Bo Holds Annual Coming-Out Party : Raiders: He meets the Los Angeles media en masse after changing seasons.

The sun, which apparently never sets for very long on Bo Jackson’s corporate empire, rose Wednesday amid flashing bulbs and a flurry of inquiries, as if he were the first person to put on shoulder pads.

Other Raiders, stars in their own right, watched the annual rite of arrival in El Segundo with awe. The microphones at Bo’s podium seemed more worthy of a White House briefing or an unfolding disaster than the appearance of a two-sport wonder, but such is the arena in which Jackson performs. His uncommon athletic abilities combined with some ultra-slick marketing have allowed Bo to explore every communications avenue known to man, except maybe carrier pigeon.

Bo now knows baseball, football, long-distance telephone service, breakfast cereal, sport shoes. Jackson is a media monster of his own making, in part, so overwhelmed that he limits his Raider access to one news conference each season.

Jackson saturates airwaves and news racks. He’s there when you lace up your shoes. Bo’s in your living room every day. Yet, he bristles when you try to enter his.

To uncover that Bo might be a sensitive, caring, quiet, family man, it’ll cost you the price of admission--in this case, the going rate for a newly released autobiography of a 27-year-old man’s life.

Who is Bo?

“You got 20 bucks?” Jackson asked Wednesday.

In the same breath, Jackson mentioned that his greatest desire is that all this attention, to which he has been a willing partner, might disappear overnight so that he could live out his athletic dreams in empty stadiums.

“I would love it,” he said. “I would love it. When all this first started, it was great, to be in the limelight, where everyone knows you and so on. But it gets old, especially now that I’m married and have three kids, that people are knocking on your door in the afternoon when you’re putting your kids down for a nap.

“Or you can’t go to the mall shopping, or to the park with your kids and just have private time--quality time with your family--without somebody bothering you. And I’m not saying that’s bad, but at least, have the courtesy to let whoever the person is have quality time with his family. When I’m out on the field on Sunday, or leaving the park, or in a Royals uniform, I belong to the public. But when I get behind closed doors. I’m ‘Daddy’ to my kids and ‘Sweetheart’ to my wife. From that standpoint, I’d love it if I didn’t have all the attention that I’ve gotten.”

Bo said he wrote a book to set the record straight and to stop the leeches who are trying to capitalize on his name and fame.

“I was sick and tired of the so-called writers and gung-ho authors that are writing unauthorized publications about Bo,” Bo said. “What they’ve done is gone and collect news articles from my high school days and put them in a book. I just got sick and tired of people coming up to me with those publications, asking me to sign them. At times when people do that, I have the tendency to be rude.”

Look out when Bo gets sick and tired. Or rude. Bo answers to no man. To the skeptics who insist he will be nothing more than a wonderfully gifted oddity as long as he refuses to choose one sport over another, Jackson explains that he plays for his own satisfaction.

“I’m not in either one of these sports to be great,” he said, “Or to be titled a ‘great player.’ I’m doing what makes me happy.”

So once again, Jackson joins the Raiders in midstream. Yet, unlike his three previous seasons, this team is on a winning course. The Raiders are 5-1 without him and must carve out playing time for him.

It might mean sending tailback Greg Bell to injured reserve with an ankle sprain that may not need four weeks to heal. But, you know, Bo’s here.

Jackson said he knows his two-sport life poses problems for his baseball team, the Kansas City Royals, as well as the Raiders.

“But if they’re not comfortable with it after four years, they’ll never get comfortable,” he said.

Jackson said the Raiders have been accommodating with his schedule. Still, he’s admittedly different from teammates who have been toiling in the dirt since training camp opened in July.

When Jackson arrived Monday, he said the word around the locker room about him consisted mainly of wisecracks. “The baseball player’s here,” Jackson said.

“I don’t think they mean it in a negative way,” he said. “I guess that is their way of saying we’re glad to have you back. . . . I don’t think that there’s any static.”

Raider Coach Art Shell said Jackson’s arrival will only help a good team get better. Shell says Marcus Allen will start as usual at tailback, with Jackson rotating into Bell’s spot off the bench.

“This is not the first year this has happened,” Allen said. “I don’t know why it’s such a pressing issue. We’ve been (together) for the last three or four years.”

Last year was definitely Bo’s show. When Jackson arrived, Allen was on injured reserved, so Bo ran for 950 yards in 10 games, averaging 5.5 yards a carry.

Jackson is expected to make his debut Sunday in San Diego.

Shell said Jackson’s late arrival will not be a problem.

“Football players don’t care what you do outside,” he said. “If (he) can help them win football games, they’ll welcome him with open arms.”

The world, of course, wants to know how much longer this two-sport venture will continue. Jackson offers only a tease, noting that his Raider contract expires after the 1991 season. At the same time, he becomes an unrestricted free agent in baseball. Bailing out a savings and loan might cost less than meeting Jackson’s two-sport demands in an open market.

Bo continues to move to his own beat as he wonders how it happened that he became so famous.