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GenX Classic Sports
Episode 11: ESPN LIED about Bo Jackson!: Part 2.
Today we’re diving into the legendary career of Bo Jackson—the man who redefined what it means to be a multi-sport athlete. From his jaw-dropping highlights with the Kansas City Royals in Major League Baseball to his unforgettable moments as an NFL star with the Los Angeles Raiders, Bo Jackson's professional journey is a story of pure athletic dominance. Known for his 'Bo Knows' campaign and iconic status in sports history, we'll explore how Bo became a cultural phenomenon and one of the greatest athletes of all time. Whether you’re a fan of Bo Jackson’s baseball career, his NFL highlights, or just curious about this living legend, this episode is for you. Tune in now to learn why Bo Jackson remains a sports icon decades after his prime!"
Credits:
Haylee Wolf: narration.
Mason Enis: theme music.
Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2024. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.
Music]
[Music] welcome sports fans to Gen X classic
Sports where we bring the Nostalgia of our Sports fied youth into the present day do you remember when football
players were stick them do you remember when the NBA played defense do you remember when Wrigley Field turned on
the lights if so the Miss podcast is for you grab your favorite retro jersey crab
open a cold one and let's stroll down memory lane together we're here to discuss iconic Sports moments teams and
athletes from our generation this is Gen X classic sports sports talk for Gen xers by gen xers hello everyone and
welcome back to part two of our greatest athletes Series this one is about the
one and only Bo Jackson joining me are Mark and Casey two of the founding
fathers of the Gen X classic Sports podcast so let's rejoin the discussion about the great the one the only the
rare unicorn himself Mr Bo Jackson so
then he gets drafted in the fourth round by Kansas City Royals in the baseball
draft now remember he got drafted in the second round out of high school he's he's fallen two
rounds okay so he's given up money is what I'm getting at there's a big
difference in bonus and so forth so because of the Tampa Bay thing he
doesn't want to honor the Tampa Bay contract and he does sign with the Royals and he is assigned to double a
Memphis um immediately now I don't know where I saw it and I didn't write it
down but somewhere I read he still had um a pretty good uh signing bonus I just
don't remember the the number but it it wasn't I don't even know if it was a million dollars but it was something decent but still he gave up money but he
goes to dou a Memphis okay so that's his rookie year more or less he goes to double a Memphis so that's 86 all
right in 87 um and he got called up in ' 86 but
in ' 87 he played his first full Major League season so he's a year removed from college football so in 1987 his
first year with the Royals he gets Rookie of the Year so he's okay at baseball right he's pretty good at
it did y'all see the stat line I put on there how many home runs he hit as a rookie by the way you got to put this in
1987 or 86 and seven numbers when 30 home runs was a lot for a season veteran
30 was a lot and and he hit how many his rookie
year I think he hit 22 or three in 116 games or something
now I noticed that his average dipped in the pros from college he's he he batted
235 but you know that's a natural assumption isn't it to make that he
seeing better pitching and he wasn't a full-time baseball player anyway he's kind of playing when he could in college
so I it doesn't surprise me that his his numbers on average dropped but that
doesn't mean his power did you know so 22 home runs at at that level pretty
good I think yeah I'd like to know what his slugging percentage was yeah and of
course I didn't I didn't look that up but um the next the next little odity on
there about major that his rookie year was that he hit four home runs in consecutive at bats yeah and that's a
major league tie tied a Major League record Casey do you remember his early
years in baseball with the Kansas City Royals at all do you remember anything about that remember the the highlights
the remember the allstar game didn't he lead off the 19 yeah y lead off for the
home run that I think I think that's where most of the country finally realized oh he's not this isn't a hobby
for him this guy knows what he's doing that 89 All-Star game was huge I mean I remember watching that you know like it
was yesterday that was my senior year of high school and here he was starting at center field and lead off and for the
American League and and um and in the bottom of the first he leads off his
part of the inning with a home run so dudes dude's got a flare for the
dramatic for sure right I remember I remember him breaking
bats like like toothpicks just snapping bats over his
thighs yeah that that's that's what I remember case he is he
also him over his head yeah That's How Strong he was wooden bats yeah that was
impressive he he would snap them he'd snap him on his thigh and on his
helmet I think we all remember yeah the the catch on the wall running
up the wall and making the catch yeah for sure that made ESPN
highlights um when he he left cleat marks you know 90% up that wall when he
ran that horseshoe shape up the wall and turned and came back down it and hopped off of it like it was nothing you know
that's still one of the craziest things I've ever seen on a ball field and we lost Casey again but we're
going to keep going uh Mark in 89 when he he was actually when he let off the
All-Star Game bottom of the First with that home run he was the MVP uh
um he was named the MVP of that game so I I'm going to bring this up
later so I just want Casey he was MVP in the 89 All-Star game when he hit the Home Run and played center field I ju I
bring that up because um I'm going to do some statistical stuff later that I
looked up about the odds of high school players making it to the pros and so forth and and you'll find out how much
of a unicorn he is and how big of a crime it was for dude to be
you know 72 on that list all right so 89 was probably his best season he hit 256
with 32 home runs and 105 RB back then people if anybody young is ever going to
hear this they're going to say that's pretty terrible numbers no it's not not for 1989 it's not you're you're still
look you haven't had I mean guys just didn't even hit 40 home runs then really
so 32 is obviously a lot and 100 100 RBI is a
lot um he was a career 250 batter uh which
isn't bad uh for a power hitter he hit 141 home runs had 415 RB uh in 1990 I
think was his best batting average the following year he had batted 272 with h 28 home runs that's a that's
a man for 1990 that's a heck of a year and his slugging percentage was 523
I'm looking at Stats now for that year okay okay home base percentage was
346 well according to Money Ball that's what they that's that's all that matters right right he gets home Bas a lot of
home runs had decent batting average home base percentage was up there slugging percentage was out of the world
I'd say he had a really good batting average for a quote power hitter yeah I mean 272 yeah and two you know I remember
people like Jack Clark hitting 210 and hitting 30 home runs and everybody loved it you know it the note on that part
that was most interesting to me was that he only averaged 88 baseball games a year of course we kind of understand
that once you talk about his NFL stuff but I don't know big muscle guy like that maybe he was hurt a lot too maybe
he pulled a lot of hammies and I don't know but 8 what kind of steals did he have in the
majors you know I really didn't look that up uh well or it didn't jump out at me if I did I don't I don't know I I
mean Mark or somebody can maybe look it up in a minute if they got a computer in front of them I don't know I don't remember that being since he was a power
hitter I'm gonna guess that they didn't steal him a lot because they didn't want him breaking a wrist sliding into second
or something would be my guess I mean could he have been a base hell of a a base stealer obviously
because I don't know how anybody in Major League Baseball would be faster he had 82 in his career yeah so
no I mean he didn't yeah they did I'm sure that's what it was they didn't run him because
they didn't want him to get hurt okay so and to wrap up his baseball
kind of I will say that after the the the hip injury that he's for he he got
the 1993 comeback Player of the Year in Major League Baseball cuz he come back
he came back and over and played well enough with a artificial hip that he
made comeback player of the year I thought that was pretty impressive yeah and I I don't really remember that
I don't remember him coming back after after that injury I didn't know he played baseball to be honest yeah
that I I did because he had a noticeable LM I mean they used to joke about how
limping he was still the fastest guy in Major League Baseball pretty much cuz even with that pronounced and noticeable
limp he could still fly down the first Baseline you now I don't know how much it slowed him down but you could see
that he was limping okay so let's jump to the NFL because that's what a lot of people are going to know about Bo
Jackson so Bo Jackson told the Bucks don't draft me in 1986 they did it anyway so he just didn't play for them
and when that happened and by the the way that was the number one pick in the draft fresh off of a Heisman Trophy and
when that happens and they don't play for you for a year you lose their rights so by sitting in or sitting out
the Bucks had no claim over him so he went back into the draft pool now even
though he did that nobody would touch him because he was playing Major League Baseball um here it is I found the
number when he got drafted by the Royals in the fourth he signed for three years
and a a a million dollars for three years so he had a $300,000 and some change contract for
signing in the fourth round that was just his first contract now when the
bucks when the Bucks drafted him and he turned them down that would have been
that that was more or less slotted the year before and the year after for a 7.6 million doll contract for five
years so he turned down 7.6 million to earn 1 million that's how bad they made
him mad seems to be a trait with him you
know you kind of make him mad he makes you pay for it but yep so since they lost their rights
to him after the draft and he's playing baseball I think the NFL mostly forgot about the guy but in the seventh round
in 1987 the Raiders picked him up and by the way if you're going to pick a team
that would do something like this you'd probably pick the Raiders wouldn't you right that's right that's that's what I
thought about now the thing about the Raiders and and regardless of what you think
about whether it worked or not one of Al Davis's absolute beliefs was that you needed to be fast that was something
that he brought in with his Philosophy from coaching he believed in speed so I
mean that had to appeal to him at least
so they drafted him in the seventh round the Raiders he set he set out a year football they pick him up in the seventh
round and the reason that he agreed to go to them is
what and I don't know how much money they paid him in the seventh round it probably was a minimum contract but so
why did he why did he sign with the Raiders oh because uh I don't know
because they told him he could play baseball absolutely Al Davis told Mark that he
could play baseball he could they would figure yeah they Al Davis said we'll figure out how to make it work if you
have to miss work for us we'll we'll we'll work with you on it so now he's got his chance so think about this um
when this is happening Dion Sanders is still in college right so if you if you're our
age 1987 comes around and and you re you realize
that a dude is about to play Major League Baseball and in the NFL and who had ever seen
that right I mean yeah maybe in the TW 20s and 30s or whatever but in the 80s
and 70s and so forth I mean mind blown this was this was not normal whatsoever
so Al Davis drafts him and the next note under that is what I found the most
interesting out of all of that was that his position they listed him at
as a Raider initially was what fullback oh fullback yeah yeah and why
was that Marcus Valen we all know how these ball players
get possessive about their their um their place on the organizational history so here's Marcus
Allen uh best running back they've probably ever had and now they draft the young kid and so to ease things smooth
things over with om Marcus they list B as a fullback was was was he winding down his career at that point kind of
yeah more or less because you know he ended up with the Chiefs in the early 90s whenever that was and so I I
wouldn't say he was in his prime for sure because you know an NFL running back career is about four years anyway
so he was definitely had reached the peak and was probably on his way down but but he was
still a quality running back I'd say but um all right
so this is where business picks up in the sports world because now people are really
noticing that Bo Jackson's doing some special stuff because in 1987 he joined the Raiders in week eight and back then
I think it was already it was still a 16-week schedule wasn't it Mark already
a 16we season probably seems like stall back played like a 12 or 14 and then they bumped it up to 16 they did the 14
and 16 I'm thinking 16 yeah so so now this
is something y'all both know and um it's in the notes but this is one of the most famous incidents if not the most famous
thing that Bo Jackson ever did in week 12 as a rookie Monday Night Football
what did Bo Jackson do that's probably on YouTube eight million
times he by the way it involves another Gen X guy that we'll talk about eventually I promise
oh I got you what he do M night he he Tred B another gen he that
yeah Casey I don't know if you remember that but that's the year that the BOS was in year one or two I don't know for
the Seahawks I can't remember exactly when he got drafted but they were both
about the same age and on Monday Night Football B ran him over on the what mark one y one or
two yard line and yeah you've seen it Casey yeah so I was watching when that
happened I I love you know I love making it sound like it was some miraculous thing but yeah I was watching when that
happened but yeah I was he ran Bosworth completely over yeah I mean it was it
was wonderful and there was no social media well yeah and that's what I was going to say there was no social media
at the time but just going to school and talking to people what was the sentiment around the nation you think on how many
people were happy with that happening just yeah people hated the B didn't they
didn't they Mark yeah yeah I mean he was in today's world he would be he wouldn't
be that bad he wouldn't be as no not at all yeah but but back then he was you
know he was a Showboat he was blow hard he was a trash talker
and yeah and going we'll do an episode on him for sure cuz I mean he was here's
who I compare him to he was and I read his life story and it's pretty interesting and obviously he's kind of
made amends as a grown man since then because he knows sort of he crossed some
lines but um I would say that BOS was similar to Madonna in this and in this
way Madonna was so scandalous in 1985 and she wouldn't even I mean it it
wouldn't make a mark anywhere now the stuff that she did back then it'd be nothing now and BOS was the same way the
way most most NFL and and college players act now goes right back the the
anything they do that's sort of flamboyant or whatever to draw attention to themselves he's one of the guys that
pioneered that and it was so scandalous uh when he did it you know he was outside of the traditional
Norm so most people hated him that's the point and B trucked him and people loved
it I mean if there had been social media that would have been on Twitter 40 million times by the next morning you
know and people would have been loving it so that was Bose's that was Bose's
coming out party in the NFL he had 221 yards rushing sharing a back field with
Marcus Allen that night two TDS and for good measur he threw in another touchdown uh
receiving at the time that was a Monday Night Football record I don't know if it still is but 221 yards rushing and in
eight games that season he averaged 6.8 yards a carry so isn't that kind of what
Derrik Henry's doing right now isn't he averaging six and a half or something right now in the
NFL I mean I haven't looked lately but I thought I heard somebody say that on the radio I I think you're
right and either way that's a phenomenal number six and a half
I mean as Cowboys fans we know that if the opponent averages six and a half yards a carry against you you're not
going to win ever so um so it's impressive for dude to be a rookie and
run six point eight yards a carry so of course it was probably an advantage for
eight he didn't go to training camp and he had eight weeks to re uh eight weeks of baseball thrown in there and then he
just shows up more fresh and injuryf free than probably anybody on the on the
team so it kind of makes sense I watched I watched a clip today thinking of uh just to kind
of I mean I don't know I unless you're watching a documentary or something you don't see that kind of stuff much today
and so there was some old film on Twitter or something I for about a two-
minute clip and it was a game uh Raiders were playing Denver and he was just
running over guys I mean just it was incredible it's like a it's like a like
a big kid on a on a peeee team he he's must C TV back then I I mean you
couldn't take your eyes off of him because when people say this it kind of makes me mad because it's not it's it's
overused but he could score anytime he touched the ball you don't say that about a ton of guys right I mean it
didn't matter where he got the ball the thing that made him so good was
I mean you saw uh guys run over guys back then
um right right but but the his combination of speed he could run over
you he could run through you or he just run by you or go yeah or uh Juke somebody and go around them and go yeah
right what I was trying to think about was was like Earl Campbell I mean he ran over people but he wasn't gonna outrun
anybody he wasn't going to outrun anybody but right and Hershel Walker was going to
outrun everybody right and he and he was going to truck some people but Bo was like
Hershel Walker with two more notches you know two more two more notches of speed
and power it's incredible must see TV man when he plays
so yeah Casey it's it his highlights are luckily on YouTube and you just I mean I
can watch his baseball even his defensive highlights in baseball I watch them all day and and just when he
trucked people in football it was hilarious so all of that being said is basically a part-time NFL or he made the
Pro Bowl in 1990 um he played Major League Baseball
every season that he played in the NFL for a career he had 5.4 yards of
carry and he averaged nine yards of reception which is a lot for running back yeah especially back then
absolutely yeah because you're I mean uh I guess I should historically say for everybody but since we and our audience
are old it goes without saying that he played in the era of a fullback and two tight ends a ton of times on a ton of
plays on the field so right it's not like it's not like uh these high school offenses where they have five receivers
on the field and everybody runs a go route and then the the running back runs a wheel and everybody's got their back
turned and he catches it for 20 yards no it it wasn't that kind of deal at all he
he'd be a good good fantasy fantasy football league player right now for you
oh my God yeah he'd be a keeper for sure so now we come to the the hip injury so
I was watching when this happened and I remember being just like that didn't look too bad surely he'll be all right I
mean you know it's not a big deal he'll come back uh and by the way for just a kid that loves the Cowboys to be
watching in the Raiders game and thinking oh no bo got hurt I mean that tells you how good he was right there cuz right you know I was all in on Bo
man I just love watching him so with the he's played in the playoffs against the Bengals in 91 and they tackle him and
there's footage of it out there and it dislocated his hip just a absolute
freakish I don't even think I've ever heard of that happening otherwise in the NFL I'm sure it has but I don't remember
it and so as soon as he dislocates that hip apparently what happened was he set it
back in place or something himself okay and what the doctors later
thought happened was when he crammed his own ball back into the
socket there was veins and things in the way that that in surgery they would have moved them out of the way there were
muscle and veins and nerves in the way and he forced it back in there because he's strong enough to Splinter a bat
with his bare hands he forced back in there well what that did was put pressure on those vessels and muscles
and nerves and for whatever reason they didn't go in surgically know that was going on and fix it and that actually C
caused all that tissue to die in that socket right and that was that was that
was part of the reason it didn't recover like it should have right I think it
actually the it cut off the blood supply to his to the fall in his H that's what
I yeah reading about yeah yeah and it was I read it was because they forced it
back in there without doing it surgically I don't know if that's true but that's just something you know
sounds iable to me another interesting fact about this
and this is from an interview from him he says and a doctor backed it up um the
fact that he was so strong that's the only reason reason he dislocated his H
because oh another guy being tackled in the way
would tackle he would have just went down but because his legs were so strong
it basically his leg pulled his hip out of socket while he was still trying to run got I he had so much forward
momentum right and power that they pulled him this way he was going that
way and something had to and it end up being the hip right oh my god when you say it like that that just that actually
sounds sad you know that any other dude would have just dropped and that would have been the end
of the play right right but it was just you know because he was such so frequently strong in his legs that it
actually pulled it out it wasn't a tackle it was his leg muscles in yeah
pulling his hip out that's what I'm trying to say makes sense so what what
cold blooded about is that the Royals cut him they didn't even mess with him at all that next year they just went
they just cut him and I don't know medically what people were saying I'm sure it was a everyday update but they
cut him and dealing with his hip he he missed all of 91 and 92 now if if I'm
not mistaken ultimately he ended up with a new hip at least part of his hip was artificial I don't know if it was the
ball or the socket or both and he came back with a limp and played for the white socks as usually played DH his
Outfield days were over he played DH right played with the white socks in 93
there's footage of him limping around um and in 93 he won the comeback player of the year which is actually an
astronomical achievement considering what he went through physically and he played 93 for them and
won that award and they didn't renew his contract so he went to Anaheim and played one more year in 94 and he and
then he retired so he didn't play anymore after that but there is definitely footage of
him limping around in the white socks uh pinst stripes and by the way back then he was back playing with Frank Thomas if
I'm oh yeah I'm sure that's true I didn't think about that which yeah Frank did play for alurn I looked that up
earlier okay that's what I thought they were and I guess they overlapped at least a year there yeah I think so maybe
a year I don't think they played you know long as teammates but okay they
were both Al guys so all of that to say and I didn't
I mean I didn't do a good job of explaining it but all of that to say the guy was an absolute freak and um he had
a major impact on pop culture as well I'm I put pop culture notes in here because that's part of what we do sports
are part of Pop Culture the the bow NOS Nike campaign was huge I had some Nike
he he what what kind of shoes specifically was was he selling for Nike do y'all
remember yes yes remember the commercials it was him playing different sports but not even playing it was weird
stuff like riding a bike right yeah I was gonna say what's the time frame and I think the commercials were in black
and white it's like bon no cycling bon no tennis and they were he's usually wearing his
trainers yeah doing all the stuff you don't associate him with I mean he basically became a brand himself and I
don't remember anyone else doing that before him yeah other other than a guy named
Michael Jordan they overlapped I mean Jordan came into the nuh NBA in 85 and he got
Nike so he got Nike uh bumped up to the big leagues
because Adidas and Converse were the big shoes he bumped them up and they dovetailed the Jordan phenomenon right
in there with Bo they were okay they were absolute contemporaries and built Nike into what Nike became because they
had two different Avenues to approach it from you got the basketball and then Bo almost covered everything else by being
a two sport guy so it was actually it was brilliant they were in commercials
together I think correct yeah they were in something else together too that I'm about to mention
so okay well I'll go ahead and mention that because the next one is really important to us so Bo was in a it wasn't
his they didn't use their voices but I do remember this Bo and Michael Jordan
and Wayne Gretzky played superhero athletes in a Saturday morning cartoon
called Pro stars and it was Bo and Wayne and
Michael Jordan running around the the country being awesome for kids basically
teach teaching them how to play ball and being like superheroes they didn't voice the characters but they used their names
so Bo had his on Saturday morning Saturday morning
cartoon and then here's the big one I'm I'm winding down I promise here's a big
one his nickname to some people oh I'm I need to was techmo Bow techmo
Bow by Gamers Gamers gave him that nickname because his skills as a running
back in techmoo and we play techmo bowl like they're like it like they were
never going to make video games ever again when we were right back back then the three of us plus a couple of other
people together and right if you called the wrong play and on defense and Bo got
the ball he was gonna score because he was so fast he was Unstoppable you
always tried to get yep you always tried to get the team BS on and what I
remember was uh I don't know what they called it but his ability to shake tacklers off like they just bounced off
of him you remember that like and then he would outrun all of them so I
actually laughed about that out loud out of all the things I read about uh other
than other than him on purpose getting enough points to not have to run
distance in the the caflon was that he was called techmoo because I knew y'all would like
that that's a whole another episode yes heyy I remember playing people in techmo
and it's probably people on this call right now and before the game would ever start you would say okay nobody can pick
the Raiders you remember or nobody you know you would always nobody can pick the
Raiders I'll play you San Francisco against Chicago but nobody's getting the Raiders that that was like the UN you
couldn't have that edge and so you'd have to agree before you ever started these Grudge matches that who you cannot
have you know and so I just y'all know who I'm talk talking about there's somebody I know exactly
you're talking about exactly youd you'd have to say all right you're not getting Bo Jackson if we play I'll play you San
Fran versus you know whoever the same one that I probably used uh a certain kicker
to kick a 60 yard field goal and beat in a match one time it's also the same
person that I watched I watched you one night in a grudge match one of y'all had San Francisco I
don't know who but I saw you pick this guy's first six plays of the game exact
you know you know how if you called a defense exactly right it would shut him down you called This Guy's first three
and out two three and outs to start the game and he was just he was throwing stuff around
the controller around the mobile home we were in the mobile home and he was
throwing stuff around because you three he went three and out the first two times he got the ball all right so by
the way that'll be a topic too we're going to definitely talk about Gen X uh video game all right so let me finish up
Bo is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame he didn't have the numbers to back that up although he was well on his way
and he's not in he's not in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame so if anything splitting Sports I've heard
many many journalists say and write that if he played either sport for his whole career he'd be in that Hall of Fame
right or had he played both of them longer as he
10 or 12 years he'd be in one or the other if not both so I think both but
yeah so along with his 1985 Heisman which back then was a very prestigious
deal it's not so much anymore I will say this he's in the Royals Baseball Hall of Fame and and I
thought when I first heard that so what but they only have 30 players in their
Hall of Fame wow and so for a guy who was only there
five seasons that that's a pretty phenomenal um achievement really for to
be one of 30 so and he and he and George Brett uh
were teammates so he was you know on some he played with some quality guys
he's in the College Football Hall of Fame as of 1996 which he should be and
he won the Heisman Trophy in uh 1985 so
here's the big one though that statistically makes him a unicorn and this is absolutely all
you need to know about why he's why he's misnumbered on that list
of greatest athletes he is the only person whoever walked the planet Earth
to play in the Major League Baseball allstar game and the Pro
Bowl well there's nobody else that can say that and that so he's one of
[Laughter] one um I don't think Dion ever played in
a Major League Baseball allstar game so that would I mean Dion has him on a
couple other things we'll talk about yeah play he played in the World Series and an NFL game in the same
day yeah we're gonna talk we're gonna talk we're going to talk Dion um but
even with Dion's achievements he never played in the allstar and the Pro Bowl and that is
that makes B one of one I think I mean I I think that is astronomically
impossible odds to do that for a human being if you really think about [Laughter]
it yeah so that that's kind of my closing shot on Bo Jackson when you
think about how good do you have to be in high school to play college ball okay how good do you have to be in college to
play pro okay how good do you have to be as a Pro to be an Allstar okay now how
good do you have to be in two sports to be in their Allstar games and the answer
is well you have to be Bo Jackson good right so I feel like I talked too much
about stats but the the fact is by reputation alone anybody our
age knows Bo Jackson whether it's through techmobile baseball football or
Nike ads or whatever he is he's def itely a legend and he's definitely on in
my opinion way higher than the SE 72nd best athlete of the 20th century there's
he has to be in the top dozen if not the top
10 yeah that's that's what surprises me he's not at least in the top
15 I can see some of the people that they have ahead of them sure
but U just the fact how hard it is is to to make it to the NFL how hard it is to
make it to the major leagues and you're Allstar B pro bowl allar and you're that far down the list
I don't get it it's funny you bring that up because I'm going to close I'm going to close with this because I looked it
up the odds of a high school football player playing college ball are seven
7% okay the odds of a college football player playing pro football or
1.6% M okay so I couldn't even find these numbers I got my calculator out
and it hurt my head but so if you take every Pro Player and extrapolate out how
many of those there's been that have played in the Pro Bowl you know you you've got a number but then you have to
go back and look at the high school kids and say how many of them ended up being a pro bowler okay so that's a
astronomical number in itself but that's just the NFL so Bas
baseball high school players have a 5.6% rate of playing college ball that's
any NCAA classification 5.6 it and your odds actually go up if
you're in college your odds of getting drafted jump up to
10.5% but you know the numbers shrink but the opportunity grows basically right and so College to being drafted
your chances go up to 10% but because there's so many rounds in the draft your
odds of playing in the major leagues are only 5% okay right so to actually make it to
the major leagues so a high school baseball player correct and so a high school
baseball player has a 05% chance of ever being drafted and playing in the major
leagues basically now so take that 0.5 and take that 1.6 of or yeah 1.6 of that
other number and that's just becoming a pro now what are the odds that you would be a Allstar in both of those Sports and
it's you it's incalculable you couldn't come up with a number I mean you just I
mean yes statistically you could say there's this many players over this many years blah blah blah but um we're
nowhere near 1% chance to do that I mean he is he is a rare the Unicorn for Pro
Sports in my opinion now there are other guys that have played other two sports
obviously nobody ever played it at that you know they don't really play it at that level so we'll talk about Dion in
the next one and we'll talk about what he did that Bo didn't do but um even Dion didn't qualify as an All-Star in
both Sports so no I think that makes Bo between that
and his pop culture influence and so forth I may I think that makes that dude way higher than 72 I mean he was for
people our age we knew how much of a a bad human being he was yeah this sums it up I I just went
to the Kansas City Royals uh Twitter page X page when he was
inducted and this is how they led into it dual sport icon allar game MVP
superhuman living legend the end yeah I think that's the best way to say it living legend
um and you know what I've never heard of Bo being involved in a scandal other than the one that was put on him by
Tampa Bay Bucks you've never heard about Bo getting arrested and U just a stand apparently the thing I didn't mention is
he's on a ton of boards uh Board of Directors for a ton of Charities he raises a bunch of money for kids and for
various causes right just a standup guy and even in retirement you've never heard of him
you know getting in any trouble and people love the guy and I can't think of
anybody on planet Earth that was ever that big and that strong and that fast that's why I think he's one of the top
10 athletes that ever lived in any Century probably so and then he proved
it he's got the numbers to back it up honestly you know the only thing I'm sad about is that he didn't get to play like
10 full seasons in both Sports even if he did them both even if he played 100 baseball games and only eight football
games a year it would have been crazy to see what he could have done in about 10 years doing
that instead of just basically four four or five the shape he was in the natural
shape he was in he of course he's famous for saying I never worked out I don't he
just didn't work out he was naturally
and built that way so yeah if he hadn't had that freak injury how long would he have played and
what would he have done I don't know because you know even
as a yeah even as well yeah I mean even at his age now he's better than some of
them I can think of one team that could use him desperately right now um I wonder if that's if they held that
against against him on the the ranking because he didn't play could be you know I didn't look you're right Casey that's
a really good point I didn't think about but that that very likely could be yeah I mean I just know that when I was
little and really getting into football when it came to college ball Hershel Walker was the guy I knew he was the guy
he was in sports but then Bo came along and I'm not saying there's probably people that think Hershel was better but
man it's just like it's like Hershel was took it to a 10 but then Bo had 11 and
12 also it was as far as faster stronger more
power he just had a couple of more notches that nobody had ever had ever really seen you know and so just an
absolute free and I'm telling you since I played High School baseball I've always been fascinated with the arms
from these Short Stops and outfielders and so forth and dude you can go look at
the highlights he had as good of an arm from the Outfield as you'll ever see ever in the game of Base ball it's just
phenomenal how well he threw Runners out I mean I don't know if he was accurate but he had the power to do it for sure
so some of the prettiest plays you've ever seen were were him throwing people out at home or or whatever so yeah from
all right guys I'm gonna end the recording absolutely I'm gonna end the recording right here but hang on for
just a second all right so anyway we that's our two that's going to be two episodes on Bo guys and I really
appreciate y'all's time and I'm going to stop the recording right here thank you
for joining us on Gen X classic Sports where Nostalgia meets The Thrill of the game tune in next time for more
insightful discussions and memorable moments brought to you by Pine Street Productions until then stay passionate
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