Jackson Has Come So Far, and He Is Only Beginning

This whole, incredible Bo Jackson thing seems to have happened overnight.

It’s clear now that it is going to be with us for a long time, too, in some form or another.

Wasn’t it just a year ago that Jackson came to Baltimore with the Kansas City Royals and all but embarrassed himself?

Wasn’t this the guy who couldn’t judge a fly ball? Wasn’t this the player who looked as if he’d set a major-league record for striking out?

Didn’t millions of fans shake their heads in dismay when Jackson announced during the 1987 baseball season that he was going to take up NFL football as a “hobby”?

Nobody dares sell him short any longer.

Jackson, right now, is the biggest thing in sports.

He is being called the kind of star who comes along once in a decade, and he’s probably more than that. Who else has become a big star in both football and baseball? At the age of 26, he should only get bigger.

When he won the Heisman Trophy at Auburn University in 1985, he proved he is a great football player.

When he ran for a team-record 221 yards and three touchdowns in the Los Angeles Raiders’ 37-14 victory over the Seattle Seahawks in 1987, he proved he could be an outstanding NFL back.

And this week Jackson, the baseball player, burst into the national consciousness in one unforgettable night. He was the MVP in the All-Star game with a 448-foot home run, incredible base-running and a catch in left field that only a man with his fleetness of foot could have made.

National Leaguers could hardly believe what they had seen.

Said the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Tom Lasorda, the National League manager:

“The guy has incredible strength. He’s a threat on the base paths. He has a chance to be one of the greatest ever to play this game. He’s awesome.”

Said St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Vince Coleman:

“When Bo hit that home run, we couldn’t believe it. It was off a quality pitch by Rick Reuschel, down and in. Bo inside-outted it. You just don’t see players hit that pitch that far.”

That wasn’t Jackson’s longest homer of the year. He hit one 450 feet off the Texas Rangers’ Nolan Ryan. His first major-league homer, in 1986, was a 475-footer off the Seattle Mariners’ Mike Moore.

In a masterstroke of timing, Nike premiered its new Bo Jackson ad campaign on the All-Star telecast, featuring some of the top names in sports (Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, etc.).

It was Jackson’s night, all right, and we have only seen the beginning.

He was the subject of the cover story in Thursday’s USA Today. If the All-Star game had been played Monday night instead of Tuesday, Jackson would have been on this week’s Sports Illustrated cover instead of a has-been like George Foreman.

What’s next for Jackson?

Will he continue to play both pro sports? Or will he quit one and stick to the other?

We’re not going to find out for a while.

Jackson is in an enviable position. He has a five-year, $7.5 million contract with the Raiders, and his three-year contract with the Royals, worth $585,000 this year, runs out after the season.

Jackson’s agent, Richard Woods, is talking about bringing in a Brinks truck after negotiating this next contract with the Royals.

Woods is too smart to hurt his bargaining power by revealing Jackson’s future plans, even if Jackson knows what they are. Wisely, he will let baseball bid against football.

Frankly, I think Jackson is crazy if he plays another football game.

The man, through baseball and endorsements, is going to earn all the millions he could ever need. He has nothing more to prove in football. He already has shown he’s big-time in that sport.

A long time ago on a charter flight back to Baltimore after the Colts had played an away game, Gino Marchetti said something about football that has stuck with me.

“In this game,” he said, “one play can ruin your career. That’s all it takes for an injury to finish you forever.”

Nobody was tougher than Marchetti; nobody was more fearless. But even he played with that realization deep within his gut.

Jackson would be foolish to risk a football injury that would finish him for baseball and all that goes with it; he is 6-feet-2 and a muscular 225 pounds, but even he is human. The body, it would seem, is not made to take the punishment of baseball and football together.

The young man is on top and we can only admire him. He has proven a lot of doubters wrong--and there were many, not that long ago, who said he’d never make it in baseball.

There’s not an athlete anywhere who could generate the excitement Jackson can at this time.

Thursday, my baseball-mad 9-year-old son started out of the house barehanded.

“Better take your mitt,” I told him, “if you’re going to be the next Bo.”

“There’ll never be another Bo,” he said with finality.

“That,” I told him, “is what they said when Mickey Mantle was around.”