Deion Sanders 1992 Score

 Two weeks ago, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

When he first broke into the Major Leagues, Deion Sanders didn't appear to fit in with baseball culture. This is not a criticism of Sanders, baseball culture is often closed-minded, exclusionary, overly conservative and administered by a collection of red asses who rule on whether players break the hallowed and oftentimes hypocritical "unwritten rules of baseball". 

This "respect the love of the game" crap isn't a new thing. The unwritten rules of baseball have always performative bullshit that has made the game unpopular with the younger generations going all the way back to the 70s. 

Every once in awhile a player comes up, usually a minority, who has a little flash in his game. Smiles a little too much. Takes a bit more time to get out of the batter's box when he hits a homerun. Is a little too demonstrative when he strikes out a key batter in a big situation. The Lords of the Game don't like that stuff, young players need to know their place. They need to shut up and watch how these old bastards play. 

Deion Sanders wasn't going to deal with that crap. He didn't need to deal with that crap because he had a second job that afforded him a lot more money and notoriety. After dominating the NCAA as a Florida State Seminole on the gridiron, he was a starting cornerback for the Atlanta Falcons and he had two nicknames: Prime Time and Neon Deion. He also played a little baseball for FSU and if Bo Jackson can play two sports, why couldn't Deion Sanders?

Baseball players like their routines and Sanders was no different. Before Wade Boggs would step into the batters' box, he'd draw the Hebrew symbol for luck, Chai (it looks like the Greek character Pi), in the dirt with the barrel of his bat. Then he'd get in the box and bang out a double. Sanders had his drawing routine too, only he didn't draw a Chai (Deion didn't need luck) he'd draw a dollar sign in the dirt. 

This drove the old heads in baseball insane. Who does this young punk think he is? He's a Yankee! Why doesn't he respect the game like the Babe did (who'd often play very hung over)? Or Joe D. (who was a colossal prick)? Or Mickey Mantle (another drunk)? Who was this Neon Deion Prime Time character and why was he fucking with baseball and how it's meant to be played?

Former Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk was in his customary spot behind the dish in 1990 when Sanders strolled to the plate against the White Sox. He drew his dollar sign and settled into the box. Fisk called time, went to where the dollar sign was and brushed it away during his first at bat. In his second AB, Sanders did the same thing and then supposedly said*, "the days of slavery are over." The two started jawing back and forth, the benches emptied, no punches were thrown but the game's gatekeeper (Fisk had been in the league since 1969 and was probably the game's oldest player--Sanders was one year younger than Fisk's MLB career at that point) made his point: "Don't fuck with the game."

 * Sanders denies saying this. 

Tons of ink was spilled over this argument with many sportswriters taking Fisk's side (surprise, sur-fucking-prise), Sanders was public enemy number one with conservatives and since he never seemed to have time for sportswriters, they sharpened their knives and were looking to feast. It didn't help that Sanders sorta sucked for the Yanks and unlike Jackson, when NFL Training Camp opened in the summer, Sanders left the baseball world. 

He often said that "Football was his wife and baseball was his girlfriend" which, again, didn't sit too well with early 90s baseball writers who believe that a late season clash between the Mariners and Angels was an ode to the trepidation of summer mixed with a navel gazing that only a Boomer can provide. Guys who like football better--especially guys who like football and rap--need not apply. 

Sanders was released by New York at the end of the 90 season, the Bombers were so bad during this time and many people felt that the only reason Sanders was on the team was because they needed publicity. In the winter of 1991, he signed with the Braves and appeared to learn to be a better ballplayer in the Majors. His batting average still sucked but his OBP and slugging percentages rose his first year in Atlanta. He still took September in October off, but no one was really pissed because the Braves were good that year and he was still a bench player. 

The following year was probably Deion's best year in the Bigs as he lead the league in triples (14) and played well enough that he was added to post season roster. The girlfriend interfered a bit with his wife a bit during this season, but Sanders was the first person to play baseball during the week and football on Sundays. It was pretty wild, not even Bo did that. Braves manager Bobby Cox didn't love that, he was a red ass baseball dude of course, and felt that it was a "distraction" to the team. But what could he do? 

Deion was only warming up, that year the Braves played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the playoffs. Game 5 was set for Sunday night October 11 and Deion was planning to play. Only problem was the Falcons had a game against the Miami Dolphins that afternoon (1:00 pm) and he was planning to play that game too. After Atlanta's win on Saturday night, Deion flew from Pennsylvania to Georgia, got some sleep and then was at the stadium to play the Dolphins. 

After that game was over, he hired a helicopter to take him from Atlanta Fulton County Stadium to the airport where he jumped on a plane to get him to Pittsburgh. He showed up at 8:16 pm, which meant he wasn't going to be in the starting lineup. No problem, he was ready to play. The Braves lost 7-1 and Cox never put him in the game. Which was a complete bummer. Why wouldn't you put Deion in to get a rally going? But Cox wasn't having any of it and another red ass kills another fun time in baseball. 

Sanders played a few more seasons in Atlanta, was traded to Cincinnati, played a half year in San Francisco, retired from baseball for a few seasons and then came back to the Reds in 1997 and 2001. His baseball skills never matched up to his football skills, but he could still play. 

Unless you were former St. Louis Cardinals and CBS lead baseball color guy Tim McCarver, Sanders kind of chilled out. Apparently Sanders didn't like some of the stuff that McCarver was saying about him so after the Braves clinched a trip to the 1992 World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays (where Sanders was on fire), Deion dumped a whole bucket full of water on McCarver on live TV. McCarver was embarrassed, angry but the only thing he could say was, "You're a real man Sanders! A real man!" Which made me and a lot of wise ass baseball fans laugh--McCarver wasn't ever considered cool. 

But like I said, he chilled out. He no longer drew the dollar sign before he stepped into the batter's box. When he was with the Reds in 1997, MLB celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line*. Sanders wanted to honor Jackie by getting the Red's sleeves to be hemmed real short because that's how he thought that Jackie wore his sleeves. Jackie did, it just looked like he did in old pictures. But it was still a pretty cool tribute by Deion Sanders, who got the whole team to wear their sleeves like Jackie. 

* Baseball is really good at patting themselves on the back for "fixing" something that they broke decades prior. African Americans should have been playing in the Majors since baseball started, there's no reason why they shouldn't have been, only MLB was run by idiotic racists. 

Playing one professional sport is hard, playing two is almost impossible and playing two at the same time is bonkers-time crazy. I still can't believe that Sanders did it. In this era of specialization, I doubt that we'll ever see anything like this again--which is why Bobby Cox sucks so hard. But it was cool that people my age got to live through an era of athletes that might never be seen again. 

To quote Tim McCarver, "You're a real man Deion."

Deion Sanders 1989 Upper Deck

Sometime in the last year or so I received this card but I'm not sure if it was from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

To me, this doesn't even look like a baseball card. It looks like the photographer was at Atlanta Falcons practice and snapped a pic of Deion Sanders without his helmet. 

It was always strange to me that Deion Sanders debuted with the Yankees. Strange might not be the right word, because Yankee owner George Steinbrenner really wanted to sign Bo Jackson, so drafting and promoting Sanders wasn't a crazy idea. What was weird--to me at least--was how much Sanders wasn't a typical Yankee. He was cocky as hell, but so was Reggie Jackson and practically any other person that wears the interlocking NY, right? Yes, but Reggie and his ilk came with a pedigree and was considered a winner. 

But when Sanders came to the majors, he was full of jheri-curl and gold and that's about it. His flash was seen as part of new generation and something that a Yankee would never do. Before every plate appearance, he'd draw a dollar sign in the dirt; something that bugged Carlton Fisk so much that he got into a shoving match with the brash outfielder that set off a mini-revolution of old school versus new. 

A Yankee could be brash and cocky, arrogant and dismissive, but in order to be those things AND be a Yankee, it had to be done the right way. In other words, there had to be two things to back that attitude up: either that person had to be a part of a winning team or that person had to put up huge numbers. 

Sanders did neither. And, unlike Jackson, it was obvious that baseball wasn't his number one sport--he even said as much referring to football as his "wife" and baseball as his "girlfriend". I think that the Yankees were at some sort of a cross road with Sanders, which was to either agree with the player that there is a new, very untraditional Yankee way of doing things and that Yankee baseball wasn't the number one thing in everyone's life or let him go. Sanders didn't hit very well in his year and a half in the Bronx, so that--plus his request for $1 million--an easy decision for General Manager Gene Michaels, and the Yankees let Prime Time expire. 

Sanders found a baseball home in the same city where he played football: Atlanta. He famously did double duty with the Braves and Falcons, even (trying) to play football and baseball on the same day -- something that hadn't been done before. Sanders played a 1:00 game against the Dolphins in Miami then flew to Pittsburgh to help the Braves defeat the Pirates in the NLCS. Atlanta General Manager John Schurholz and manager Bobby Cox weren't crazy about this idea and kept Sanders on the bench for the game. 

Which kind of sucks, because that would have been a cool thing to see. But I understand their reluctance to allow Sanders to do this. 

Sanders always had sparks of brilliance on the baseball field, but it never translated into a consistent success that he had in football. Aside from the Braves and Yankees, he toiled with the Reds and Giants too. Never much of a power hitter, his speed was his main weapon. When that went, so did Sanders' career. 

Sanders lasted longer in the NFL than he did in Major League Baseball, playing with the 49ers, the Cowboys (winning a Super Bowl with each of those teams) before finishing up with the Redskins and the Ravens. 

I'm not sure whether it was because he was the second person to play two sports, but I never thought that Deion Sanders captured the American public's imagination like Bo Jackson*. And it's unfortunate for Sanders to be compared to Jackson because Bo was the first, though one could argue that Sanders was probably better. 

* Before he went to Florida State, Sanders was originally drafted by the Royals. Can you imagine Bo and Deion in the same outfield?

I think primarily because he was the first and also because of his raw power, both on the football field and baseball diamond, Bo was lauded more than Sanders. Sanders would scratch out a single, steal two bases and then score on a sac fly. Bo would hit a mammoth home run. They both count as one run, but one had better optics. Same thing in football, Bo would knock over Brian Bosworth and score a touchdown. As a defensive back, Sanders would hang back and then pounce on an unsuspecting receiver, snatch the ball away and score a touchdown. 

I guess Sanders made things look easy, effortless. Bo was a gifted athlete, and he was hurt a bunch, but that worked for him. People thought that Bo gave more to the games than Sanders did, that he somehow worked harder. I don't think that's fair. Yes, Sanders, whether he was Neon Deion or Prime Time, was way flashier than Vincent Jackson, but to do what he did, you can't convince me that he didn't work harder. 

In subsequent years, guys like Brian Jordan and DJ Dozier would try their hand at dual sports, but they never made the impact that Bo and Deion did. Jordan came close, but couldn't do it like these two did. And if you think about it, playing two sports at a professional level is insane. It's hard enough to be good at one thing, never mind two. Former Patriots receiver and Red Sox outfielder Greg McMurtry couldn't do it. Michael Jordan couldn't do. Tim Tebow is having a tough time.

So while Deion wasn't the first, he was still one of the best of all times. He also dumped a bucket of water on Tim McCarver's head, which was pretty great too.