January 13, 1991: Bo Jackson Is Injured

January 13, 1991: The Los Angeles Raiders beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 20-10, in an AFC Divisional Playoff at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But this game goes down in history for an unfortunate reason: Bo Jackson is injured, and never plays football again.

Vincent Edward Jackson, nicknamed Bo, born on November 30, 1962, outside Birmingham in Bessemer, Alabama, won the Heisman Trophy as a running back at Auburn University in 1984. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers chose him as the 1st pick in the 1986 NFL Draft, but insisted that he quit playing professional baseball. He chose not to sign with them, and their draft rights lapsed.

From 1986 to 1990, he played the outfield for the Kansas City Royals, making a little less money per year than the Bucs were offering him, hitting long home runs and making great catches. The highlight of his career came when he led off for the American League in the 1989 All-Star Game, and blasted a 475-foot home run to straightaway center field.

Bo was drafted again in 1987, this time by the Raiders, whose owner, Al Davis, had no problem with him trying to play both sports. At that point, 60 men had played in both Major League Baseball and the National Football League (or the 1960s American Football League). Among them: Football legends Jim Thorpe, George Halas, Paddy Driscoll, Ernie Nevers, Red Badgro, Ace Parker and 1950 Heisman Trophy winner Vic Janowicz; and future Brooklyn Dodger manager Charlie Dressen.

But none had played both since the 1960s, and none had pulled both off in the same calendar year since Janowicz played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Washington Redskins in 1954. Davis was willing to let Bo try it. It worked: He rushed for 545 yards in 1987, including 221 against the Seattle Seahawks in a spectacular performance on ABC Monday Night Football; 580 yards in 1988; 950 in 1989, making the 1990 Pro Bowl; and 698 in 1990, for a total of 2,782 yards. He had also caught 40 passes for 352 yards. He had scored 16 touchdowns rushing and 2 receiving.

In 1989, Nike launched its "Bo Knows" advertising campaign, featuring other athletes who had signed with them. Watching him take batting practice in his Royals uniform, Kirk Gibson, coming off his World Series heroics with the Los Angeles Dodgers, said, "Bo knows baseball." Watching him run in his Raiders uniform, Jim Everett, All-Pro quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, said, "Bo knows football." No surprise there: We knew he knew both of those sports.

But then, he starts dunking in a gym, and Michael Jordan -- not yet having won an NBA Championship with the Chicago Bulls, and arguably a less famous athlete than Bo at that point, and he certainly turned out to be not nearly as good a baseball player -- said, "Bo knows basketball, too." Then he's on a tennis court, and John McEnroe says, with a shocked look, "Bo knows tennis?" Then he's running, and marathoner Joan Benoit says, "Bo knows running."

Then, in a segment that proved controversial, especially in Kansas City -- where the NFL's Chiefs had long considered the Raiders to be their arch-rivals, and still do -- he seems to be playing hockey, wearing a Los Angeles Kings uniform, checking a player wearing a jersey with "KC" on it into the boards. As a safety precaution, he wasn't actually on skates or ice: He had Nike sneakers on a regular floor made up to look like a hockey rink. And Wayne Gretzky, actually wearing a Kings uniform complete with skates, skates up to the camera, and simply says, "No."

Then he's riding a bicycle, and 3 women, never identified (presumably, they had competed for America in the 1988 Olympics), said, "Bo knows cycling." Then he's in a gym, and, at famed Muscle Beach in the Los Angeles suburb of Venice, 5 solidly muscled guys (one of them looks like Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno) say, "Bo knows weights."

All this time, rock and roll pioneer Bo Diddley has been cranking out a tune on one of his trademark homemade guitars. Diddley is shown laughing at Gretzky's line. Finally, Jackson stands alongside Diddley, and proves that he can't play guitar. Diddley says, "Bo, you don't know Diddley!"

It stands alongside Mean Joe Greene's 1979 Coke ad as maybe the best sports-related commercial ever, better than any other with Jordan in it. (A sequel ad said, "Six months later... " and showed that Jackson had learned guitar, and that the rocker had to admit, "Bo, you do know Diddley.")

It took until his 4th season, 1990, for the Raiders to make the Playoffs, and they beat the Bengals in the Divisional Round. But in the 3rd quarter, having already rushed for 77 yards, he was tackled by Kevin Walker. It wasn't a dirty play, and no penalty was called. It would have been routine, but Bo sustained an dislocation of his left hip, and had to leave the game. Without him, the Raiders got clobbered by the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship Game.

A later examination showed that Bo had avascular necrosis, and had lost all of the cartilage supporting the joint. His football career was over, and the Royals cut him before Spring Training. He signed with the Chicago White Sox, and played 23 games, but his batting average dropped from .272 the season before to .225.

On April 4, 1992, Bo Jackson had hip replacement surgery. He missed the entire 1992 season. He rehabbed like crazy, and Nike made a commercial showing him doing so, narrated by comedian Denis Leary. (He probably claimed credit for writing it.) At one point, as a result of bad editing, Leary can be heard to say, "In fact, he's in the pool, wearing the shoes."

In 1993, in his 1st game back with the White Sox, he hit a home run. He hit 16 home runs that year, but was only able to play 85 games, and batted .232. His contract ran out. After 1 more season with the team then known as the California Angels, playing just 75 games, batting .279 with 13 homers, he was done.

Overall, he batted .250, with an OPS+ of 112 and 141 home runs. He was averaging 27 homers a year for the Royals, but was 29 when he got hurt. If he hadn't, even if he'd stopped playing football to save the wear and tear on his body, and stayed relatively healthy, and kept averaging 27 a year until he was, say, 35, and then another 15 or so until turning 40, he still would've had only about 340 to 350.

In other words, he would have been a "cult figure" in baseball, among guys who hit a lot of home runs, some of them very long, but not quite Hallworthy. In a category with guys like Ted Kluszewski, Rocky Colavito, Norm Cash, Frank Howard, Dick Allen, Dave Kingman, Darryl Strawberry and Cecil Fielder. His level wouldn't have been with Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron. Or even with other members of the 500 Home Run Club, like Reggie Jackson (no relation) or Willie McCovey.

And if he'd stuck with football, and hadn't gotten hurt? He had 2,782 yards at the time of his injury. That's 696 yards per year. Running backs don't last that long. And he never topped 1,000 yards, which used to be the benchmark for a great running back.

Suppose he kept playing until 1997, after turning 35, and averaged another 500 yards a year. That would put him at over 6,000 career rushing yards. The Raiders only made the Playoffs twice more over that stretch, including their 1995 move back to Oakland, and didn't reach the AFC Championship Game. If they had gotten past the Chiefs and then the Bills in 1991, or the Bills and then the Chiefs in 1993, would they then have won a Super Bowl or 2? Would it have mattered as to Bo's Hall of Fame candidacy in that sport?

Honestly, I don't think he would have made it to Cooperstown or Canton. Certainly, he wouldn't have made it to both. The potential for a career-ending, or at least career-curtailing, injury was too great, even if it hadn't happened when it did.

Since Bo Jackson, 5 players have played in both MLB and the NFL, making for a total of 67: Matt Kinzer, Deion Sanders, D.J. Dozier, Brian Jordan, Chad Hutchinson and Drew Henson, who achieved both in 2004, making him the last to do so.

Sanders became the only man ever to play in both a World Series and a Super Bowl. However, Jackson remains the only player ever to appear in both the MLB All-Star Game and the NFL Pro Bowl, both for the 1989 season.

Of the other 66, only 15, including Thorpe, Halas, Driscoll, Nevers, Badgro, Parker, Sanders and Dozier, played more games in the NFL than Jackson's 38. And only 2, Charlie Berry in the 1920s and '30s and Brian Jordan in the 1990s and 2000s, played more games in MLB than Jackson's 694.

In a 2017 interview with USA Today, Bo Jackson said he never would have played football if he had known the health risks associated with it:

I wish I had known about all of those head injuries, but no one knew that. And the people that did know that, they wouldn’t tell anybody. The game has gotten so violent, so rough. We’re so much more educated on this CTE stuff. There’s no way I would ever allow my kids to play football today.

Bo knows injuries. What happened to his sports career was a great disappointment. But, as we have seen with others, there is a big difference between a disappointment and a tragedy. In comparison to some players, including some fellow legends, he was lucky.

*

January 13, 1991 was a Sunday. Also that day, on the NFC side of the Playoffs, the New York Giants beat the Chicago Bears, 31-3 at Giants Stadium, a small measure of revenge for the 21-0 humiliation they froze through at the Bears' hands at Soldier Field 5 years earlier. The Giants went on to win the Super Bowl.

So as not to get clobbered by the NFL Playoffs in the TV ratings, the NBA scheduled only 2 games for that day:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Portland Trail Blazers, 116-103 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands. Former Net Buck Williams scored 24 against his former team. Mookie Blaylock led the Nets with 23. Playing at the same time as the Giants, in the same sports complex (the parking and traffic situation must have been horrendous), only 12,169 came to the Meadowlands to watch the Nets.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Houston Rockets, 116-97 at the Forum in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California. Hakeem Olajuwon was injured, and didn't play for the Rockets. Magic Johnson did play for the Lakers, and scored 17. Vlade Divac scored 22 to lead them. Despite playing at the same time as the Raiders, just 6 miles away, the Lakers got a sellout, 17,164.

There were 6 NHL games played that day:

* The New York Rangers beat the Hartford Whalers, 4-3 at Madison Square Garden. The Rags blew a 3-0 lead, but Brian Leetch scored the winner with 7:07 left in regulation.

* The New York Islanders beat the Quebec Nordiques, 4-3 at the Colisée de Québec in Quebec City. The Isles came from 3-1 down by scoring 3 goals in the last 5:40, with Derek King netting the winner with 1:26 to go.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-3 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Minnesota North Stars, 5-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Calgary Flames, 4-3 at the Winnipeg Arena.