APRTW wrote:

The MLB network had Deion Sanders on Intentional Talk.  It got me to thinking about who the best duel sport player was.  Of course I am thinking mostly Baseball/Football but others would be interesting to discuss.  A quick look at the numbers and I would say Deion should own the crown because of his service time on both leagues.  the others I took into consideration were mainly Brian Jordan and Bo Jackson.  I think Brain Jordan is the most overlooked.  Toughts?

Of those three, the best is Bo Jackson, hands down. An all-star baseball player and the best running back I've ever seen. Maybe the best athlete I've ever seen. If he hadn't gotten hurt, he might have ended up in the Hall of Fame in both sports.
Sanders was a great football player, but he was an average baseball player who couldn't hit. Jordan was a very good football player, but he wasn't a Hall of Famer in either sport.
Also, go back a while to find another 2-sport star named Gene Conley, who won a World Series with the Milwaukee Braves and three NBA championships with the Boston Celtics. He's the only person to win titles in more than one of the major American sports.
Jackie Robinson might have gone pro in three sports - and he lettered in four sports at UCLA. And if you want to go back a long way, there's Jim Thorpe, who played football, baseball and won Olympic medals in track.
The guy who often gets overlooked as a multi-sport athlete is Jim Brown. He's obviously one of the greatest running backs in the history of the NFL, but he also played lacrosse and  basketball at Syracuse. He was an All-American lacrosse player at the best program in the country, and there are people who will tell you he was better at lacrosse than he was at football.

Last edited by artie_fufkin (1/11/2012 10:11 am)

I dont understand the love for Jackson.  Of course I am just looking at stats.  I understand he could have been a good football players but what he ended up with is a few very unimpressive years.  The guy never played in more then 11 games in a season.  Almost had a 1000 yard rushing season and never scored more the 5 TD in a season. 

Brain Jordan was also an all star baseball player who put up a much longer and better career.  He had just as brief NFL career and did so well in the role that he played. 

As I stated I would still give the crown to "prime time".  To be a dual sport player you have to play two and he kept a career in both sports the longest.

I wouldnt call a career .711 OPS as a bad baseball player.  Plus Sanders had 186 SB.  I give him alot of credit for being involved in both sport at the same time for so long.  You see guys who committ all there time to baseball and can hit for a .263 average. 

IDK I cant really pick one.  I guess I lean away from Jackson because I never saw him.  Him getting injuried doesnt strike me as a crime like it does some.  Alot of good players get injured early in there careers and never make it.  Looking at Jackson's baseball stats it looks like he struck out like Adam Dunn and walked like Ryan Theriot.  Speaking of The-Riot he had a higher OPB then Jackson.  To me Jackson looks like a cool fad that everyone bought into.  In the grand sceme of things he was just an interesting story that flamed out.  Kind of like the 2008 version of Rick Ankiel.

Last edited by APRTW (1/11/2012 12:00 pm)

forsberg_us wrote:

Artie, I can't believe you didn't mention Gibson who was a good enough basketball player to receive an invite to join the Harlem Globetrotters.

He probably deserves mention, but even though the Globetrotters were a little more serious in Gibby's era, I've never really considered them to be a real basketball team.
Speaking of guys who played for the Globetrotters, Wilt Chamberlain also played pro volleyball at some level. I'm guessing being 7'2" and an ability to jump to the rafters may have had something to do with his success in that sport.

"Him getting injuried doesnt strike me as a crime like it does some."

The Raiders were killing the Bengals in a playoff game, mostly because Jackson was running all over them. They were just killing the clock, and he got tackled from behind kind of awkwardly. He limps off the field holding his son's hand, and you figure he'll be back for next week's AFC title game against Buffalo. It turns out the ball of his hip came out of its socket, and the bone died because of the loss of blood flow. Three days later, the Raiders announce his football career is over and they get killed by the Bills, 51-3.

I dont know that you can prove any one of them better then the other.  All were pretty awesome to do what they did.  Interesting topic I thought.  I wish I could have seen Jackson play.  Maybe that would have made up my mind.  there likely wont be another due to contracts preventing players from double dipping.

It's a fun topic, and entirely subjective.  No one's opinion is wrong--it's just an opinion.

I will say one other thing about Jackson though--the one thing that always struck me was that when you looked at him, you knew you were looking at a football player.  Jackson was something like 6'2, 235 of solid muscle.  Sanders was a cornerback and didn't really look that different from most baseball players.  Keep in mind this was in the era of tighter, stretchier polyester uniforms, rather than the baggy stuff they wear today.  About the only other baseball player who looked anything like Jackson was Canseco, and we now know that Canseco had a lot of help to get to that size.

My guess is there was more than one American League catcher that had nightmares of Bo Jackson rounding 3rd headed for a close play at home plate.

"The three best running backs I've ever seen are Jackson, Eric Dickerson and Marcus Dupree."

IMO, the Marcus Dupree story was the best of the ESPN 30 for 30 stories.  That guy was absolutely amazing.

The "Mississippi Burning" link was really interesting.  Crazy that Dupree has to seek job assistance from a guy who 30 years earlier handed over a group of civil rights workers to the Klan.

forsberg_us wrote:

"The three best running backs I've ever seen are Jackson, Eric Dickerson and Marcus Dupree."

IMO, the Marcus Dupree story was the best of the ESPN 30 for 30 stories.  That guy was absolutely amazing.

The "Mississippi Burning" link was really interesting.  Crazy that Dupree has to seek job assistance from a guy who 30 years earlier handed over a group of civil rights workers to the Klan.

I'd have to think about that for a few minutes, but it's right up there. My favorite part was when they're talking with Akers about Dupree's recruitment, and the interviewer asks Akers if Dupree's uncle influenced him to attend Oklahoma. "There's always an uncle, isn't there?"

"There's always an uncle, isn't there?"

Always.  But in the case of Dupree, Uncle Curly was less of a problem than Rev. Ken.

There probably ought to be some mention in this thread of Dave Winfield, who was drafted by four teams in three sports. Winfield may have been one of the best pitchers in the history of college baseball. He led Minnesota (not exactly a traditional powerhouse these days) to the CWS in 1973, and threw 17 shutout innings before USC finally scored on him in the national semifinal.

I second that on Sanders.  Best Running back I have watched.  Even better when you look a tthe shitty teams he was on.