MLive.com: Detroit Lions QB Matthew Stafford recalls Detroit Tigers’ Austin Jackson’s youth baseball dominance

ALLEN PARK—Detroit Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson was on the radar of baseball scouts long before he was drafted in 2005 out Billy Ryan High School in Denton, Texas. In fact, the New York Yankees started keeping tabs on him after one of their scouts saw Jackson hit three home runs in a game at the age of 12.
Baseball America named Jackson the best 12-year-old player in the country that year. Three years later, the publication named him the nation’s best 15-year-old. It was between those years Jackson first crossed paths with Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford.
“I played against him in baseball a bunch,” Stafford said. “He was awesome. He was a freak. He put a couple third basemen in the hospital. He was a dead pull hitter, just like he is now, but he was such a threat to bunt, because he was so fast, that people would play in on him and he’d rip it down third with a metal bat.”