KC Royals: Bo Jackson Ten Best Plays As A Royal (Video)
By John Viril
Bo Jackson’s best play’s as a Kansas City Royal player: 3. Bo Climbs The Wall In Baltimore: Because He Can And You Can’t
So, imagine for a second that you are Bo Jackson. You ooze more tools than any 10 major-league players. Nike has built an entire series of TV commercials around you being able to do anything.
Guys on their way to both the NFL and MLB Hall-of-Fame WISH they could do the stuff you do.
What do you do after making a running catch in centerfield?
Hey, here’s this green thingy in my way. I’ve run over Brian Bosworth. I’ve won the MVP at the All-Star game. I ran a 4.12 40-yard dash at the NFL combine. Little kids are running around in shoes named after me.
I know! Let’s play spiderman!
Gosh, it’s so easy, why doesn’t everybody do it? This baseball thing is a snap.
The above sounds like what you do as a kid in a park, or in your backyard, playing games of make believe. For Bo Jackson, he did this in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium.
Except, if you’re Bo Jackson you get to keep playing make believe when you’re 27 years old. And, when you tell Mom and Dad about what you’ve achieved, you’ve got the video to back it up.
Bo Jackson, of course, wasn’t making it up.
And that, boys and girls, is why Bo was a legend. He approached the game with a child-like glee because major-league parks and NFL stadiums simply weren’t big enough to contain his talents. The feats required to achieve on the big league stage were so easily within reach, he had the energy to spend looking for stunts.
And he did them. On the first try.
I mean, do you really practice running up the wall to expend your momentum? Of course not. Maybe a showboat would. But, for Bo Jackson, he’d clearly try this stuff on the spur of the moment. Because it was fun.
Remember, this was BEFORE movie CGI made impossible feats seem humdrum. Bo Jackson was the closest most people ever came to visualizing Superman’s comic book feats.
Where is that in sports?
I miss it.
Next: September 14, 1986