memories of Bo Jackson are resurfacing in KC...
"“It’s Bo’s first game,” Stewart says. “First at-bat. Steve Carlton was pitching for the White Sox. Hank Bauer, famous old outfielder, was scouting. The legendary Howie Haak, one of the great scouts from Pittsburgh. Bo comes up the first time up. Hits a routine boom-boom-boom. Guy makes a play, and Bo’s across the bag.
“We’re all looking at our timers. We’re ashamed to show it. I said to myself, ‘Geez, 3.6. That’s wrong.’ Finally Hugh Alexander, great scout with the Phillies who had lost his hand, says, ‘For Chrissakes, I got 3.6. What do you guys got?’ Everybody had 3.6 to 3.7. From the right side. Never forget it. We were dumbfounded.”
Understand: Right-handed hitters do not run from home plate to first base in 3.6 seconds. If not humanly impossible, it strains credulity. The fastest of the fast barely crack four seconds. And yet Stewart swears that the first play of Bo Jackson’s career he did something superhuman, and he remembers the date (Sept. 2, 1986) and the second baseman who fielded the ball (Tim Hulett) and the day and team and pitcher off whom Bo later hit his first home run (Sunday, Seattle, Mike Moore, and, by the way, it’s still the longest ever at Kauffman Stadium at 475 feet), and even though he is 84 years old now, starting his 59th season in professional baseball, his memory remains so sharp and his conviction so steadfast that the gaggle of 3.6s can’t be wrong.
Nor the reaction it caused among the scouts that day. Every so often a player comes along with a train of hoopla that the scouts, the ultimate skeptics, can derail with one report. Rarer is the one whose reports match his hype. Bo Jackson, with one 90-foot sprint, exceeded his and left Stewart beaming.
So when he showed up at Kauffman Stadium on Friday with a glint in his eye and even more pep in his voice than usual, Art Stewart tried not to hyperbolize too much. It’s just that he felt something different all around the city and at the ballpark. The kind that’s been missing for 25 years."
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AheHFzdJkKfVu8quR2mnLfARvLYF?slug=jp-passan_eric_hosmer_debut_royals_bo_jackson_memories_050611
(still the lowest payroll this side of AAA)
