A Minor Event Becomes Major : Bo Jackson Goes 1 for 4 in Pro Debut With Memphis

The media event that was the Southern League game between the Memphis Chicks and Columbus Astros at Tim McCarver Stadium Monday night would have befitted a Jackson named Reggie.

In fact, it was easily the most widely covered minor league game in history.

The cameras of ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, CNN and virtually every alphabetical combination in the USA were here.

There were writers from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington and almost every Southern city in which the Jackson named Bo played football en route to winning the Heisman Trophy at Auburn and eventually rejecting megayears and megabucks--his own words--from the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

He had been the first player selected on the first round of the NFL draft, but he ultimately signed a three-year, $1,066,000 contract as the fourth-round selection of baseball’s Kansas City Royals, who ignored the widespread belief that Bo would take the greater amount of money and run--for Tampa Bay.

“It was a calculated risk,” Royals’ scouting director Art Stewart said Monday night, alluding to the draft, “but if we didn’t think Bo was a franchise-type player we wouldn’t be standing here now.

“I’ve been in this business for 35 years and discovered that you get only one opportunity in a lifetime to sign a Bo Jackson.

“He’s the finest athlete and prospect of our time, maybe ever. I mean, there have been others, but never anyone with the overall talent, never anyone who combined the speed of a Willie Wilson, the arm of a Roberto Clemente and the power of a Mickey Mantle.”

So much for allowing Jackson to concentrate only on Memphis before he starts thinking about Cooperstown. Pressure?

“If anyone can handle it,” Stewart said, “Bo can because he’s accustomed to it from football. The kids that don’t make it . . . well, it comes down to a matter of confidence and makeup.

“I can’t say that Bo won’t struggle, but his confidence level is so high that he’ll adjust.”

It begins for Bo at the Double-A franchise owned by Avron Fogelman, co-owner of the Royals. Memphis. Where Elvis first rocked and rolled, too.

A battery of phones were installed in the press room. A tent was erected behind the left-field bleachers to house the pre- and postgame interview sessions.

A near capacity crowd of 7,026--the Chicks average about 3,000--arrived early and saluted the sculptored No. 28 with warm applause as he stepped into the cage for batting practice, taking a total of 12 swings and ripping four drives last observed approaching the suburbs of Nashville.

Jackson had earlier driven into the players’ parking lot in a new Alfa Romeo, apologized for being late to the pregame press conference (“I lost my hotel key for the second time today”) and said of his imminent debut, “Some people may be nervous about it, but I’m ready to go out and play.”

Play? Not yet. The Royals first want him to hone his defensive instincts and prepare his legs and arms. He last played at Auburn in early April. This is a force-fed spring training. He is being groomed for right field in Kansas City, but he will not play the outfield here for another week.

Thus, batting seventh as the designated hitter Monday night, Jackson:

--Received a standing ovation when he went to bat with two on and two out in a three-run Memphis first, saw a breaking pitch that didn’t break, and grounded a run-scoring single to center.

--Struck out on a check swing in the fourth, half-heartedly chasing a breaking pitch in the dirt.

--Grounded to the pitcher in the sixth, going after the first pitch, a fastball.

--Took the count full in the ninth, then struck out looking at a fastball.

Later, in his second press conference of the long night, Jackson reiterated that he wasn’t nervous and didn’t think he was rusty. He said, in fact, that he was generally satisfied. The ball with which he got his first hit? “I didn’t keep it,” Jackson said, “because my trophy case is already full.” He lectured the media about making it seem as if he is a one-man team.

“Some people see Bo Jackson as the type of guy who can’t be beat,” he said, “but that’s not true. I’m human like everyone else. I want to be treated like the rest of the players, not a Heisman Trophy winner who turned down megabucks to be here. I mean, I feel I have nothing to prove to no one. I’ve been blessed with talent. I want to go out and show it as often as I can, but there’s a downside to everything . . . life in general as well as baseball. There’s nothing I can do about a slump expect to keep coming back, keep trying.

“I’ve said before that athletics are mental rather than physical, and I’ve always felt that I can handle both ends.”

The Royals are convinced he will succeed. The scouting evaluation on Jackson was the highest in franchise history. Memphis Manager Tommy Jones was mailed a copy of it after Jackson signed.

“I sat down in my office to read it,” Jones said, “then I had to reread it and reread it. I kept expecting Mickey Mantle to walk through the door.”

Said scout Kenny Gonzales, who has followed Jackson since he was a high school junior and helped prepare the report: “It’s easy to say it right now, but I knew back then that he was a can’t-miss guy. His strength was what amazed me. He was a man among boys. He was the kind of youngster who comes along once every 50 years or so.”

Said scouting director Stewart: “Bo tested twice as strong as any player in Royal history. When Mickey Cobb our trainer looked at the test results he thought he was looking at the leg of a great athlete and not his arm. Maybe Ruth or Mantle was that strong, but I don’t think so. He may be the greatest athlete of this century when you consider his potential in two sports.”

Ken Berry, a former Gold Glove outfielder with the Angels and Chicago White Sox and now a hitting and fielding instructor with the Royals, managed the New York Yankees’ Oneonta, N.Y., Rookie League team when John Elway played there before returning to Stanford for his senior football season.

“Their arm strengths are comparable,” Berry said of Elway and Jackson Monday night, “but Elway wasn’t as quick, didn’t have Jackson’s power and couldn’t run as well. Elway was a Triple-A player, a fringe major leaguer. Bo’s overall tools are better than anyone I’ve seen in seven years of coaching.

“I’m not saying it will be easy for him, but he has the ability and mental makeup to handle it. He’s a lot like Larry Bird . . . he gets you excited just watching him.”

Jackson signed 10 days ago, spent a week with the Royals in Kansas City putting on a long-ball exhibition in batting practice, then reported to the Chicks Saturday. He will return to the Royals Sept. 1 when the major league roster limit comes off, but Berry said it would be a mistake to rush him, that it may take three or four years before he is ready.

The cynics, of course, say that at that pace Jackson may ultimately return to football. There are escape clauses in his contract, but attorney Richard Woods said here Monday night that they are there at Jackson’s insistence to protect the Royals.

If, for example, he decides on Oct. 1 of this year or July 15 of next year to leave baseball, he must return all of his $100,000 signing bonus and all of the salary he has earned to that point.

If he decides to leave on July 15, 1988, he must return 50% of those amounts.

Woods denied rumors that the contract includes a personal services or real estate commitment from Fogelman. He said there is a commitment by Jackson to donate a $10,000 scholarship to Auburn in the contract and that Jackson is carrying a separate $2-million life insurance and disability policy covering baseball.

Why baseball? Woods said that Jackson sweated out the decision until he made the choice based on the challenge, the lesser injury risk and the fact that baseball had been his dream.

Now, with Monday night behind him, he will ride the bus with the Chicks, seek to be one of the boys and battle the pro curveball that has foiled so many others. The microscope will always be there, however.

“I feel like I’ve been on a pedestal with everybody watching me,” Jackson said, “but it comes with the territory. I’m trying to take it a day at a time, trying to avoid doing something I’m not capable of doing, like putting three or four days in one. I’m trying to take it as it comes.”

The Debut

Inning At bat First Single, RBI Fourth Strikeout (Swinging) Sixth Groundout Ninth Strikeout (Called)