Braves to Let Sanders Play for Them, Too : Two-sport athlete: Indications are he will be able to play for both Atlanta’s baseball, football teams.

In this weird and wondrous season for the Atlanta Braves, the weirdest news yet came Tuesday: Deion Sanders, who left the team eight weeks ago to resume his NFL career, will play both sports for the duration of the NL West pennant race.

Bo Jackson, of course, became the most successful two-sport athlete of his generation with the Kansas City Royals and the Raiders.

But Jackson never played two sports in a 36-hour span. Sanders, from all indications, plans to do just that this weekend: running back punts for the Falcons in Atlanta Sunday afternoon; running over travelers at Hartsfield airport Sunday night; and then running the bases for the Braves in Cincinnati Monday night.

Even as the Braves try to vault from worst to first, this is weird.

How much all this will eventually trouble the Dodgers--who enjoyed a 1 1/2-game lead when the Braves summoned Sanders before Tuesday’s games--remains to be seen.

After all, it’s not as if Brave General Manager John Schuerholz found a 28-year-old Henry Aaron hanging around and got him a uniform. Sanders hit only .193 in his 49 games with Atlanta this season, with four homers and 13 runs batted in.

But he was nine-for-12 stealing bases, and therein lies the reason for all this. With Otis Nixon, the major league’s stolen base leader, suspended for a drug violation, the Braves need all the speed they can get.

Thus the announcement Tuesday from team spokesman Jim Schultz: Sanders was being added to the roster “for the remainder of the season.”

Schuerholz, at a news conference before Tuesday’s game, said Sanders would be in uniform for nine of the Braves’ final 12 games. He said Sanders would miss this weekend’s series in Houston.

“We had talked with other clubs trying to acquire a speed guy,” Schuerholz said. “We decided if Deion wanted to do it, as he said he did, we’d go ahead and give him the opportunity. I spoke to (Falcons president) Taylor Smith as a courtesy. I called to tell him, and he just said he appreciated our calling.”

“We just hope he doesn’t get hurt and we want him to keep focused on football,” Smith said in a statement. “We’ve got a big game coming up this weekend against an undefeated division rival.”

“I was excited,” Sanders said as he was reunited with his baseball teammates. “They were excited. My face lit up like a Christmas tree when they saw me and accepted me.”

Sanders said he also was wished well by his football teammates.

“They told me to go for it.”

Sanders said he had not talked to Falcons coach Jerry Glanville, “but I probably will tomorrow at practice.”

He said he does not expect to be fined by the Falcons.

“No, I don’t. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m going to be at practice, meetings and the game. What I do on my own time is my own business,” Sanders said.

Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox said Sanders will be used “mostly as a pinch-runner, but knowing Deion it doesn’t take him long to get anything back.”