GOING BACK TO KANSAS CITY : Jackson Expects He’ll Get Royal Treatment

It’s been a season of returns that didn’t quite happen. There was James Lofton’s return to Green Bay (pretty quiet) and Brian Holloway’s to New England (who noticed?), not to mention the Raiders’ to prominence (maybe next year).

But now for the one that will make up for all of them:

Bo Jackson to Kansas City.

He wears the silver, he wears the black, and in summer he also wears the blue and the white. Sometimes it gets confusing, like Wednesday when he told the press that he had come here, “just to contribute . . . to the Royals.”

In Kansas City, they think he’d have made a better contribution in baseball’s winter instructional league, which is one reason the community is up in arms and you wouldn’t mind having the whiffle-ball concession Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium

How’d you like to be poor Bo?

Well, actually, you might not mind, if you could stand the fame, the notoriety, the riches and all the options.

Ask Bo. He can.

“I’m just going back there to play ball,” he said. “Football this time.

“Yes, I expect a big welcome, a rowdy welcome. I’m just going there with one thing in my mind--getting together with my teammates and playing some hard-nosed football.

“Going into the stadium, I know it’s going to be crowded, rowdy fans. But when it comes down to me carrying the ball for the first time when the game starts, I really don’t notice the fans. I turn a knob and like, tune ‘em out.”

Of course, he got a lot of practice over the summer, when the booing started as soon as he made his plans known, and he had to contend with the tossing of little plastic footballs and the swooning of his season.

“Nobody ever really bothered me when I was out in public,” he said. “I guess, I don’t know, fans will be fans. I guess that’s why they come to games. . . . But I didn’t let that bother me.

“It didn’t bother me, really. Simply because, when I got on the field, they booed me. When I hit the ball out, they were back lovey-dovey with me. And I didn’t pay any of that any mind at all. I just went out and played.”

Actually, he sat on the bench a lot, too, enabling him to store up energy for his second career, in which he rebuilds a football team almost single-handedly and turns the National Football League upside down, too.

Jackson has passed the Chiefs’ Christian Okoye and leads all rookie rushers. Okoye has started nine games, Jackson three. Jackson is 31 yards off the Raider team lead. Jackson has a 7.1 average.

Jackson doesn’t exactly doubt himself a lot, but did he expect this?

“No, but when I came here I knew what I was expected of me,” he said. “I didn’t think there’d be as big an impact as there’s been. But I’m thankful for it and I’m having fun doing it.

“Between Marcus (Allen) and I, the Raiders weren’t going to use me like the (Houston) Oilers used Earl Campbell. And if that was their intention, I probably wouldn’t have ever come here.”

He came, he saw, he is conquering.

He’s 6 feet 1, 230 pounds and has been called the fastest football player ever timed over 40 yards. Who has ever seen his like?

His teammates?

“They don’t understand me,” Jackson said. “They don’t understand my speed. They don’t understand the things I do. They call me a freak. They say it’s unnatural for somebody to do the things I do.

“I don’t consider those things talented. I just go out there and do things. I’ve been doing it like that all of my life.

“I came here just to contribute what I have to the Royals (sic). I didn’t expect this. And really, I don’t think I should take credit for it.”

Nevertheless, people are always going to suspect that some is due him.

“Yesterday my wife and I went to Beverly Hills to do some shopping,” Jackson said. “We were walking down the street and people walked by and stopped and said, ‘Hey, that’s Bo Jackson!’ My wife was like, ‘These people recognize you.’ And she was so excited.

“We had lunch and we couldn’t eat our lunch because people were walking over and asking me to sign their napkins. That doesn’t bother me but it’s funny--how a guy like me can come from a small-town background in the South and come out here where there’s thousands and thousands of famous people. You’re just walking down the street and all those people recognize you.”

That’s show biz. Now that he’s the toast of the town, how does he like the area?

“It’s too crowded, I hate this traffic.

“I live in Redondo Beach. The supermarket is five minutes from my house and it takes me almost an hour to go to the supermarket and back.”

Well, perhaps the Raiders could buy him a helicopter?

“Well,” he said happily, “that’s my goal.”

How many goals can a young man have? What is it that this one truly aspires to?

“I get just as much fun out of making people liars and going out and playing,” he said. “Everybody thinks they know Bo. And I think the one thing that gets to the press and the public is that Bo never lets them know what his next move is going to be--until he’s ready.”