Bo Jackson broke bats over his head and knees and ran up walls with ease. He threw runners out at home from the warning track and hit booming home runs that electrified baseball fans everywhere.
But it turns out that Jakson was the one who felt awestruck for the five years he played for the Kansas City Royals. Jackson, who was elected to the Royals Hall of Fame on Wednesday, said that some of his fondest baseball memories was playing alongside an All-Star cast of teammates.
“The baseball part was easy,” said Jackson, who will be inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame on June 29 before their game against Cleveland. “It’s just that I was able to come into a great organization and do the things that I did, and the Royals allowed me to blossom. I have become an emotional person now and just sitting back and looking at the privilege it was to play with all these famous people.
“Everybody would ask me what it’s like to be on the same team with Frank White, George Brett, Willie Wilson, Bret Saberhagen, Dan Quisenberry, Dennis Leonard. They’d ask those questions and I’d be like, ‘Hey, those guys are my teammates,’ and I was in awe with everybody that I played with. It’s those type of things that I think about when I think about my days with the Royals.”
Jackson played with the Royals from 1986-90 and hit .250 with 109 home runs, 313 RBIs and 81 steals. He was MVP of the 1989 All-Star Game when he hit a leadoff home run in the first inning.
Jackson was a two-sport star at Auburn and won the 1985 Heisman Trophy. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Jackson with the No. 1 pick in the 1986 NFL Draft, but Jackson elected not to play for them and instead opted for baseball as the Royals also selected him in the fourth round of the 1986 draft.
Longtime Royals scout Art Stewart was instrumental in Jackson becoming a Royal, and Jackson is still grateful.
“Everybody else saw a football player in me and thought there is no way that he’s going to come play for us, and Art saw something different,” Jackson said. “I don’t know what that was, but he saw something different.”
Jackson would eventually play pro football, playing for the Raiders from 1987-90. But a hip injury in a playoff game in January 1991 ended his football career and his baseball career was never the same.
Jackson played parts of two seasons with White Sox and one season with the Angels before retiring in 1994. Royals fans had long wondered if Jackson would ever be selected to the team’s Hall of Fame as his numbers have been surpassed by several players over the years. But numbers alone don’t capture Jackson’s legacy with the team. And now with one long-awaited call he’ll be immortalized as one of the best to wear a Royals uniform.
“I was floored when I heard about it,” Jackson said. “But the thing with me when I think about when I played with Kansas City, it’s not about the things that I did per se on the field, it’s the camaraderie. It’s the friendships, the relationships that I made for that time that I was there. And I still have close friendships and ties with most of the guys.”
