Top NYY Could-Have-Beens: NFL stars who passed on NY

12/26/2024 12:30 PM

John Elway and Deion Sanders both were drafted and spent at least some time in the organization.

As a fan, if you could be a star athlete in the NFL or MLB, the answer to me is clear: you want to be a baseball player.

• Less wear and tear—including your head—on your body later in life.
• Way more gamedays, which is the fun part of the job, and more time to prove yourself.
• In this era, you're rich but not famous to the point where it's a hindrance in public.

Looking from the outside, being a baseball player may have some advantages, but the calculation was different for Yankees draftees Deion Sanders and John Elway. Their decision to focus on football was the right call both at the time and looking back now. In football, both were All-Americans who became top-five NFL Draft selections. With baseball, both were seen as legitimate prospects by the Yankees, and if they had focused their entire energy, perhaps they could have been quality MLB players. They were bursting with talent, and yet they weren't quite the same can't-miss talents they were in football.

John Elway

George Steinbrenner's hubris—and God love him for it—is demonstrated by his belief that the Yankees could convince John Elway to pick grinding it out in the minor leagues for the chance to become a Yankees outfielder in lieu of being the top-picked NFL quarterback.

The Yankees selected the Stanford sophomore football star with their first draft pick in the second round, No. 52 overall, in the 1981 MLB Draft. He was picked six spots ahead of first-ballot Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who was also a two-sport athlete at San Diego State with basketball. Incidentally, two future Yankees greats of the late '90s, David Cone and Paul O'Neill, were taken in rounds three and four, respectively, in that draft.

Years in Yankees Organization: 1981-83 (but just one active season, 1982)

How They Left: Signed a five-year deal with the Denver Broncos, who acquired him by trade after a five-day standoff with his drafted team, the Baltimore Colts

Career MLBYankees Statistics: Never played a Major League game (for the Yankees or anyone)

The Yankees signed Elway to a contract that September, permitting him to finish out his next two seasons with Stanford football. The plan was for him to play for a minor-league club—which ended up being the Short-Season-A Oneonta Yankees—during the summer between his junior and senior years, as NCAA eligibility allowed him to be a professional in a different sport.

At the end of his senior year, his dad, Jack Elway, said John would decide whether to join the Yankees organization or play quarterback in the NFL. Even though he wasn't the definite future No. 1 pick at the time he signed the contract during his junior season (Dan Marino and Jim Kelly were among the six quarterbacks selected in the first round of the strong '83 draft class), it was clear he would be a high pick. So the Yankees would have their work cut out for them to get him to stick with baseball.

During his lone summer playing professional baseball, Elway finished with a strong slash line of .318/.432/.464 over 42 games, knocking six doubles, two triples, and four homers while stealing 13 bases in 16 attempts. Granted, he was an older 22-year-old for Short-Season A. To his credit, however, it showed his natural gifts, given that he had not played competitive baseball in over a year, as he did not play college baseball his junior (or senior) year. Baseball America thought enough of Elway to rank him as the Yankees' No. 1 prospect, just ahead of much more experienced speedster Otis Nixon.

On April 26, 1983, however, Elway was taken first overall by the Baltimore Colts in the NFL Draft. It would have been a foregone conclusion heading into the evening that Elway would be picked first if not for his unwillingness to play for Baltimore, citing concerns about the direction of the franchise, and him being able to do something about it given his unique leverage with the prestigious Yankees. Even with the threat of playing baseball, the Colts called him on the bluff and took him. Elway and his father held a press conference that night with the statement, "As I stand here now, it's going to be baseball."

According to multiple baseball scouts that talked to the New York Times in April 1983, the consensus from MLB scouts was that they could see Elway being a starting player, but it would probably take a few years to earn the call-up. They also thought that this would be an expensive development project because they would have to pay him in the neighborhood of what he would be making in the NFL.

Oneonta's manager at the time, 14-year MLB veteran Ken Berry, was blown away by his arm (of course) and saw him turning into a contributing MLB player, but perhaps not a star. He remembers watching some Stanford football games that fall of 1982, where Elway finished the season second in the Heisman voting to Herschel Walker: "It was pretty easy to see that football should be his sport," said Berry.

Despite the tricky road ahead, Yankees did what they could to get Elway to pick baseball. They gave him a $140,000 draft bonus that was more than the first-overall pick Mike Moore received that year. Right before the 1983 NFL Draft, Elway visited the Yankees, and they planned to expedite his development process to get him to the majors quickly. But once the Colts gave in, five days after draft day, and traded him to the Denver Broncos, the Yankees' hopes were washed away. Elway was off to the Mile High City, never again to step foot on a minor-league diamond.

A couple months ago, Topps* promoted their John Elway 1981 Yankees card as part of their 2025 Bowman Draft Baseball Collection with an ad that featured Stephen A. Smith, Larry David—reprising his Steinbrenner character—and Elway:

*Also, how does a baseball card company have the budget for this in 2024?

What this commercial nailed is Steinbrenner's love of Elway as an ideal Yankees star. "He was the all-American kid with a big smile, like a modern-day Frank Merriwell or Jack Armstrong, one of the old sports heroes," Steinbrenner told reporter Rich Cimini in January 1998. "That appealed to me. He would've been a hero in New York."

Steinbrenner may have embellished his outlook as a player. At the time, Steinbrenner said he was playing in Oneonta, "He will be a great outfielder for me, one in the great Yankee tradition of Mantle, Maris, DiMaggio, and all the others… including Reggie," he said. He knew that he was looking at a star.

As The Boss tells us, he fell in love with Elway after they drafted him when he visited the minor-league complex for a week while on spring break. Elway stepped to the batting cage, asked to lay down a bunt, and it was perfect. Then came an opposite-field liner and a hit behind the runner, both executed perfectly. After that, as a joke, they asked him to hit a home run. Elway then belted a 370-foot blast over the right-field wall. "Right then," Steinbrenner recalled, "I knew."

Elway reflected on his memorable summer playing baseball in Upstate New York in a Yankees Magazine article. He told the outlet in 2011 that he thought about what could have been if he had stuck it out with the Yankees:

"I think about that all of the time ... Even though my football career turned out the way it did, to be dead honest with you, if there is one thing I would have liked to have done, it would have been to be a Yankee. I look at the legacy that Mr. Steinbrenner has left there, which is one in which they do everything they can to win baseball games and championships, and I am in awe. I really don't think about what it would have been like to play baseball. I think about what it would have been like to have played for the Yankees.

Bo Jackson

As an extended aside, the thrill of drafting Elway in 1981 extended into the next year, when the Yanks bid for another gridiron standout. They made Bo Jackson the 50th overall pick of the 1982 MLB Draft, taking him out of McAdory High School in Alabama after a season in which he tied a national high school record with 20 homers in just 25 games. It's always too tempting to play this game since talent varies so widely at that age and you never know who will truly hit, but the Reds grabbed future Reds Hall of Famer Barry Larkin just one pick later.

They got to personally glimpse the magic of Bo, too, as recounted in the 30 for 30 documentary "You Don't Know Bo."

"His high school baseball coach, Terry Brasseale, told of the day a Yankees scout showed up to practice. Brasseale got into the batting cage with Bo, who slapped the first pitch to the corner of the cage and caved the cage in."

Alas, the multi-sport wasn't destined to be a Yankee. Bo turned down a $250,000 bonus offer from Steinbrenner, so we can't officially count him in this series beyond this little entr'acte.

Bo went on to star at Auburn, and after also turning down the Angels in the '85 draft, he accepted the Royals' offer in the fourth round of '86 since he refused to play for the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Jackson's sole commitment to baseball didn't last, as the Los Angeles Raiders agreed to let him play both sports in '87. Although the magic of Bo was fleeting due to injury, his best day in the majors came at Yankee Stadium ... at the expense of the then-hapless Yanks. More on that in a moment.

Deion Sanders

The Yankees did not make the same draft investment for Florida State star Deion Sanders, taking him in the 30th round of the 1988 MLB Draft. However, the return on investment for the usual throwaway pick was great. His availability so late in the draft was understandable; he was not even playing college baseball during that season to focus on football. The two-time All-American cornerback would be taken No. 5 overall by the Atlanta Falcons, but Sanders decided that he would try to juggle to professional sports.

Years in Yankees Organization: 1988-90

How They Left: Released after a contract impasse during his second MLB season

Career MLB Yankees Statistics: 71 games, 199 PA, .178/.247/.306, 32 H, 5 HR, 31 R, 16 RBI, 9 SB, 55 OPS+, -0.1 rWAR

Career MLB Statistics: 9 seasons, 558 games, 2,325 PA, .262/.319/.392, 558 H, 39 HR, 308 R, 168 RBI, SB, 89 OPS+, 186 SB, 5.5 rWAR,

Sanders was fast-tracked through the minors. In 1989, as a 21-year-old with less than a full season of experience in the minor leagues, he was called up to the majors. He had been doing solidly in the minors, but the team definitely wanted to speed up the process to keep baseball in his plans. Prior to the start of '89, Baseball America had ranked him second-best in the Yankees' farm system, trailing only the highly-touted Hensley Meulens, but some more seasoning was likely warranted.

"You sprinkle a crowd around me," Sanders said prior to his debut, according to The New York Times. "And that's what I like. Then, you'll see what I can do."

Deion had a memorable debut, cutting down a baserunner, knocking in a run, and picking up his first MLB hit to start a rally in the seventh:

Sanders' first stint in the bigs, which was just 14 games, was fairly underwhelming with a .684 OPS, but at the same time, it was impressive given how raw Sanders was when he entered the Yankees' organization.

For the famously confident star, the game of baseball kept Sanders' ego in check. He refused to autograph baseballs as "Prime Time." "Because I'm not Prime Time in baseball," he told Sports Illustrated in 1989. "One guy just can't dominate over there unless it's my man, Rickey [Henderson, with whom Sanders is often compared as a ballplayer]. But you can't jump around and get excited and go crazy in baseball. Nobody ever masters that game."

In that interview, he also made clear his relationship status with baseball and the Yankees: "I'm married to football, baseball is my girlfriend."

Like Elway, Sanders also used the Yankees as leverage with his football team, the Atlanta Falcons, but in early September, he inked a four-year contract for $4.4 million, ending his first season with the Yankees a month early. The signing came in the middle of a game while the Yankees were in Seattle. He jetted off mid-game to catch a flight. "I'm very excited," Sanders said as he left, "but I'm also very disappointed to be leaving the Yankees at this moment."

"He said that he liked it here," Yankees manager Bucky Dent said after the game, "but with the kind of money he's going to get, it's tough to turn down. He did improve as a baseball player. He got better."

Sanders did decide to return for a second season with the Yankees in 1990, officially becoming a two-sport professional athlete. Once again, Baseball America thought highly of him, as he was ranked No. 53 on their preseason list of the league's Top 100 prospects. In an otherwise miserable season for both Sanders and the team, there was an epic matchup against the Royals. Deion matched up against the aforementioned Bo Jackson, with whom he had a years-long feud through the press.

Game 2 of the series on July 17th lived up to the anticipation of the two stars in the Bronx: Jackson homered three times, and Sanders matched that with a thrilling inside-the-park homer after a poorly executed diving attempt by Jackson. As Bo injured himself, Deion punctuated his effort with Prime Time flying head-first to home plate.

That July, Steinbrenner reportedly offered Sanders $2 million for the final two months of 1990 and the 1991 season with the stipulation that he would only play baseball for the entire season. Yankees withdrew that contract offer in accordance with Steinbrenner getting banned from baseball on July 30th of that year.

It was abruptly announced that Sanders would separate from the team at the end of July, with a .158 batting average in 57 games. There was pressure for the organization keep him in the majors and pay him based on his NFL talents. They placed him on waivers at the end of September, and he landed with the Braves, making his two-sport track more feasible while also playing for the nearby Falcons.

Deion's career year came two years later for Atlanta, in the 1992 season, when he compiled a 3.2 rWAR season, hit a .304 average, and posted an .841 OPS in 97 games. He capped his season with a great World Series performance in the team's losing effort, going 8-for-15, including five stolen bases.

Oddly enough, for all the NFL players who could have potentially had great major league careers, Sanders stands out. He somewhat proved himself as a MLB player across a nine-year, off-and-on career that ended in 2001, excelling at times despite baseball admittedly not being his primary focus. It makes you wonder even more what would have happened if he just focused on being a speedster outfielder for those '90s teams.

Buck Showalter, who was a member of the Yankees' coaching staff while in 1990, wonders what could have been if Sanders had focused on baseball: "I always think about what he could have been if he decided to play baseball all the time. The sky would have been the limit. There wasn't anything he couldn't do."

Sources

Chass, Murray. "Baseball; Deion Sanders Placed on Waivers by Yanks." New York Times, September 25, 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/25/sports/baseball-deion-sanders-placed-on-waivers-by-yanks.html.

Chass, Murray. "Sanders a Yankee Hit Intercepted by Falcons." New York Times, September 7, 1989. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/07/sports/sanders-a-yankee-hit-intercepted-by-falcons.html.

Chass, Murray. "Sanders Dives into Prime Time as He Makes Yankee Debut." New York Times, June 1, 1989. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/01/sports/sanders-dives-into-prime-time-as-he-makes-yankee-debut.html.

Chass, Murray. "Yanks Sign Elway," The New York Times, September 21, 1981, https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/21/sports/yanks-sign-elway.html.

Cimini, Rich. "An Old Conversation with The Boss About John Elway," ESPN, January 28, 2010, https://www.espn.com/blog/new-york/jets/post/_/id/670/an-old-conversation-with-the-boss-about-john-elway.

Flatter, Ron. "Bo knows stardom and disappointment," ESPN, September 11, 2000, https://www.espn.com/classic/jackson_bo.html.

Hill, Benjamin. "Before the Broncos, Elway Eyed the Bronx," MiLB.com, November 20, 2014, https://www.milb.com/news/before-the-broncos-elway-eyed-the-bronx-112011776.

Jenkins, Lee. "When Bo Met Deion: Two Transcendent Stars, a Feud, and a Night at Yankee Stadium." New York Times, July 15, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/1921617/2020/07/15/when-bo-met-deion-two-transcendent-stars-a-feud-and-a-night-at-yankee-stadium/.

Santasiere, Alfred III. "The Story of John Elway, the Outfielder," MLB Blogs, last modified January 28, 2021, https://yankees.mlblogs.com/the-story-of-john-elway-the-outfielder-d7306f7bac45.

Serby, Steve. "Deion Sanders Had Starring Role in Yankees Clown Show." New York Post, June 8, 2020. https://nypost.com/2020/06/08/deion-sanders-had-starring-role-in-yankees-clown-show/.

Schoenfield, David. "When John Elway Was Drafted Ahead of Tony Gwynn," ESPN SweetSpot Blog, June 6, 2013, https://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/70174/when-john-elway-was-drafted-ahead-of-tony-gwynn.

Smith, Gary. "They Don't Pay Nobody to Be Humble." Sports Illustrated Vault, November 13, 1989. https://vault.si.com/vault/1989/11/13/they-dont-pay-nobody-to-be-humble-so-says-deion-sanders-the-defensive-back-who-has-lit-up-the-atlanta-falcons-with-his-gold-chains-and-electric-style-of-play-but-there-is-more-than-glitter-to-prime-time.

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