Bo Jackson

Lore & Background

In the summer of 1986, Kansas City's front office made a move that would define a generation of Royals fandom: they selected Bo Jackson, the six-foot-five, 230-pound shortstop out of the University of Georgia, with the 12th overall pick in the MLB Draft. Jackson had already torn up the SEC that spring, and the Royals believed they had found a generational talent to anchor their infield for the next decade. The draft room buzzed. Local radio stations ran excited segments. For a few hours, Jackson was a Royal.

Then the phone calls started. Jackson had commitments in the NFL, and the two-sport path was already mapped. He signed with the Oakland Athletics as a free agent, and the Royals were left with a first-round pick and a story. What followed was nothing short of extraordinary: Jackson played running back for the Los Angeles Rams and shortstop/outfielder for Oakland in the same seasons from 1987 through 1990, a feat no athlete had attempted at the professional level in decades. His 1989 season with the A's—37 home runs, 15 stolen bases, and a .356 average—remains one of the most jaw-dropping single-year performances in baseball, all while splitting the season with gridiron football.

For Kansas City, the loss of Jackson became a cautionary tale and a source of perpetual wistfulness. The 1986 Royals were a rebuilding team, and the pick that could have changed their trajectory instead became a footnote in Oakland's history. Decades later, Royals fans still mention Jackson's name in the same breath as the franchise's great 'what ifs,' a reminder of how close—and how far away—true stardom can be.

In Their Own Story

The draft room at the old Royals office hummed with the low buzz of ceiling fluorescents and the clatter of a rotary phone. June 1986. The GM's hand shook slightly as he read the name off the card: Jackson, Bo. Georgia. Shortstop. The room exhaled. Someone whispered, 'We got him.' Outside, the Kansas City summer pressed against the windows, thick and golden, and for one suspended moment the whole city felt like it was holding its breath. Then a reporter's phone rang. Then another. The story was already leaking. By the time the ink dried on the contract paperwork, the A's had a deal in hand, and the Royals had a name on a draft sheet and a feeling they couldn't quite shake—the feeling of watching the most electric athlete of a generation walk out the door before he ever laced up a pair of pinstripes.

Reader's Guide

Bo Jackson's signature trait was raw, almost impossible athleticism: a 6'5" frame that moved like a sprinter, a bat that could drive the ball to any gap, and a leg speed that made outfielders and linebackers alike look slow. He was the ultimate two-sport athlete, splitting a single season between a major-league diamond and a pro football gridiron in a way no one had done since the 1930s.

For Royals fans, the anchor moment is the 1986 draft itself—the 12th overall pick, the name called in a draft room, the brief window where Jackson was a Royal before he signed with Oakland. He never threw a single game in the pinstripes, and that absence is what makes him iconic to Kansas City. He is the ghost in the machine, the star who was almost theirs.

His legacy echoes in every subsequent Royals draft class and every free-agent signing that slips away. When a young prospect is called 'the next Bo Jackson,' the comparison carries the weight of everything he could have been in Kansas City and everything he became elsewhere. He remains the franchise's most famous 'what if,' a name whispered in barbershops and fan forums, a reminder that the distance between a draft pick and a legend is sometimes just one signature on a contract.

Did You Know?

• The Kansas City Royals selected Bo Jackson with the 12th overall pick in the 1986 MLB Draft, but he signed with the Oakland Athletics as a free agent and never played a single game in a Royals uniform.
• Jackson played professional baseball and professional football in the same season four consecutive years (1987–1990), a feat unmatched in modern American sports.
• In his 1989 season with Oakland, Jackson hit 37 home runs, stole 15 bases, and batted .356—all while also playing running back for the Los Angeles Rams.
• Jackson's 1989 dual-sport campaign is widely considered one of the most remarkable individual athletic performances in the history of American professional sports.