been compared before,
often to diminish Deion's baseball skill,
but now it really took off.
Deion's agent once again floated the idea
that his client would favor the so-called girlfriend
over his wife and sacrifice football
to play a full baseball season,
the Bo situation Atlanta feared.
Deion insisted the Falcons had reason to worry.
And meanwhile, despite those prior hints of beef,
Deion and Bo did a joint interview for Kansas City radio.
Each was asked, gun to head, which sport would you pick?
Jackson said baseball.
Sanders did his own thing.
Weeks later, after another frustrating stint in the minors,
Deion returned to New York.
Reporters wanted to know if he'd consider playing
both sports simultaneously.
Sanders said a running back like Bo could do it,
but as a defensive back,
he was asked to be the best athlete
and cover wide receivers,
a little positional condescension there.
By mid-July, when the Royals and Yankees met again,
Sanders and his camp sounded
like they might leave baseball behind.
Deion didn't want to admit failure,
but his football agent said his client
was Prime Time on a football field
and just regular Deion on the diamond,
a line Sanders has himself repeated.
He bemoaned his relative lack of control
over baseball games,
but also said he didn't want to choose.
For now, Bo and Deon remained baseball opponents,
and on July 17th, 1990,
in the second game of a series at Yankee Stadium,
America got a show.
In the first inning, Bo took a pitch from Andy Hawkins
and smacked it to deep center.
There's Deion attempting a robbery in vain.
Third inning, Bo's second at bat.
See ya, don't even bother
climbing the wall this time, Deion.
Jackson told teammates he didn't want to hit
a third home run.
His next one would be the 100th of his career,
and he hoped to reach that milestone at home in K.C.
It was an emotional time for Bo and his family.
But sometimes you're hot.
Fifth inning, same pitcher, same result.
Three at bats, three homers, seven RBI for Bo Jackson.
Yankee Stadium held its collective breath
to see what the visiting muscle man would do
with a fourth and maybe even fifth plate appearance,
but then Deion struck.
With a man on third, Deion slapped a liner Bo's way.
Jackson leapt for the highlight catch, but fell short.
While Bo ate grass and the ball slipped free,
Deion blazed around second, took a wide turn around third,
then beat a messy play at home plate
for a rare inside-the-park home run.
Sanders had his own little slice of history.
Jackson, as you can maybe tell from his expression,
partially dislocated his left shoulder.
He had to interrupt a career best performance
for a hospital visit.
Afterward, Jackson didn't have too much to say
about Sanders, but Deion sounded awed by Bo.
"I didn't want him to hit more homers,
but I did want to see him have another chance."
Sanders almost sounded like a fan.
Whatever was said before,
Deion said he never disliked Bo,
Bo's one of the best athletes ever,
they just had a regular old rivalry.
That rivalry would never grace a playing field ever again.
Bo's shoulder kept him out of the final game in that series,
the last of the season between the Yankees and Royals.
NFL season went as it had before.
Sanders staged a dramatic public negotiation
with the Yankees.
He reached the verge of signing a substantial contract
that would keep him in MLB well into football season,
one that made his Yankee teammates want to vomit
or remark that you're supposed to be good at baseball
to get that kind of money.
Then negotiations broke, Sanders bailed,
accepted a fine for arriving late to Falcons camp,
and played another full NFL season.
Deion said only Bo understood what he was going through.
Bo once again suggested Deion shush.
As usual, Jackson played out a losing season
with the 1990 Royals,
then joined the Raiders in week seven.
He put up Pro Bowl-worthy rushing numbers
and helped L.A. qualify for the first post season
of his professional career in any sport.
And then, disaster.
On January 13th, 1991,
in his first ever professional playoff game,
Bo Jackson went down on what looked like an ordinary play
and came up hobbling a bit.
It turned out to be a devastating hip injury,
one that would eventually require replacement surgery.
Bo Jackson's NFL career ended on this play.
His MLB career continued over a few brief, delicate stints,
but none that intersected with that of Deion Sanders,
because starting in 1991, Deion became a National Leaguer.
Sanders simplified his two-sport lifestyle
by joining the Atlanta Braves,
who actually shared a stadium with the Falcons
for the first season of Deion's tenure.
From that point forward,
the athlete regarded as Bo Jackson's inferior in two sports
would push boundaries and reach heights Bo never got to,
like playing two sports at once.
Unlike those Yankees and Royals,
the early '90 Braves were good.
Deion, though, did his usual thing
and left them for Falcons camp at the end of July, 1991.
But come autumn,
the Braves were trying to make the post season
without suspended outfielder Otis Nixon.
They wanted Deion back, and they got him.
Sanders used his off days
to play five more regular season Braves games
in the middle of Falcon season.
Then he watched them march to the World Series
while he carried on playing just football.
Deion went even further in 1992.
He played really well for the Braves,
so well that he opted to hold off joining the Falcons,
even missing their season opener.
People were throwing around words like Bo Jackson
with another gear.
Deion left the Braves to be a Falcon
in NFL weeks two through six,
then hustled back to baseball for the post season.
And then Dion attempted the ultimate maneuver,
the most extreme version
of Bo Jackson's original experiment.
Sunday, October 11th, 1992,
Sanders joined the Falcons in Miami and actually played
on both sides of the ball.
Then he hopped on a helicopter and zoomed up to Pittsburgh
in time for game five of the Braves-Pirates NLCS.
The only thing that prevented Sanders
from playing pro football and pro baseball on the same day
was the Braves being too annoyed with all the excitement
to put him on the field.
When those Braves advanced to the World Series,
Sanders skipped several weeks of football to join them
and he f---ing raked.
Teammates agree that had the Braves won it all,
Deion Sanders would have been World Series MVP.
Deion eventually settled into a more balanced,
Bo-style existence.
With much less whiplash,
Deion played out a solid baseball career
and excellent NFL career.
Numerous Pro Bowls, two Super Bowl rings,
and a bust in the Football Hall of Fame.
And these two have become regular correspondents
with mutual admiration and lovely anecdotes,
like an hours-long chat in the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse
or a lighthearted phone call after a long-retired Jackson
needed surgery on the shoulder he wrecked
trying to rob Sanders.
In retrospect, Deion Sanders kind of got to be
Bo Jackson 2.0.
Bo was the serious yet showstopping trailblazer,
he struck a balance that heralded greater success ahead.
Then fate derailed his upward arc,
leaving only the brasher Deion
to carry the two sport project
to its upper and outer limits.
But that wild night in July, 1990
gave us a glimpse of what could have been.
Two otherworldly athletes,
colliding on multiple fields over multiple seasons.
We should have had many years of these crackling contrasts,
stunning one upsmanship, and increasing mutual admiration.
As it happened, the overlap was too brief,
but plenty amazing.
(soft organ music)