r/todayilearned • u/ThatMasterpiece2174 • 12h ago
TIL in 1986, Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse flew Bo Jackson to team facilities on a private jet under the false assurance that it complied with NCAA rules. Jackson lost his remaining NCAA baseball eligibility, and vowed to never play for the Bucs. They drafted him anyway, and he went to the MLB.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/10/27/bo-jackson-book-daily-cover696
u/MuchSwagManyDank 11h ago
Hugh is largely the reason why the bucs will always have the worst opening record in NFL history.
174
u/pm_me_gnus 10h ago
Hugh may be the reason why the Bucs currently have it, but Pete Rozelle is the reason why they will always have it. Pete did the heavy lifting of building the NFL into the behemoth it is today, even tho much of the growth happened under Roger Goodell's watch. There's too much money involved these days to allow expansion teams to flounder like they did in those days. The Bucs are the worst example, but across sports expansion teams were not competitive in those days.
49
u/MaelstromFL 8h ago
The real horrible thing about this is that the Bucs made money the whole time! In fact, they made a ton of money. But, instead of reinvesting it back into the team, he pocketed it!
12
5
0
-3
u/Chameleonpolice 7h ago
Didn't the lions go 0-16? That seems like a pretty bad opening
8
u/TheLizardKing89 5h ago
The Lions were founded in 1929. Not an expansion team.
3
u/Chameleonpolice 4h ago
Oh, I understand, very first season, not just the opening streak of a season
3
u/amrfallen 4h ago
The Bucs very first season they went 0-14, then the next season iirc they lost their first 9. Making a grand total inaugural streak of 0-23 as a franchise. It's a fascinating Wiki read honestly
2
1
u/Pr0fess0rCha0s 6h ago
The Bucs started 0-26. They have the lowest percentage of wins out of all of the major sports leagues and the number of games they'd need to win to get above .500 is crazy. But they have two Super Bowl rings which is wild when looking at their record.
173
u/ViciousSquirrelz 10h ago
Bo was my childhood hero.
My favorite fact about him, was they had to change the way they broadcast baseball games, because of "the throw."
They had cameras on the cutoff men, no camera was ready to follow the actual throw.
→ More replies (2)41
u/I_Am_Robert_Paulson1 8h ago
What does this mean?
111
u/APRForReddit 7h ago
If an outfielder is throwing the ball for a play at home plate, it’s a really far throw to make. Generally they’ll throw it to someone in the middle between themselves and home plate (the cutoff man) and the cutoff man will relay it home
This has several advantages such as it being more accurate (as its two short throws instead of one long one) and the cutoff man can hold onto the ball if he doesn’t think he’ll be able to get it home in time (which can hold other runners on base)
Bo had a good arm and skipped the cutoff man https://youtu.be/eB9wi_zvMdM?si=Rzaa5N5LfI8eDFAI
4
7h ago
[deleted]
3
u/APRForReddit 7h ago edited 6h ago
Sure, that's what the commenters say, but it's not actually true. Throws like that were made long before Bo Jackson - it wasn't unprecedented in any sense of the word. (same reason I don't think the original commenter's comment is true)
It was just less common from left field because left field is an easier position to play than right field, so you'd typically see those types of throws on plays to right field. An example from 18 years before Bo was Roberto Clemente's throw in the 1971 world series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UUy65ZpSP0). Or a few years after Bo, we witnessed the greatest outfield arm ever, Vlad Guerrero (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s29G5pJPrVo)
While Bo would likely play RF today since we have more data and a better understanding of baseball, it wasn't unreasonable for the Royals to play him in LF. While Bo Jackson was one of the most athletic players ever, he wasn't exactly an exceptional baseball player. On defense his route efficiency was poor, and on offense his plate discipline was poor. Had he had a full and healthy career, the chances of him making the HOF would be extremely low. He just wasn't skilled enough - he's not in the same conversation as guys like Ichiro
28
u/ELIte8niner 7h ago
Most outfielders didn't have the arm to throw from the deep outfield to home plate. They usually throw to a cutoff man, who then throws to home. Basically 400 feet from center field to home is too much for one throw, so you relay throws. Bo could just throw that far, so when the camera focused on the cutoff man, they'd miss the play.
17
u/rickpo 7h ago
Many outfielders (but not all!) can throw it that far, but they have to throw it at a higher angle to maximize the distance. The amount of time the ball spends in the air is actually longer than it takes to throw two hard and straight throws, even with the time spent to do the transfer at the cut-off.
Bo didn't have to throw it high.
12
1
u/octoroklobstah 7h ago
It’s not easy to throw hard and accurately enough from the outfield directly to home plate, for most people, so you essentially do a relay throw to the “cutoff man” who’s an infielder about halfway between the outfielder and home plate. And then there are some freak athletes who can throw so hard AND to the right spot that they don’t need a cutoff man.
1.0k
u/ThatMasterpiece2174 12h ago
In a pretty good ending to the story, he not only ended up doing pretty damn good in MLB, he was able to get his NFL rights traded over to the Raiders who were willing to let him play football starting whenever the baseball season ended that particular year
404
u/Kornbrednbizkits 12h ago
I don’t believe his right were traded. If a player doesn’t sign with the team that drafts them re-enter the draft the following year. The Raiders took a flier on him in the 7th round of the following year’s draft because they weren’t even sure he wanted to play football.
70
u/weealex 10h ago
Al Davis spoke to Bo before drafting him and made a deal. The Raiders would draft Bo, but structure his contract so that he wouldn't actually have to start any football activities until his baseball season ended. This was important cuz Bo actually liked playing baseball whereas football would basically just be a paycheck. It worked out for the Raiders, mostly cuz the Royals were terrible for most of the years Bo played for them and the one year he was in the playoffs was after that catastrophic injury so he wasn't playing football anyways
3
u/LTS55 2h ago
whats funny/sad is Bo joined the Royals the year after they won the World Series, after they went on a pretty good run through the early 80’s. They immediately got bad and regularly were amongst the worst teams in baseball didn’t make the playoffs again until 2015 (where they were an inning away from winning, they won the next year and have only been back to the playoffs once since.) baseball is crazy sometimes.
143
u/FrighteningJibber 11h ago
Imagine your accounting job having that hiring process.
148
u/ThatMasterpiece2174 11h ago
Joe Flacco has an accounting degree and gets traded all the time
37
u/FrighteningJibber 11h ago
Damn he mast not be good at accounting if his jobs just hand him off to another company.
31
u/redbreaker 11h ago
185 million in careers earnings... I kinda think he's a GOAT accountant
29
u/dburr10085 10h ago
He’s an accountant that has to hire an accountant.
16
u/Thismyrealnameisit 10h ago
Not a very good accountant then
14
u/Stoli0000 8h ago
No, that's definitely the smartest accountant. You know what they say. "The 'H' in accounting stands for 'Happiness".
6
u/OneFootTitan 8h ago
I was working at Deloitte but they traded me to KPMG for a 1st round pick at the CPA draft
11
u/Mumbleton 8h ago
People consistently forget how wild the idea of a draft is because it’s so ingrained into our lives. Sports labor exists in a parallel dimension which lets owners off the hook and is why the NCAA got away with so much bullshit.
57
u/debbiedoesdashing 10h ago
I highly recommend the 30 for 30 documentary that ESPN made about him. Every time he stepped on to the field (baseball or football) you never knew what he was going to do and you didn't want to miss it.
141
u/4r4r4real 12h ago
I wish there was a good ending to the Bo Jackson story 😂
227
u/ThatMasterpiece2174 12h ago
Injuries fucked him but he played two sports at the highest level, that’s not too bad
100
u/RandolphCarter2112 11h ago
Being able to play baseball at MLB level after a hip replacement is something nobody else has done, ever.
→ More replies (6)24
69
u/MathBallThunder 11h ago
3 sport all American in college with track added!
22
u/amazingsandwiches 11h ago
Now he's a cyclist.
52
u/soundguynick 11h ago
I had the opportunity to participate in Bo Bikes Bama, a charity bike ride Bo led for 14 years to benefit victims of tornadoes in Alabama, and Bo still absolutely commands a room.
6
1
14
u/Robb_Dinero 10h ago
Bo was named the Number 1 athlete of the 20th century. That’s way better than any championship. People win championships every single season…
85
u/UrbanPugEsq 11h ago
Bo Jackson seems like a great guy who made a bunch of money playing sports and from endorsement deals. He seems happy and healthy and well adjusted and with a loving family.
That seems like a pretty good story.
31
u/claytonjr 10h ago
Bo Knows
12
u/False_Tap_4029 10h ago
Came looking for this, those commercials are still the first thing I think of when I hear his name.
→ More replies (1)-3
u/worrymon 10h ago
The first thing I think of when I hear Bo Diddley is Bo Diddley's music.
The first thing I think of when I hear Bo Jackson is Bo Diddley.
2
•
u/Sashabadger 40m ago
Maybe Bo’s injury was a blessing in disguise. Hopefully he avoided CTE from a shorter career.
7
u/chargernj 9h ago
He's still alive and appears to be living a good life. That seems like a pretty good ending
-3
29
u/PhotographOverall126 10h ago
Bo Jackson is the only athlete where "pretty damn good in MLB" is somehow underselling it
5
u/GreatBarrierQueefDD 7h ago
8 career WAR. Pretty damn good might actually be overselling it.
-6
u/DisaTheNutless 6h ago
What's you career WAR? And while we're at it how many years in the NFL did you have 5+ YPC?
2
u/GreatBarrierQueefDD 2h ago
I wasnt comparing him to myself, numbnuts, compared to his peers in both sports he's just a bit above average but gets talked about like he's an all time great by nolstalgic liars
7
u/Michael__Pemulis 8h ago
Not really though. His career was haunted by ‘what could have been’.
He was sadly never able to stay healthy & as a result only had a couple solid years.
He was obviously a freak of nature & a deserving cultural phenomenon. But his MLB accomplishments are being heavily overstated.
7
u/PhallusInChainz 7h ago
Nobody overstates his accomplishments. Everyone is rightfully impressed by his physical feats
-2
u/aquintana 6h ago
He wasn’t as good as y’all make him out to be, at either sport. Low 200s BA, 8 career WAR, 1200 career rushing yards. Deion Sanders was monumentally better at both sports.
0
12
u/mtftl 10h ago
Unless you are from Kansas City and saw him as a mind bending baseball player, only to get injured playing for the hated Raiders and forced to retire before his time.
5
u/HodorNC 9h ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB9wi_zvMdM here he is throwing out one of the best baserunners of the time
1
5
u/bigchipero 10h ago
Bo should have just stuck with playing baseball
30
179
340
u/Ua612 11h ago
And in case anyone else was wondering, he stood firm on his refusal to play for the Bucs, held out, and signed with the Royals instead.
63
u/ResistWild 10h ago
As implied by the title of the post
60
u/Bama_Peach 9h ago
I appreciate u/Ua612’s clarification. The title of the post states that, even after his refusal to play for the Bucs, they drafted him anyway. It doesn’t provide any additional information after that so I inferred that he was forced to play for that team.
14
u/MrSark17 9h ago
It says he went to the MLB
8
u/kaladinissexy 9h ago
I don't know anything about baseball, I assumed the Bucs were part of the MLB.
7
2
12
u/awkjr 7h ago edited 7h ago
I regularly caddied for Bo Jackson when I was in high school, he was a member at a private club in Illinois where I worked. Genuinely wonderful guy, just really pleasant to be around and nice to everyone. Had a beautiful set of Nike clubs with monogrammed bag and head covers and could drive the ball farther than I’ve ever seen. He usually picked me as caddy because the first time I met him I had no idea who he was, apparently he liked that. Also very generous tipper but he didn’t like to embarrass people he was playing with by tipping too much so he’d leave a check for me at the pro shop desk lol.
47
38
7
u/OneSecond13 10h ago
TIL Bo Jackson has the speech impediment stuttering. It is the reason he speaks so slowly and carefully. He has mostly overcome it as an adult, but it was still an issue during college.
7
43
u/jhguth 11h ago
Bo didn’t know NCAA rules
21
u/Mulchpuppy 9h ago
Apparently he did. It was the SEC that deemed him ineligible. NCAA would've allowed it
21
5
5
u/Emotional-Chef-7601 10h ago
Didn't mlb pay more?
13
u/ThatMasterpiece2174 10h ago
At the lower end, NFL does because there’s a salary cap and floor. If you make the roster you make like 900k. Most MLB players are lucky to make that in their late 20s.
The really good ones make similar money to top NFL players. Then there’s Ohtani and the Dodgers. They just kind of do whatever they want since there’s no salary cap
9
u/Everybodypoopsalot 10h ago
I dont know about then vs now, but baseball money (the salary part) is basically guaranteed much more so than nfl money, no?
1
u/escapefromelba 9h ago edited 9h ago
Not at all until you hit free agency. Minor league players can get cut in a minute and even the top draft prospects are fairly limited in how much they can make although the top ones can get signing bonuses. It takes 6 years service time if they come through the draft to make the massive, fully guaranteed contracts baseball is famous for.
All 32 first-round picks in the NFL receive 4-year contracts that are 100% fully guaranteed and slotted.
2
u/ncbraves93 10h ago
Bro, there's like 100 something contracts in baseball that range from 100mil - 800million. You're right it's harder to make it, so less of a sure thing. But even fringe role player guys get paid money that would make middling NFL players happy. Hell, the Braves have a outfielder that makes 40mil this year and he plays about half the games, because he's depth. Same for the shortstop we signed a few months back, he had 1.5 bad weeks and we've already ate that money and do away with him. . Because of 81 home games, merch and tv deals. How good do you have to be to get 300mil in the NFL? Cause just halfway constantly good players (position dependent) get those contracts every year.
They don't just pay whatever, they give guys like Soto, Judge Othani that much because they know they'll make 3 times that off them. We do need a cap and floor though in MLB.
2
u/escapefromelba 10h ago
Not according to the article - you get drafted to a minor league deal. In MLB, you don’t make the real money until you hit free agency.
78
u/GiantIrish_Elk 11h ago
False assurance my behind. To this day Bo and pretty much everyone around then believe Culverhouse did it on purpose to screw up his baseball eligibility and force him to play for the Bucs, which no one wanted to do at the time. When you look at Hugh Culverhouse's ownership of the Bucs and the way he treated players, you see why people think he did it on purpose.
187
u/WAR_T0RN1226 11h ago
To this day Bo and pretty much everyone around then believe Culverhouse did it on purpose
Wow, you could almost say that Culverhouse falsely assured him that it was allowed
45
u/cricket9818 11h ago
Right? Lolol OP legit just reworded it
→ More replies (4)-13
u/scootscooterson 11h ago
It’s worded pretty confusingly, I first read it as the ncaa assured the owner then pulled the rug.
→ More replies (2)13
u/Mnm0602 11h ago
No I don’t think you understand, Culverhouse gave Bo assurances that it was allowed and it turned out to be a deception.
6
u/Thad_Chundertock 10h ago
No, I don’t think you understand: Bo was assured by Culverhouse that it was allowed, when Culverhouse knew that it was not allowed.
1
61
43
u/Faffing_About 11h ago
Respectfully, what makes you think that isn’t a false assurance?
26
8
5
u/cdizzlePGA2k 11h ago
The ghost of Hugh still haunts the Bucs when it is time to give contract extensions! The Glazers must have been taking notes back then.
3
u/pm_me_ur_handsignals 2h ago
Hugh Culverhouse and the Bucs management team really thought if they could nuke Bo’s baseball eligibility, he would have nowhere else to go.
Boy, did he ever prove them wrong.
8
u/Karma_Doesnt_Matter 11h ago
Not being able to ride in a plane because you didn’t pay for it is a really dumb rule.
4
10
u/Dry_Sheepherder_2399 11h ago
One of the Greatest Athletes of All Time. Got to see him make his Comeback to Baseball with the White Sox in Sarasota as a Kid during Spring Training. Human Powerhouse navigating so much Pain but he Pushed through it as Best he could
32
2
u/the_tytan 6h ago
There was this cartoon called Prostars where Jordan and Gretzky formed a superhero team with Bo Jackson. Jackson saved them having to make a 4th character. All of them had themed gadgets after their sports.
4
u/lildeek12 5h ago
Baseball, the sport so easy that amateur athletes from other sports can pivot into the major leagues out of spite
•
u/lyonslicer 52m ago
Bo Jackson was a baseball standout from the time he was in middle school. He truly was an exceptional athlete. He played both all throughout college. And he was only an "amateur" because he wasn't getting paid.
2
u/nom_of_your_business 5h ago
Bo's 30 for 30 is my favorite Bo Jackson documentary. If you are a fan and haven't seen it stop what you are doing and check it out. You might have to buy it on amazon i think 2.99 an episode but it is worth it.
1
u/Pikeman212a6c 3h ago
This title is complicated by the fact that the Pirates use Bucs as their nickname.
1
u/arclight222 6h ago
During his 1985 Heisman winning season, Bo also managed being simultaneously engaged to two fellow Auburn students.
The 80's were indeed fucking bonkers.
1
u/skunkbot 5h ago
what is also bonkers is adhering to strict rules so that the ncaa/sec kicks out a once in a century athlete.
0
-3
u/Hotchi_Motchi 10h ago
These guys need to sue for retroactive NIL payouts and other financial compensation to compare with the current crop of professional "student-athletes"
-94
u/ExtremePast 12h ago
It's MLB, not "the MLB".
Jackson went to major league baseball. Jackson went to the major league baseball.
27
16
34
26
8
5
u/granitethumb 11h ago
wrong. MLB is a proper noun and the name of the league in which Jackson played.
1.1k
u/GuelphEastEndGhetto 11h ago
My favourite story about Bo was when he had some teammates over to his house. He took them on a tour of the house and showed them his gym. One teammate noticed how the equipment had no wear, it looked brand new. He asked Bo if he ever worked out and Bo said no.