Bo Jackson was teh awesome in Tecmo Superbowl.

Tecmo Bo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAAgfY_NHzw

Real Bo Football:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAAgfY_NHzw

Tecmo Bo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAAgfY_NHzw

Real Bo Football:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAAgfY_NHzw

So, you're saying that Tecmo Bo is real Bo?

This is a really nice piece by JoPoe. It's worth a read.

Was there ever another player in history who had comparable numbers to Bo to start his career? Projection is dicey, and there is indication that Bo was un-projectable. Can anyone make a stab at it?

Bill Simmons wrote a column about Bo Jackson in Tecmo Superbowl. Bo said that everywhere he goes people ask him about it.

Marcus Allen was no slouch either on that team. But Christian Okoye was my favorite to play with.

Posnanski and Bo Jackson...it don’t get much better.

This is a really nice piece by JoPoe. It's worth a read.

Agree and agree. Joe Posnanski is one of the best things to happen to baseball writing in a long, long time.

Strange, been looking for videos of Bo's baseball exploits on Youtube and elsewhere since my memory of him is rather dim and they just are nowhere to be found. Football and Tecmo clips everywhere, but no baseball.

Awesome story.

No, instead, Bo’s destiny was to become a comic book hero.

There's plenty of guys in the Hall of Fame. But baseball only has a few men who broke the shackles of reality.

I was at the Yankees game when Bo hit the 3 homers. I was 13 years old and it was and still is the most amazing performance I've seen at a ball game. The play where he later hurt himself in the game was a Deion Sanders inside the park HR, incidentally.

Strange, been looking for videos of Bo's baseball exploits on Youtube and elsewhere since my memory of him is rather dim and they just are nowhere to be found. Football and Tecmo clips everywhere, but no baseball.

I just want to see the clip of Bo, after a strikeout, breaking his bat over his head one more time. That was shocking.

I liked the one where Bo ran up the side of the outfield wall.

I think he was destined to be the greatest running back in history if he had chosen to play football full time.

I was shocked when I first read this. In his prime, each one of Jackson's thighs was bigger than his waist. His waist was 32 inches and each thigh was 34 inches around.

I think he was destined to be the greatest running back in history if he had chosen to play football full time.

Bo might have been the best college football running back I ever saw. When he left Auburn and said he wouldn't play for the Buccaneers, I was shocked. Even though he had obvious baseball talent -- he was the fastest runner in baseball in his time, prior to getting hurt -- his real talent was in football: an amazing combination of speed and power.

Strange, been looking for videos of Bo's baseball exploits on Youtube and elsewhere since my memory of him is rather dim and they just are nowhere to be found. Football and Tecmo clips everywhere, but no baseball.

Yeah, I just went looking and nothing. Strange.

too bad they didn't have interleague games back then....

i always thought that a homeplate collision between Bo and Mike Scioscia would have been a thing of horrible beauty.

They showed a Bo Jackson/ Rick Dempsey collision at the ballpark the other day...if I remember correctly Dempsey was out for a a couple of months after that.

Even that April 1987 game where Bo struck out 5 times was backwards awesome. With Yankee Stadium chanting "Bo, Bo, Bo," the fifth strikeout was a 3-pitch at-bat where Jackson was the tying run, and he was just slashing at every pitch. If he'd hit a foul ball on any one of the swings, he would have taken a life.

Bo once hit a line drive so hard, it ended the Cold War.

his real talent was in football

I've always thought that if you can play football or baseball, you ought to go play baseball. Careers are longer, short- and especially long-term injury risk isn't close, and the money's way better. Even Deion Sanders, I'd have said go play baseball if I were advising him. The one exception I can think of was Bo Jackson. He was like nothing else I've ever seen on a football field.

Of course, as it turned out, playing only baseball would have been the right thing for Bo to do.

Bo might have been the best college football running back I ever saw. When he left Auburn and said he wouldn't play for the Buccaneers, I was shocked. Even though he had obvious baseball talent -- he was the fastest runner in baseball in his time, prior to getting hurt -- his real talent was in football: an amazing combination of speed and power.

And at Auburn his teammate at tight end was a fella now DHing for the Toronto Blue Jays (I think he might have started his career with the White Sox).

Best Regards

John

They showed a Bo Jackson/ Rick Dempsey collision at the ballpark the other day..

Hence the spousal abuse comments...

Bo Jackson vs Jack Dempsey, maybe, if Jack gets to wear the catching gear.

"Bo once hit a line drive so hard, it ended the Cold War."


Let's stop this right now before Chuck Norris shows up. We don't want that.

I saw Bo's homer in the 89 All Star Game at the Big A......it hit way up on the batter's eye in center field.....it wasn't so much how far it went...but how much hang time it had. I've seen longer homers, but never one that just seemed to have three separate segments of flight: departure, enroute, and splashdown. Just amazing.

Even more amazing was Wade Boggs hit a homer on the next pitch,but nobody seemed to notice, because the stadium was still staring at Bo's ball, which was still rolling slowly down the tarp out there in center field.......

"Bo once hit a line drive so hard, it ended the Cold War."


Let's stop this right now before Chuck Norris shows up. We don't want that.

Bo once hit a line drive so hard, he turned Chuck Norris from a putz into an semi-ironic symbol of cool.

Chuck Norris: most popular actor in Romania. I'm not kidding.

Was there ever another player in history who had comparable numbers to Bo to start his career? Projection is dicey, and there is indication that Bo was un-projectable. Can anyone make a stab at it?

Statistically, Bo did not have an especially unusual start to his career. Remember that he wasn't young, but rather inexperienced. He put up a 94 OPS+ as a 24 year old 434 PA, then 108, 124, 142 getting through his age 27 season.

The most comparable by age through 27 include guys like Willie Kirkland, Deron Johnson, David Justice, Rob Deer, Jay Buhner, Preston Wilson, Jose Cruz, Wally Post, Bob Allison, Greg Vaughan.

If you take his top 10 comps to age 27, they're pretty darn close. Bo had 511 games and a 115 OPS+ through 27, the 10 comps average out to 560 games and 110 OPS+. While Bo was a little better hitter than some of the guys, David Justice had a much better start to his career.

Jackson played many fewer games from 27 than anybody else on his list--300 games less than the next fewest. The best were Justice, Buhner, and Bob Allison, I think.

If you took the average rest-of-career of the 8 retired guys on his comp list, you'd get Bo with something like almost 1400 games played, just under 250 HRs, 1150 hits, and a 113 OPS+.

Bo might well have developed differently; nothing about his talent was normal. And he might well have been one of those rare guys who post their best seasons in the early 30s. He certainly kept himself in good condition, and he was really just learning the game. Would he have ever learned the strike zone? He was never a fanatic for walks, though he made some strides in his age 27 season and beat a .310 OBP for the first time in his career (with a pretty sterling .344.) He didn't hit a lot of doubles, which meant that his slugging was good but not spectacular--he once finished 6th in the league in slugging but otherwise never in the top 10. He had a pretty awful fielding percentage, though obviously his speed and arm compensated for that. How he comes out as a defensive player on the metrics, I don't know.

I would have loved to watch Bo Jackson play for 10-12 more years. Who ever saw anybody like him? It's like getting the chance to see Rabbit Maranville or Babe Ruth or something, a highly unusual talent matched with a highly unusual personality. Whether Jackson was more like Maranville--in that the unusual shape of his talent led us to overstate the extent of his talent--or like Ruth, I certainly don't know, but I'd be betting on the former.

That Bo homer in the All-Star game is one of clearest memories of an All-Star game. I can't believe it was nearly 18 years ago. That homer was gone in like 0.01 seconds.

The funny thing is I also have memories of the broadcasters (though I don't remember who) talking non-stop about Gary Gaetti being recently born-again.

They showed a Bo Jackson/ Rick Dempsey collision at the ballpark the other day...if I remember correctly Dempsey was out for a a couple of months after that.

From the article:

Once, he ran over catcher Rick Dempsey. Dempsey broke his thumb but said: “I held him to fewer yards than Brian Bosworth.”

Ouch. Dempsey's thumb must have hurt, too.

Was there ever another player in history who had comparable numbers to Bo to start his career?

yeah--Dave Kingman

It's like getting the chance to see Rabbit Maranville or Babe Ruth or something, a highly unusual talent matched with a highly unusual personality. Whether Jackson was more like Maranville--in that the unusual shape of his talent led us to overstate the extent of his talent--or like Ruth, I certainly don't know, but I'd be betting on the former.

and you'd be right; I think Bo holds the record for the greatest disconnect between baseball reputation and actual baseball performance

I don't know if his reputation was particularly misleading - I had him pegged as a "toolsy" guy who was able to do some pretty damned impressive things on occasion, but not an All-Star or anything.

There are bound to be others higher up on that list.

Bigger thighs than waist? SEC football player? Odd career ending injury?

That settles it, if he had chosen, he'd have been the best cyclist ever.

It's strange. Bo Jackson was such a huge star, yet he's largely forgotten until an article like this is written. Memories of that black-and-white card with him wearing the shoulderpads with the bat and the commercials (Bo Diddley: "Bo knows the blues!") come rushing back.

Was there ever another player in history who had comparable numbers to Bo to start his career?

Kirk Gibson comes to mind. They didn't get the precise same shape of start to their careers for various reasons, but there they are at age 27, with coincidental 142 OPS+ marks. Neither was a very good average hitter. Bo had more power, Kirk more plate discipline, but you could mix all their seasons together plausibly. Both had excellent speed, but leg miseries slowed them both down too young. If Bo's body had collapsed more slowly, I can see him having the kind of years Gibson had in his 30s.

Bo was a better football player :)

Chuck Norris: most popular actor in Romania. I'm not kidding.


That's only because "Chuc Norice" means "Free Beer" in Romanian.

I think Bo holds the record for the greatest disconnect between baseball reputation and actual baseball performance

He's a good example of the need for scouts as well as statistical analysis, I think. Like Gonfalon Bubble mentions in #17, Bo could have a five-strikeout game that still left the audience saying "Wow, did you see that?" Bo was impressive just walking out to the plate.

It's hard to explain Bo to someone who didn't see him. He clearly wasn't anywhere near a great baseball player, but when you watched Bo, you always had the feeling that something electrifying would happen, something you never saw before. He really was a phenomenal athlete and it was almost as if Bo could've hit a Chris Bosio hanger through a fielder or caught a foul ball on the 1st base side from left and it wouldn't surprise you.

and you'd be right; I think Bo holds the record for the greatest disconnect between baseball reputation and actual baseball performance

Yeah, but he was still an absolute blast to watch.

Best Regards

John

And from Insider the mind of Neyer...

Bo Jackson might be the closest thing to Babe Ruth that most of us have seen. Like Ruth, Jackson did not feel constrained by convention. He didn't care what a baseball player was supposed to be, and he was such a great athlete. Except for that one season, though, he was not a great baseball player.

I think Bo holds the record for the greatest disconnect between baseball reputation and actual baseball performance

I dunno how fair that is. Much of his reputation comes from the NFL, where he was legitimately great. How great was his baseball reputation? He made one all-star team and as has been mentioned upthread he's largely forgotten now.

The disconnect between Jackson isn't reputation vs. performance as much as it is potential vs. accomplishment. A subtle distinction, but a key one. The former makes it sound like he wasn't that good while the latter ackonwledges he may have been great had things played out differently (not splitting his time between two sports, the injury).

You know who really reminded me a lot of Bo the baseball player? The White Sox era Sammy Sosa. I remember being at a game at Comiskey Park in late 1990. Sosa came to the plate and the crowd went wild. Here's a young guy with a fantastic arm, terrific speed, and who looked like he had plenty of potential at the plate. Then you look at the diamondvision scoreboard and see he's hitting .230 with 10-12 homers. But everyone cheered loudly anyway because he clearly had a lot more talent than a .230 hitter. He just had to channel his ability.

That was Bo Jackson. Put him on a baseball field and he looked like he could do anything - hit, slug, throw, run . . He was a blast.

Another thing about Bo - he had a great flare for the dramatic. His mammouth all-star game most obviously. When the White Sox clinched their first post-season appearance in 10 years, it was a Bo Jackson hit that made the difference. Didn't he once homer in four straight at bats, with an injury coming in the middle of it? (Looks it up). Yup. He had three homers on 7/17/90, left the game with an injury. A month later he returned and hit a homer on the first pitch he saw. After he missed over a season with his hip injury, he hit a homer in his first game back. In his very first at bat of his career, he came within 15 feet of hitting a homer. Just foul.

This was also true in football, of course. That may have been the greatest performance by any player at any position in the history of Monday Night Football. Maybe Earl Campbell in his big game back around 1979, but Jackson was unstoppable that game. That touchdown where he ran down the tunnel was awesome.

Really, awesome is the best word to describe what Jackson was like. The word has been so overused that it's a cliche, but Jackson's talents could inspire awe.

Bo reminds me of Eric Davis, especially hearing all these testimonials. He was another guy who you thought was capable of just about anything on the ballfield, except staying healthy. Unlike Jackson, though, Davis was a legitimately great player, if only for a brief time.

I think of Davis much more like Pete Reiser or somebody like that. Davis did everything well; he didn't need to learn to become a better baseball player. He was a great player, as you say, because he did everything well. Bo was a guy with huge strengths and massive weaknesses. Though they did both have injury problems, if you could run both their careers 50 times through a simulator, Davis would probably end up a HOFer 50 times (every career permutation where he was lucky enough to stay healthy), and Bo likely never.