30 for 30 running thread

My dad and Bo also received hips the same week, coincidentally. Both were in rehab at the same time, though dad never saw him, apparently.

Interestingly enough, when my dad had his hip checked in 2010, the doctors told him Bo had been through four or five hips, while my dad has never had his replaced since. Obviously, Bo was a little more active than my dad, who has cerebral palsy, but still.

 

HOF for football.

Not for baseball.

 

Would have been fun to have a screechfest on SJ about Bo's .309 career OBP.

 

.342 OBP in his final healthy year

Not great, but not awful.

 

Bo didn't know Trout

 

I, too, was looking forward to this 30 for 30. I had Bo Jackson poster on my wall in college. Just thought that guy was "the bomb" (or whatever vernacular we used back then). This doc seemed more for the crowd who never saw him play or knew nothing about him.

Surprised they couldn't find any ESPN shills to be in this doc. /bluefont

 

Problem is, he was 27 that year (1990), when he started looking like he was really figuring things out at the plate. So even at full health and focusing solely on baseball, he had maybe two or three seasons of .270/.340/.520 in him. Which makes him a perennial All-Star and even a top-5 MVP candidate some years. But once he got into his 30s, those numbers were bound to slip (even in the power-happy '90s.) And when he lost the legs/speed, which are the first to go ... it would have been ugly.

Bo was never, ever going to be a baseball HOFer. He had the tools but not the skills. He stood a much better chance at being a football HOFer, like Deion.

Full-time in football? I think he makes it to Canton, given good health. But then he's not BO!

That said, I'm glad he gave us what he did. He's the best all-around athlete of my lifetime, and I won't entertain any other arguments (yet). It's the closest any of us will ever get to knowing what it felt like to watch Jim Thorpe in his prime.

 

Noticed that right off. I had DVR'd it and was watching it Sunday afternoon. I backed it up and froze it to make sure I was seeing what I thought I saw. I assume they wanted him facing the other direction for some reason and did it in a very clumsy way rather than find a shot of him from that side. Pretty obvious and looked foolish.

Another question: They talked about when Bo signed with the Royals and had his press conference, then went out to take batting practice at Kauffman. I forget who said it, but one of the guys with the Royals said he hit the first pitch off the crown on the scoreboard. They had to mean the scoreboard itself, right, and not the literal crown at the top of the scoreboard? If he hit the crown itself, that's probably at the top of a 100-foot structure that is 500 feet from home plate to start with.

 

No love for Herschel Walker? He didn't excel at two pro sports or have the cultural impact Bo did, but he was no slouch. He was a track and field All-American at Georgia, held his own in the 1992 Winter Olympics, had a long and solid NFL career, and had the MMA thing when he was approaching 50.
Herschel also has the no-weights, clean-living training regimen that gives him a weird urban legend vibe. In a lot of ways, he seems like the prototype for Bo.
Hard to argue against Bo for the title of "best all-around athlete," but Herschel is certainly right there in the conversation with him.

 

I went to UGA. I adore Herschel and know his legend well.

He was, and is, a phenomenal physical and athletic specimen. But he is not Bo Jackson.

 

Walker fighting, and winning, in MMA pushes him a lot closer to Bo, but it's still Bo.

 

I am not going to assume he would have flatlined at 27.

My guess would be he would have grabbed an MVP around 30, or come very close, but not in the MLB HOF.

Close Canton down if he plays 3-4 more years at that level and does not get in. Hobby or not.