TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040191/0401260.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 113 lines

                                                                                SPORT, Page 80

Bo Knows Pain -- and Dismissal


The best-known two-sport athlete in the U.S. is out for a year,
and perhaps forever, because of a football injury

By DAVID E. THIGPEN -- With reporting by Staci D. Kramer/ St.
Louis and Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles


    He always said he would make his choice when the time was
right. But his prodigious athletic gifts and the rewards they
brought made choosing between pro football and pro baseball
difficult for Bo Jackson, 28. For four remarkable seasons he
didn't have to: in winter he was a devastating running back for
the Los Angeles Raiders, and in summer a power-hitting
outfielder for the Kansas City Royals. Last season he became
the first player ever selected for both the All-Star game and
the Pro Bowl. But last week, when the Royals suddenly dropped
him because of a serious injury to his hip in a football game
two months earlier, the incredible career of the two-sport
superstar seemed in grave jeopardy, and quite possibly at a
premature end.

    "Don't count me out," Jackson said at a press conference
last week in Haines City, Fla., where the Royals were in spring
training. But also don't count on him for at least a year.
While physicians disagreed on whether he could ever recover
from his injury, most agreed that he would be out of baseball
and football for that long, if not longer, and that if he
returned, he most probably would not regain peak form. In
general, Jackson stayed mum about his plans. "I don't talk about
football in the baseball season, and I don't talk about
baseball in the football season," he said.

    It will be an expensive hiatus. By letting Jackson go before
March 20, the Royals were obligated to pay only $395,000 of his
one-year, $2.3 million contract. His $1.6 million salary for
the Raiders this year is not immediately at risk, but it will
be if the effects of the injury persist. And a foreshortened
sports career may truncate his higher-paying second job as the
endorser of Diet Pepsi, AT&T and various sports medicines --
plus his starring role in Nike's "Bo Knows . . ." commercials.
All that off-the-field effort brings in about $5 million a
year.

    Jackson's injury occurred during the A.F.C. semifinal
play-off game between Los Angeles and Cincinnati when he
twisted his leg trying to escape the tackle of a linebacker.
After he was helped from the field, the injury was diagnosed
as a left-hip fracture-dislocation. When another exam two weeks
ago showed that Jackson's hip cartilage had deteriorated
further, the Royals' team doctor pronounced the prognosis for
Jackson's return "uncertain."

    As shocking as Jackson's release was, it made sense -- and
dollars -- for the Royals. Because Jackson's injury occurred
on the gridiron, the Royals have a contractual right to release
him. If the damage had occurred on a baseball diamond, the
Royals would have had to pay his full salary. Royals general
manager Herk Robinson said the team considered keeping Jackson
on the disabled list, but that would have tied up more than $2
million with very little hope of a positive return on the
investment this season.

    Royals management had made no secret of its displeasure with
the physical risks Jackson took moonlighting as a backfield
star. Says Royals owner Ewing Kauffman: "It definitely was not
best in the long run for Bo to play football. It destroyed
potentially the best talent ever to put on a baseball uniform."
Several major-league managers said they would never take a
two-sport athlete, even one of Jackson's caliber, because of
the risks of injury. New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner
last week loudly announced that he wanted Jackson on his squad,
but Steinbrenner is no longer allowed to speak for the team,
and Yankees general manager Gene Michael said the "risk is just
too great" to hire Jackson. At week's end, when no team had
claimed him, Jackson became a free agent.

    Bo's departure is the spectators' loss. In an era when less
talented ballplayers pull down equally towering salaries and
occasionally indulge in public temper tantrums, Jackson's grace
and zeal on the playing field brought fans out in admiring
droves. "When I'm playing, I'm relaxed," Jackson once said.
"I'm like a fish in water." Fellow Royals star George Brett
noted that fans fell out of the hot dog lines and hurried back
to their seats when Jackson stepped to the plate. They were
frequently gratified. In July 1988, he hit a blast off Boston's
Oil Can Boyd that many said was the longest home run ever hit
in Fenway Park. Last year Jackson hit a middling .272 and,
despite missing 51 games, still led the Royals with 28 homers
and 78 runs batted in.

    One veteran American League team physician remarked that
Jackson's stocky, heavily muscled physique was the only one
that had made him gawk. But other players are bigger, stronger
or faster, making the two-sport athlete a rare and endangered
species. The only other active two-sport pro, Atlanta Falcons
defensive back Deion Sanders, was dropped by the Yankees last
season after several trips to the minors, but he has since been
picked up by the Braves as an outfielder. There is an old
sports dictum that Jackson should perhaps have studied with
greater care: baseball pays more, and you get hit less.