Bo Doesn’t Write Off Career With Raiders

With one stroke of the pen, Bo Jackson has made a lot of people happy.

The Raiders get to keep their tailback.

The Kansas City Royals get to keep their outfielder.

And Bo? He gets to keep his hobby.

Jackson agreed to a one-year contract with the Royals that will pay him $585,000. He made $533,000 with Kansas City last season--$383,000 base salary plus a $150,000 bonus for not leaving baseball--completing a three-year, $1.07-million deal.

There had been rumors that the Royals would try to sign Jackson, a former Heisman Trophy winner, to a contract that would prohibit him from playing pro football. But football, according to sources close to the negotiations, never even came up.

“I’m not surprised,” Raider Coach Mike Shanahan said on hearing there will be no limitations on his running back. “People would ask me about him and I’d say, ‘Why wouldn’t he be back?’

“Bo’s a straight shooter. I talked to him at the end of the season and he said he’d be back. I’m looking forward to it.

“It was a tough first year for him with the new offense and the terminology changes and the number of adjustments he had to make. Next year should be a lot easier than this year. He should feel a lot more comfortable with the system coming in. I’m confident he’ll be having a season we can all be proud of.”

Jackson’s agent, Richard Woods, said he is confident Bo will continue to be the man for two seasons although he, like Jackson, continues to observe the practice of only discussing the sport at hand.

And that is now baseball. Jackson is coming off a season in which he hit .246 with 25 home runs and 68 runs batted in.

Jackson still has three years remaining on his Raider contract in a sport which he once described as a hobby. Many felt it could be a lot more, that football was a sport Jackson could dominate, and he did nothing to discourage such talk in his first year with the Raiders.

He was incredible for a rookie who missed all of training camp and the first part of the regular season. He rushed 81 times in seven games, gaining 554 yards and scoring four touchdowns. On one memorable Monday night in Seattle, he looked like the second coming of Jim Brown, gaining 221 yards and scoring on a 91-yard run.

There were, however, no such heroics in 1988. Jackson appeared in 10 games, but scored just three touchdowns, gaining 580 yards in 136 carries. His rushing average dropped from 6.8 yards to 4.3.

So what’s Jackson been up to lately?

Deer hunting, it turns out.

And there goes another good rumor. No, he will not be using all this spare time in January and February to play for the Lakers.