Bo, Deion, awesome African-American baseball, and why Adam Jones happened.

It all boils down to 1991, 1992, the cream, and the clear.

Bo knew it all and Prime was right on time as well. 25 years later, Adam’s left dealing with the consequences of everything that’s happened since.

On April 29-30, 2017, Baltimore Orioles All-Star caliber center fielder Adam Jones had a bag of peanuts tossed at him and was called n*gger while playing at Boston’s Fenway Park. 2017 marks 70 years since Jackie Robinson endured the same treatment when crossing the color line for the Brooklyn Dodgers. It’s 2017, and 5% of the player population of Major League Baseball is African American. Five percent is .6 percent less than the percentage of black players that played in Major League Baseball in 1954. Furthermore, the 62 overall African-American players in MLB represents a 72% drop in African American players on MLB rosters overall in the past 30 years. Of note as well, there has been a 125% increase in Latinos, and a 1900% increase in Asians (still only 2.1% of the player population), who have only been in MLB since 1991. Considering that it’s likely all things #MAGA at the ballpark being the trigger for the news below, the number of white players (non-hispanic) in MLB has dropped 9% in the past 30 years as well.

However, it’s in considering the now tainted legacy of the era when Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders were arguably superseding racist notions in America while being the two best African-American athletes ever (and happened to play pro baseball) that it’s not necessarily related to all things conservative America, Boston’s legacy as a “racist sports town” and Donald Trump that may entirely to blame for what occurred.

It’s important to state here that there are “Trumpian” factors at play here, though. Nielsen’s 2016 Year In Sports Media report notes the following statistics about the average fan of Major League Baseball. 76% of the fans are between the ages of 33+, 55% are lower-to-middle income earners (thus making outfield bleacher seats for racially heckling Adam Jones being affordable at $23-$48 important to discuss), 70% are male, 83% are white, and it’s widely believed that college graduates and baseball are no longer synonymous. Comparatively, Pew Research’s 2016 election data notes that more often that not, older, white, male, lower-to-middle income earning and non-college educated voters voted for Donald Trump.

Why Adam Jones faced such terrible racism is an important question to ask. However, what may be more important is studying the factors that a) almost created a circumstance where such behavior may have been much less likely, and b) how other factors absolutely made certain that Adam Jones’ heckling sadly made all of the sense in the world.

In 1989, Vincent Edward “Bo” Jackson was in his third year as the best African-American professional baseball player of all time. As well, in 1989, African-Americans made up 16.5% of Major League Baseball’s population, 30% of it’s American and National League All-Star rosters, and 50% of it’s most significant end of season awards. Though not the 1989 MLB Most Valuable Player, Bo was the best because at a time wherein still largely white and conservative America-beloved baseball was better than it likely had ever been, Bo Jackson played in a manner that brazenly combined every great Negro League player into one then-modern Major League superstar. Imagine a player with Josh Gibson’s power, Cool Papa Bell’s speed, Satchel Paige’s arm and, to stay era specific, the pop cultural appeal and physique of boxing icon Jack Johnson. Yes, such a thing existed, and for those who, like this author, witnessed it, it was both real and incredible.

In 1989 alone, Bo Jackson hit a 450-foot home run in the All-Star Game, threw a ball 400 feet with pin-point precision to home plate, and when he struck out (as he did an amazing 171 times that season), sometimes broke a baseball bat over his helmeted head. By 1990, watching him hit four home runs in four at bats or literally run up a wall after catching a fly ball felt yawningly commonplace.

Of course, because Bo Jackson was Bo Jackson, he also had to be the starting tailback for the National Football League’s Los Angeles Raiders, and be so fast, quick, and unstoppable that he inspired the makers of Nintendo’s Tecmo Bowl video game to make his player literally unstoppable. No, but really.

Heartbreakingly, on January 13, 1991, Bo Jackson was tackled during a Raiders playoff game against the Cincinnati Bengals in such a way that he dislocated his hip, which led to a diagnosis of avascular necrosis of the hip joint, thus leading to the loss of all of the cartilage supporting his hip. Jackson never played another down of pro football, and insofar as his baseball career, was never the same level of astounding athlete ever again.

However, there was someone available to pick up Bo’s mantle. Of course, as things work out, Deion Sanders’ flame out as Bo’s black superstar heir apparent is much more bittersweet, and likely has allowed for conditions to exist where pro baseball ends up where it is right now.

Deion Sanders may be best known as the best NFL cornerback of all time, but if his scintillating performance as a key member of the 1992 World Series competing and National League Champion Atlanta Braves had ever been consistently replicated, who knows what could’ve happened. “Neon Deion”’s dalliance with Major League Baseball starts in 1985 when as a high school senior, he was a draft pick of the Kansas City Royals. In 1988, after an All-American football career, plus baseball and track and field success at Florida State University, he was drafted by the New York Yankees, made their opening day roster in 1990, and after failing to reach agreement on a contract for 1991, Sanders was signed by the Atlanta Braves, allowing the flashy superstar to play for Atlanta’s NFL Falcons and MLB Braves. Mix that in with his affinity for gold jewelry, rap videos, fast living, and even faster feet on the basepaths and down the field, and it was a perfect storm.

Prior to the 1992 season, “Prime Time” reworked his NFL contract with the Falcons allowing him, in an unprecedented manner, to start the MLB season with the Braves, report to the Falcons for training camp in August, and rejoin the Braves for the tail end of the MLB season and potentially the postseason as well. In 97 regular season games in 1992, Sanders hit .304, stole 26 bases, and led the National League with 14 triples. In four games of the 1992 World Series, Sanders batted .533 with four runs, eight hits, two doubles, and one RBI while playing with a broken bone in his foot.

Though Sanders’ MLB career extended to 2001, after signing a free agent contract with the Dallas Cowboys for seven years, and $35 million (with a $12.999 million signing bonus), he was never a significant superstar MLB player.

Neither Bo Jackson nor Deion Sanders ever won a World Series. Sadly, in the wake of what’s happened to Adam Jones, all of their sound and fury has ultimately signified no change in the sociopolitical standing of African-Americans in Major League Baseball. This didn’t need to be the case.

And now, a note regarding Ken Griffey, Jr.

Yes, there are people who will talk a blue streak about how great Ken Griffey, Jr. was. And yes, he was indeed, great. But Ken Griffey, Jr. JUST played baseball. Ken Griffey, Jr. hit 630 home runs, had 10 Gold Gloves, and affected the financial bottom lines of both Nike and Nintendo just like Bo and Deion. But, as President Lyndon Johnson once said, “if you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” With that being said, being a black athlete, especially one needed to elevate African-Americans in baseball to a standard past Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier and being great, required African-American sportsmen who excelled to an almost supernatural standard in sports overall.

Prior to Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders’ epic five year run through Major League Baseball, African-American athletes in the sport were arguably the bane of the league’s existence. In the 1970s and 1980s, there actually may have been no better example of the issues regarding rampant cocaine use in America than studying African-Americans in MLB. Notable superstars including sluggers Darryl Strawberry and Dave Parker, pitching greats Dwight Gooden and Vida Blue, plus speedsters Tim Raines and Vince Coleman were among the many African-Americans suspended from baseball for using cocaine. In a “Just Say No” conservative American age, this didn’t necessarily ingratiate black players to baseball at-large.

Bo Jackson was a gamechanger. In the midst of an era wherein black baseballers weren’t exactly choirboys, here was a handsome, 6 foot 1 inch and 230 pound multi-sport athlete lacking a criminal record, who had never touched cocaine or marijuana a day in his life, and looked like he was chiseled out of granite. Impressively, after signing an endorsement deal with Nike for $100,000, by 1990, his Cross Trainer sneaker outsold Michael Jordan’s Air Jordan shoes, and his endorsement deal pulled in more than $3
million a year. That’s an incredible return of investment of 2900%.

Similar to Jackson, Deion Sanders was a once-in-a-lifetime pop culture phenomenon and athletic marvel. Sanders wasn’t Hollywood or New York, he was more Miami Vice blended with Bell Biv Devoe’s hit musical recipe of “hip-hop, smoothed out on the R & B tip, with a pop appeal to it.” Yes, that might sound like it’s drug and gang affiliated, but once Deion smiled, he was so disarmingly charismatic that any thought as to that notion faded away. While Sanders wasn’t necessarily a full-time Major League Baseball star, his gold chains, diamond earrings, big personality and competitive arrogance would be carried on for at least another decade, in which it would ultimately lead to easily one of the saddest disgraces regarding African-Americans pro baseball, and arguably the societal spark that led to what happened to Adam Jones.

In the years between 2000–2004, Barry Bonds hit the ball roughly 35% of the time, to the tune of nearly 300 home runs, 600 runs batted in, and setting the records for most career home runs and most home runs in a season. In 2007, Barry Bonds was convicted of lying in a court of law regarding his use of anabolic steroids as a strength enhancer during that period. Of course, this perjury charge seems quite obvious as it’s easy to argue that his use of anabolic steroids directly lead to his miraculous 66% increase in home runs, 11% increase in RBIs, and 19% increase in batting average in studying the five year periods between 1994–1999 and 2000–2004. When we saw Bo Jackson hit home runs and run up walls, or Deion Sanders hit triples with a smile, it wasn’t a lie. When Bo and Deion left and were replaced by a steroid abuser, five iconic years that may have allowed for blacks in baseball to overcome so many years of struggle were largely washed away via the court of understandably negative public opinion.

Since Barry Bonds’ retirement from baseball in 2007, there really hasn’t been an African-American super-duper-star in the sport. As aforementioned, it’s 2017, and 5% of the player population of Major League Baseball is African American. This represents a 72% drop in African American players on MLB rosters overall in the past 30 years. In the conclusion to an excellent Players’ Tribune article about the issue, African-American Pittsburgh Pirates star Andrew McCutcheon notes that, at present, “all over the country, there are thousands of kids who are playing in a cornfield in Nebraska or a swampy field in Central Florida and they feel like nobody is watching. We need to find a better (and most definitely cheaper) way to give those kids a chance at a way out.”

Sadly enough, I’d hate to point out to Andrew McCutcheon that those (impoverished) black kids, and well, black kids in general, are getting out, and getting into sports not named baseball just fine.

In the wake of Bo Jackson’s injuries, Deion Sanders’ declining playing schedule, and Barry Bonds’ cheating and lying, the following has occurred:

• In the wake of Michael Jordan’s NBA retirement in 1993, the Orlando Magic’s Shaquille O’Neal and Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway melded Jackson-style brawn and Sanders-style finesse into becoming bank-busting and uber-popular NBA insta-icons. Their legacy is seen in the likes of current NBA stars LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant.

• The National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys benefited greatly from Deion’s participation, as Sanders aided guiding each franchise to championship victories. Sanders’ influence today? As late as 2013’s NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks’ twin charismatic and outspoken superstars Marshawn Lynch and Richard Sherman.

• Major League Soccer and the US National Soccer Team’s most noteworthy American breakout star is Clint Dempsey, a native of Nacogdoches, TX who alongside from having played all over the world and having charisma to burn, has been known to drop a rhyme or two.

• Even in the stereotypically lily white National Hockey League, five decades after WIllie O’Ree played for, yes, intriguingly enough, the Boston Bruins, there’s tons of well-regarded black superstars in pro hockey. Philadelphia Flyers’ forward Wayne Simmonds was the Most Valuable Player of the recent All-Star Game, while Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban, Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Seth Jones, Buffalo Sabres forward Kyle Okposo and Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews represent more African-American superstar representation in the league than ever before.
• By comparison, in Major League Baseball, programs exist like the “Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities” program, which, in developing players like CC Sabathia and Jimmy Rollins, on the surface is successful. However, such a program is flawed because it just presumes — in a manner unlike looking at the diversity of socio-economic backgrounds where baseball, football, soccer, and hockey are finding their stars — that African-American = inner city.

None of these accomplishments preclude other professional sports and their athletes from the type of epithets and angst that Adam Jones recently faced. As well, it does not note that in the roughly 30 years since the era of Bo and Deion, that black baseball players have done remarkably less and been astoundingly less able to engender goodwill when featured in the extreme spotlight in cases where fans are largely more conservative and Caucasian. However, couple Barry Bonds’ failure in the wake of Bo and Deion’s bried ultra-success with the election of Donald Trump stirring up a sense that well, those who are not older, white, male, lower-to-middle income earning and non-college educated deserve derision, and we’re here.

Imagine a situation where Bo Jackson was at the plate in September 2004, at say, Fenway Park, in an Orioles uniform. Deion Sanders was at third, having bunted his way on as a leadoff hitter, and moved himself over to third base with two stolen bases. There were two outs, in the bottom of the ninth inning, and Bo Jackson was sitting firm at 755 home runs. Curt Schilling’s on the mound, and the count is 0 balls, two strikes, to Bo. Schilling delivers, and Bo goes yard over the Green Monster. As Bo rounds third, Deion Sanders is at home, waiting with a high five.

Does the Boston crowd boo? Or do they cheer? And what happens after that?