Bo Knows
In June of 1982 the New York Yankees used their second round pick, #50, overall to select a high school outfielder out of Alabama named Vincent Edward Jackson, eleven picks after Barry Bonds was selected and seven picks before the Reds took future Hall of Famer Barry Larkin.
Instead of signing with the Yankees, Vincent Jackson, better known as “Bo”, decided to take his talents to the University of Auburn to play football and baseball. Bo would splash onto the college scene as the lead running back for Auburn, and eventually go on to win the Heisman Trophy in 1985. That year he would again be drafted in the MLB draft, this time by the California Angels in the 20th round. Again Jackson would decline the offer so he could finish his college career and Heisman campaign.
Fast forward a year to 1986 and Bo is now drafted in 2 leagues. The Kansas City Royals select him in the 4th round while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected him First Overall in the 1986 NFL draft.
Bo would sign with the Royals and report to Double A Memphis, where he played 52 games as a member of the Memphis Chicks, the Royals AA Affiliate. Despite making it publicly known that he would not sign with Tampa Bay if drafted by them, the Bucs decided to roll the dice anyway. Bo was upset and believed Tampa Bay had duped him out of his senior year of baseball at Auburn due to an illegal team visit he made with Tampa Bay in which he was told by the Bucs that he was cleared by the NCAA. This would later turn out to be untrue, as Jackson was disqualified from playing the remainder of his final baseball season at Auburn for the “unofficial” visit to Tampa Bay.
Bo felt he had been swindled and was taking a hard stance that he would not play football as long as Tampa Bay selected him. Holding true to his word Bo refused to play football and began focusing solely on baseball for the Kansas City Royals.
In the spring of 1987 Bo made the Royals big league club and flashed as an outfielder in his rookie campaign. In 1988 he played full time for the Royals and established himself as one of the brightest young stars of the game. The NFL draft is coming around again in 1988 and with Bo making it clear he wanted to play baseball full time, the LA Raiders and rebel owner Al Davis took a chance on drafting Jackson in the NFL supplemental draft. At this point Bo had almost written off football, but when Al Davis made it clear that he was ok with Bo playing the full baseball season and then report to the Raiders in October after the baseball season was over, Bo changed his mind.
He was now the first legit two sport athlete to hit the scene. As his popularity and legend grew over the next couple years we saw Bo come into his own and show us what he was capable of. In 1989 he was selected as an MLB All-Star starter, and after leading off the bottom of the first inning with a monstrous home run he was named All-Star game MVP. Bo was also showing how dominant he could be on the football field leading the Raiders backfield, Usurping All-Pro Marcus Allen as their primary running back. By the fall of 1989 and into 1990 the Bo Knows Campaign was in full force and Bo was challenging Michael Jordan at the time for the world’s most popular athlete.
By 1990 there had already been plenty of iconic Bo Jackson cardboard for collectors to get their hands on. 1986 gave us his classic Topps Traded, while 87 Topps brought us his
“Future Stars” and 87 Donruss his “Rated Rookies”. His first football card would be in the 1988 Topps Football set. Even the inaugural 1989 Upper Deck card of Bo is a classic as well as his 89 Bowman.
But the card that started it all was the 1986 Donn Jennings Southern League All Star card. This card is part of a 25 card team set that includes the likes of greats such as Tom Glavine, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, and of course Bo Jackson. The card features Bo in a warmup toss stance and has a colorful design and border. Any scout that saw Bo play back then knew they were watching something special. The word that surrounded him the most was ‘potential”. Bo’s potential was as high as just about any athlete anyone had ever seen. Many scouts wrote “he’s the best overall athlete in the country today” in their reports and this was before Bo had ever even set foot on a professional playing field.
So in 1986 while the entire sports world was clamoring to acquire the services of one Vincent Edward Jackson, Bo would play 52 games in Memphis for the Chicks. These would be the only 52 games of his minor league career. Little did we know in 1986 when Bo was staring for the Chicks, what we would be in store for over the next few years. The 1986 Donn Jennings All-Star card gave us a small glimpse into the future and the “Star” Bo would soon become.
