MLB Players Who Could Be Crossover Athletes
When it comes to crossover athletes, there are enduring legends like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, and then there are more marginal cases like Brian Jordan and Drew Henson. Baseball is incredibly time-consuming, from a 162-game regular season in the MLB down to travel teams in top-flight youth baseball, so it allows precious little time for other endeavors, let alone another professional sport, but at least it's low-impact.
While few of these players participated in their crossover sport beyond the high school level, it's a testament to the tremendous athletic ability possessed by the average baseball player (David Ortiz notwithstanding).
These 10 MLBers—each active in pro baseball during 2015 (sorry, no Bo or Deion)—have each proven themselves adept in another sport.
Jeff Samardzija, SP, Chicago White Sox
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Jeff Samardzija may have a fastball that hovers in the mid-90s, but in college, he was better known as one of Notre Dame's top wide receivers on the football squad.
After combining for just 24 receptions in 24 games through his first two seasons with the Fighting Irish, Samardzija exploded in his junior year with 77 catches and 15 touchdowns. Building off the new chemistry with quarterback Brady Quinn, Samardzija followed up his 2005 breakout season with 78 catches and a dozen TDs as a senior.
Despite his football prowess, the Chicago Cubs selected him in the fifth round of the 2006 amateur draft. And with the promise of a longer career and a guaranteed contract in MLB, Samardzija has used his 6'5", 225-pound frame to throw pitches rather than catch passes as a pro.
Now a member of the Chicago White Sox, Samardzija continues to prove his gridiron-tested pugnacity. Keep an eye out for him at the 1:45 mark of this video during a brawl with the All-Star-stacked Kansas City Royals.
Joe Mauer, 1B, Minnesota Twins
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Joe Mauer played catcher on his high school baseball team. He also played quarterback on the football team and ran the point on the basketball court, so he clearly has some sort of obsession with controlling the ball.
As USA Today's Tom Weir wrote in June 2001:
"Since USA Today began naming high school athletes of the year in 1982, the selections have been culled from millions of teenagers. Given the volume of talent, it's understandable no individual has been named the top player in two sports. Until now.
The barrier-breaker is Joe Mauer of Cretin-Derham Hall High School. The 6'4", 205-pound Mauer will choose between quarterbacking at Florida State or signing with the Minnesota Twins, who made the 18-year-old catcher their No. 1 pick in this month's amateur baseball draft.
...
Asked to choose, Mauer gets an apologetic look and says, "I'm supposed to say no comment."
"
Judging by his three batting titles (the only catcher ever to accomplish that feat) and 2009 AL MVP campaign when he hit .365, Mauer chose the right sport. The Seminoles ended up with Chris Rix at starting QB.
Chris Young, SP, Kansas City Royals
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Chris Young is 6'10", and since 6'11" Jon Rauch doesn't pitch in MLB anymore, Young gets the league's nod at center if a pickup basketball game ever breaks out. Unsurprisingly, the vertically gifted Young did indeed play basketball as well as baseball in college, but what's more impressive is that he did so at Princeton.
Young actually racked up very impressive averages playing pivot for Princeton, posting 13.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 3.0 blocks and 1.3 steals per game over 30 contests in 1999-2000. However, he opted not to follow in the footsteps of famous Princeton alum and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (and Rhodes scholar and U.S. senator) Bill Bradley.
Though he garnered interest from the NBA, Young was selected in the 2000 MLB draft after a strong season on the mound as well, and he has since gone on to an All-Star selection in 2007 and AL Comeback Player of the Year in 2014.
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Justin Morneau, 1B, Colorado Rockies
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Born in New Westminster, Canada, Justin Morneau spent time as one of the Minnesota Twins' big boppers, which included an AL MVP Award in 2006, before injuries muzzled his power hitting. After seeing his average dip to around .260 for a couple of seasons, he resurrected his career with the Colorado Rockies in 2014. At age 33, Morneau bounced back with 17 home runs, 82 RBI and a .319 average—good enough for 23rd in NL MVP voting.
That resiliency and surprising longevity is typical of a different sport played by many more Canadians, so it's no surprise that Morneau was a skilled ice hockey player as well. However, he battled injuries early in his hockey career.
The Toronto Star's Mark Zwolinski noted in 2012 that Morneau struggled to recover from his 2010 concussion, an issue he had previously dealt with when he briefly played "goalie with the Portland Winter Hawks in the Western Hockey League and reportedly suffered concussions during his play there." Ultimately, Morneau is simply more skilled at baseball.
Matt Kemp, OF, San Diego Padres
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Matt Kemp played basketball in high school at Midwest City "against Carmelo (Anthony), Chris Bosh, Tyson Chandler" and others, as he told Slam Online's Ben Osborne.
In fact, Kemp confirmed that basketball was his first love, saying: "I went to a high school with a powerhouse basketball program. We won the state two years in a row and we were ranked as high as third in the nation....I played all over. I could bang down low if needed, but mostly I was a shooting guard." But since he didn't have "hops like Dwyane Wade," his size and athleticism were better suited to baseball.
Kemp has struggled since moving to the San Diego Padres this season, but while a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he went so far as to say he could "definitely" beat team owner and NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson in one-on-one basketball, per the Los Angeles Times: "'Probably not back in the day,' Kemp said, laughing. 'I'd definitely take him one-on-one now. I don't think he's shooting hoops no more. He's wearing suits now. He's writing my checks.'"
Well, Magic is not writing Kemp's checks anymore, so perhaps it's time for that one-on-one game we were promised.
Will Venable, OF, San Diego Padres
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Much like San Diego Padres teammate and fellow outfielder Matt Kemp, Will Venable also played basketball in high school, and like Kansas City Royals pitcher Chris Young, he participated in both sports while earning an Ivy League education at Princeton University. On the court, he had decent abilities as a guard, averaging double-digit scoring in three of his four seasons.
After Venable finished up his freshman basketball season, he walked into the office of Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley and asked if he could join the team—even though he hadn't swung a bat in two years. Bradley took him to the batting cage to see what he had to offer.
As the coach told ESPN's Tim Kurkjian: "The first five pitches, he swung and missed....The next five pitches, he popped into the top of the cage. He said, 'I'm getting closer.' On the 11th pitch, he squared one up, and hit a line drive. He was the best hitter on our team from that point forward."
And that is how you become a professional baseball player.
Carl Crawford, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers
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When Los Angeles Dodger Carl Crawford was a high school student in Houston, he was already famous. "He is our hero," Jefferson Davis High School principal Jaime Castaneda told NESN.com's Tony Lee.
In high school, Crawford was recruited by major colleges to play both football and basketball, in addition to baseball. In fact, Crawford's high school coaches used to fight over who got to utilize his incredible skill set. As Lee wrote, the school's baseball coach, Gerald Garcia, "once saw his prize pupil rip 19 hits in a stretch of 21 at-bats." Therefore, it's no surprise Garcia admits: "Our track coach hated me because I didn't want Carl to run track."
You can check out Crawford's hoops game here, but that is neither a regulation rim nor a simulation of in-game action.
Grady Sizemore, OF, Tampa Bay Rays
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Recently signed by the Tampa Bay Rays, Grady Sizemore had been playing in the minor leagues before he was called up Sunday as he tries to revive his career (again). He spent part of this season with the Philadelphia Phillies, but he's already enjoyed a longer career on the diamond than he likely would have had on the gridiron. Still, Sizemore "rushed for 3,081 yards his senior year in high school," as noted by ESPN's Tim Kurkjian.
Though he has battled a litany of injuries throughout his career, Sizemore managed to participate in multiple sports at the youth level without issue, per ESPN's Gordon Edes: "Sizemore played football, baseball and basketball at Cascade High in Everett and never got hurt. He played well enough to sign a letter of intent to play quarterback and center field for the University of Washington before he was given a $2 million bonus to sign with the Montreal Expos."
That's two million reasons to forgo college football, and it proved wise for a time. After debuting in 2004, Sizemore finished in the top 12 of the AL MVP voting in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Since then, he has never appeared in more than 112 games in a season and spent 2012 and 2013 out of MLB.
Austin Jackson, OF, Seattle Mariners
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Seattle Mariners outfielder Austin Jackson once told ESPN's Tim Kurkjian: "I really believe if I had concentrated solely on basketball, I would be in the NBA right now." That's all well and good, but there's no denying that due to roster size, there are nearly twice as many jobs in MLB as in the NBA.
However, Jackson's motivation to focus on basketball was fairly unusual. As the New York Times' Tyler Kepner explained it: "In 1999, Baseball America ranked him the best 12-year-old in the nation. Three years later, at 15, he was ranked the best again. Oddly, the hype inspired him to try harder at a different sport."
Jackson told Kepner: "That's about the time people were like, 'Basketball is just something you do as a hobby.' And I was like, 'No, I can actually play a little bit.'...I just wanted to prove people wrong."
He did indeed prove people wrong and got recruited to play basketball and baseball at Georgia Tech. But when the New York Yankees selected him in the eighth round of the 2005 amateur draft, the signing bonus proved too good to pass up. Don't worry, though, because Jackson can still dunk.
Nyjer Morgan, OF, Cleveland Indians
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Nyjer Morgan has bounced around professional baseball, logging time with four MLB teams, most recently the Cleveland Indians in 2014. After playing 2013 in Japan, Morgan has moved to the Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization in 2015—only to be released in May.
As he moves further west, perhaps he will take his hockey skills over to Russia. Morgan briefly played for the Prince George Spruce Kings (BCHL) and Regina Pats (WHL), totaling 10 games of action and netting a couple of goals for Regina.
As NHL.com's Tal Pinchevsky wrote in 2011, Morgan had become known for "giving some of sport's most colorful postgame interviews and adopting nicknames like Tony Plush and Tony Tombstone. But before any of these alter-egos existed in baseball, Morgan was a junior hockey player known as 'Flash.'...He told NHL.com: 'Skating around, I was fast, so everybody called me Flash Morgan.'"
Despite growing up in San Francisco, Olympic hockey caught his interest as a child, and his passion for the game snowballed from there. Given the brash comportment of "Tony Plush," perhaps the speedy Morgan should revert to being "Flash" and strap on the skates once again.
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