bo jackson's baseball career ended when the players' strike began in 1994. when the dispute was resolved the following year, bo did not return to the diamond as he chose to retire instead. that means that his 1995 cards serve as true final tributes. here's his 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition card
with complete stats on the back!
bo only spent 8 seasons in the major leagues, which doesn't include the 1992 season which he missed due to the hip injury that ended his nfl career.
here's his regular 1995 upper deck card
the back of which doesn't have his full season by season stats, but does have a photo of him taking grounders at first base.
even with that practice, bo remained an outfielder and dh - he never made an appearance in the infield.
here's his 1995 topps card
with the standard complete career stats that i appreciate so much from topps
aside from misspelling decathlon, topps did a good job of trying to encapsulate the awesomeness that was bo jackson in the few lines of text that they had available. i remember his all-star game home run, his running up the outfield wall, the long touchdown run as a raider (after which he kept running into the tunnel), and the time he ran over brian bosworth near the goal line which happened in the same monday night game.
good times.
I remember the homerun he hit in '93 that clinched the division for the White Sox. I was at the game. He hit the thing about 300 feet into the air, and it just slow kept drifting farther and farther out. It was probably a 376 foot homerun that barely cleared the 375 mark on the wall.
ReplyDeleteI used to know a guy here who is now a lawyer who was the linebacker next to Bosworth for that Seahawks team. He said he was just glad that it wasn't him getting blown up by Bo.
ReplyDeleteI wish he could have stayed healthy. It would have been interesting to see what numbers he would have put up...especially in the late 90's.
ReplyDeleteI watched the "30 on 30" ESPN show on Bo. It was time well spent and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a small piece of the childhood back.
ReplyDelete