Why Baseball Hated Deion Sanders

Deion Sanders is considered one of the best defensive players in football history but he also played baseball where he got arrested in his own team stadium twice attempted to take his own life in the middle of a season and after getting so much criticism by a broadcaster got revenge on him in a way that people in baseball media literally described as assault you are a real man I'll say that by the end of his career dozens of baseball teammates described Deion Sanders as one of the best teammates they've ever played with but when he left the Yankees to start the NFL season in 1989 he said most of his teammates were quote happy to see him go when he joined the Yankees his own manager said that Dion was quote going to get embarrassed the next year the Falcons threatened to sue the Yankees Dion himself filed a grievance against the Yankees and a baseball Legend called him a quote piece of on the field causing a fight Dion's Persona made him one of the flashiest and richest athletes of his era but for many old school baseball people this was a bad thing which is why despite accomplishing things in baseball that have not and will never happen again Dion experienced a ton of backlash like the time in the miners when he was getting heckled so badly from the crowd he got arrested for going in into the stands and allegedly assaulting one of them yes because while Dion was becoming a star in All-American Jim Thorp Award winner and consensus top draft pick in football while in college he simultaneously played minor league baseball in fact he considered skipping college football altogether he was drafted in the sixth round of the MLB draft out of high school and offered 75 grand to play for the Royals according to them Dion verbally agreed to a contract they sent a scout to his home to make him a full-time professional baseball player but the Scout was scared of being in Dion's neighborhood at night so he decided to wait and show up the next day instead during this time Dion changed his mind the Scout was immediately fired for hesitating but according to Dion it was actually the manager of the Royals who went behind the organization's back and convinced Dion out of the goodness of his heart to go to college knowing he was going to get more money if he waited 4 years and that's what he did he batted 333 as a freshman on a team that made it to the College World Series the next year he played in a conference tournament game on the baseball team then rushed to the conference track tournament and according to him raced in baseball pants the team won the conference tournament in track and then he literally ran back to the baseball field for another baseball game where he hit the game-winning RBI to earn his second Conference Championship on the same day by this point Dion was already an All-American in football and decided to quit baseball to focus on football for his junior year that spring the Yankees drafted him anyway and Dion accepted it while still being enrolled at FSU Dion played for the Yankees rookie ball team in Florida over the summer got paid $10,000 a week and in August he returned to FSU for his senior football season where Deion Sanders was Prime Time a character of a larger than life arrogant athlete he says he created in college in order to make the most amount of money as possible the accounts of many people around Dion say he wasn't really like this but while on camera portrayed him himself as the flashiest and cockiest version of himself as possible to get all the attention he could and it worked by the end of his senior season he was one of the biggest stars in college football as well as a top NFL prospect but just months before he was set to make millions in the NFL draft he returned to the Yankees where his teammates really didn't seem to like him despite barely playing baseball over the past two seasons he was assigned to Major League spring training originally assigned number 71 a number this high is typically given to minor Leaguers in big Le Camp who the team knows won't make the roster AKA nobody's Dion technically was one of these players however he was Dion Sanders his agent requested he get a lower number and the Yankees agreed giving him the lowest number available number 30 a number that had been worn by Yankees great Willie Randol for the past 13 Seasons before leaving for the Dodgers veteran Yankees were outraged it became Front Page News one Anonymous player told the media it was straight arrogance when Ron gidry was told he wanted a single-digit number he said quote this isn't Florida State as Camp progressed Dallas Green told media he's not prepared to play baseball he's a great athlete who has no business being embarrassed and he will be embarrassed cuz he's not prepared this was Dion's own manager and there was truth to this Dion himself admitted that he was quote married to football and baseball was just his girlfriend he had only played 28 baseball games in the past 2 years and everyone knew he was going to be a top pick in the NFL within a few months however Dion SAW baseball as the perfect bargaining tool he started the season in the miners and performed surprisingly well going going into the NFL draft Dion threatened teams that he didn't want to play for saying that if they drafted him he would just ask for way too much money then just play baseball and re-enter the draft the next year and this worked perfectly the teams he didn't want to play for were scared to pick him and he fell to the fifth overall pick with the Falcons his dream destination the Yankees who saw Dion as an asset knew they needed to convince him to stay in baseball so after just 62 professional games they called him up to the major leagues at just 21 years old a month after getting drafted in the NFL he was a New York Yankee Dion's tone changed about baseball saying he didn't need football that the Yankees could pay him just as much as Atlanta and that if quote football paid me 1.3 million and baseball paid me more he just start playing baseball now the Falcons had to convince him to play football it was clear Dion was using baseball as leverage trying to get the biggest contract possible however in the majors he struggled and was sent down in June while there he was getting abused by fans in Richmond they started targeting Dion as well as his wife so after being removed from the game he confronted the hecklers in the stands while the game was going on and allegedly assaulted one of them later he was arrested in his hotel room for this according to Dion the fans provoked him by saying something racial and even though he just briefly grabbed one of them the guy had ripped his own shirt to shreds to make it look like Dion beat him up he ended up getting fined by his team and getting the charges dropped after donating enough money to the rich and Braves that they were able to build a new handicap section during this time Dion was still negotiating with the Falcons threatening to just play baseball and re-enter the draft the next year if they didn't pay him what he wanted which seemed possible the Yankees had called him back up to the majors and in limited time in September he hit well also he had already missed most of training camp but 3 days before the Falcons first game he signed a 4year 4.4 million contract making him the highest paid defensive back in NFL history without playing a single game 3 days later he returned his second ever punt return for a touchdown in his first game without going to a practice all summer becoming the first player in history to score a touchdown and hit a home run in the same week even without training camp Dion was instantly one of the best defenders in the league and the threat of playing baseball full-time made him millions of dollars in negotiation he was about to take this strategy to another level but some people in baseball really didn't like it like Carlton Fisk a future Hall of Famer and 42-year-old old veteran when a 22-year-old Dion Sanders came to the plate and according to Fisk drew a dollar sign in the dirt he was infuriated then when Dion popped out a few pitches later and didn't hustle to first he took this as blatant disrespect and screamed at Dion Dion says he never drew a dollar sign in the dirt and just had a ritual where he would draw a line in the dirt where he wanted to put his back foot according to Fisk the next time Dion came to the plate he told him quote the days of slavery are over Fisk was outraged confronted Dion and the benches clear unlike football Dion tried his best not to be overly flashy in baseball but opponents still found him to be arrogant like when he hit his first major league home run his shoe came untied not thinking anything of it tied it while he touched home plate the Brewers were pissed at Dion for breaking an Unwritten Rule and he was probably just confused on on why anyone would care later in his career he had a similar run in with Kurt chilling months earlier Dion stole second against Schilling then he immediately stole third however his team was winning 6 to zero Schilling decided this was a blowout and concluded that Dion was breaking an Unwritten rule so when he faced him again in June he tried to nail him with a pitch escaping a terrifying pitch by inches Dion confronted Schilling on the field and the benches cleared after the game Dion said Schilling had no heart and only threw at him because he knew he wasn't going to have to face them until September Schilling responded by saying that Dion is a guy who quits on his team halfway through the year to play football if they're out of the race saying he hasn't done anything in baseball and called him a glorified flag football player who can run early in his career his reputation amongst veterans was that he was just a mediocre player who only got opportunities because he was good at football and had had a larger than life off the- field Persona which in the sport of baseball at the time was very much frowned upon but the Yankees owner George Stein brener loved it after a successful rookie year for the Falcons he came back and put up terrible numbers but in July he was hitting lead off and starting in Center when asked if the Yankees just made these moves to make him happy Dion said quote what do you think the Yankees believed that Dion committed himself to baseball full-time he'd be one of the best players in the league as well as the most marketable so they offered him a 14-month contract worth 2.5 million over his first two seasons he had the fifth worst batting average in baseball the ninth worst on base percentage in a negative War according to that him being on the field was actually hurting his team and the Yankees offered him a contract that would have made him one of the highest paid players in the league this upset teams across the league and even Yankees teammates were mad one one of them publicly told the media quote aren't you supposed to be good at this game to make that kind of money but the Yankees knew in order to get Dion fulltime they would have to outbid the Falcons and the Falcons claimed that was illegal they threatened to sue the Yankees if Dion signed a contract that prevented him from playing football because the contract they already had with Dion required him to leave the Yankees and go to training camp at the end of July but right before he was supposed to leave for football Dion agreed to a contract with the Yankees that made him a full-time baseball player then all of a sudden the deal fell apart backlash across the league a potential lawsuit from the Falcons and the trouble George steinbrener was already in with the league caused the Yankees to change their mind at the last second Dion was pissed his team says the deal was already agreed upon and that they would be filing a grievance Dion left the Yankees that day saying most of his teammates were quote happy to see him go according to his agent the day the deal fell apart they informed the Yankees that he would never play for them again he reported to training camp 2 weeks late and was fined 35 Grand by the Falcons and that off season was officially released by the Yankees his next baseball stop was the Atlanta Braves in the same city as the Falcons it was the perfect fit his two sports status exploded from February until July he was a full-time baseball player but at the end of each July he became a full-time football player in 1991 however the Braves were in the playoff hunt Dion wanted to help he was attempting to be the first player ever to play baseball and football at the same time and on September 25th 1991 he did it on the day he was named the defensive player of the week in the NFL he showed up to Falcons practice at noon practiced until 3:30 took a helicopter to the Brave stadium while the game was going on got dressed and entered as a pinch runner at 7:30 and stole a base it was an historic achievement but the Falcons didn't really seem pleased one player told the media quote Dion's ego is going to hurt us and this might be the time Dion only played five games before the baseball season ended and returned to the Falcons but his whole attitude about baseball completely changed he had just made his first Pro Bowl was second Team all pro but in April 1992 he told the media he was a full-time baseball player saying quote the only way I have a chance to be successful in baseball is to give it a shot for a full season and he dominated Dion was proving that when focusing on baseball he could be one of the best players in the league and finish may as the third most valuable player in baseball people questioned whether Dion saying he was 100% committed to baseball was true or if it was just a negotiation tactic to get more money from the Falcons turns out it was both when he was supposed to report to Falcons training camp in August he was by far the most productive player on the Braves so the Falcons desperate for his services offered him an extra $1 million just to come to training camp even though his current contract with them already required him to do so he turned this down skipped training camp and stayed with the Braves into September a week into the NFL season the Falcons were desperate and offered Dion a brand new $1.9 million contract as well as a new Clause that allowed Dion to return to the Braves during the MLB playoff meaning the Falcons paid Dion an extra $1.2 million this season even though he skipped training camp completely and had to miss three games to play baseball this season will go down as one of the most impressive in sports history even though he missed 40% of the baseball season to play football he still led the entire league in triples he was also First Team all pro and was the leading vote getter for the Pro Bowl and cornerback as well as punt returner even though he s out three NFL games to play baseball this year and that wasn't even the most impressive thing he did that happened in October and even though it was an achievement that will never happen again people in baseball seem to hate him for it you are a real man Dion I'll say that when Dion left the Braves in September he had an agreement with the team that he would come back for the playoffs as a quote full-time player however he was still under contract with the Falcons so when it turned out the Braves had a playoff game on the same day the Falcons had a regular season game Dion had to make a decision he chose both on Saturday he played for the Braves in a playoff game left the stadium at midnight arrived in Miami at 4 a.m. played a football game at 100 p.m. took a helicopter to the airport then boarded a flight flew all the way to Pittsburgh to make the playoff game just in time for first pitch Dion was about to to make history and the Braves benched him he was the biggest story in sports and trying to do something never done before but his own general manager told the media that if he knew Dion was going to do this he would have left him off the postseason roster Al together to Dion being a full-time player meant making every game but since he still had a contract with the Falcons he could still do football when there was no baseball going on but the Braves thought it meant that baseball would be his only focus and he wouldn't go to football practice or games until the playoffs were over so did Tim McCarver he was a broadcaster during this series and made multiple remarks about Dion playing two sports Dion's doing a rather self-centered thing how can he leave in the playoffs Dion got word of this criticism so when they won the series he looked for Revenge during the celebration he filled up multiple buckets of water and drenched him with it this made Dion sand ERS Public Enemy Number One in the Baseball World the media called him playing both in one day a publicity stunt for Nike labeled him as a punk called him a child and called him a jerk he was fined $11,000 and the Braves reportedly questioned leaving him off the World Series roster altogether Dion did make the roster didn't show up to any Falcons practices or games batted over 500 and had five steals while having a broken foot most likely he would have been World Series MVP had the Braves won but the damage was done Dion felt playing for the Braves while still under contract with the Falcons and injured was doing the Braves and his teammates a favor Braves GM John sholtz thought the opposite and Dion thought he was using the media to make him look bad saying he would never be able to forgive him the Braves GM responded by saying there are people who would hurt me if they insult me Deon Sanders isn't one of them these problems persist to the next year when coming off a season when he was the Braves most productive player he only started six of the team's first 20 games Dion told the media it was quote the biggest betrayal in sports history and speculated he was benched because the Braves were trying to get back at him for not signing a long-term contract with the team at the end of April his father tragic Ally passed away heartbroken Dion left the team for the funeral and didn't return the Braves GM said Dion was ineligible to play and said he wasn't sure if he had quit the team or not he missed 19 days lost 11,000 per day losing a total of $29,000 out of his $1 million salary but Dion eventually did return and even signed a three-year deal with the Braves to stay in Atlanta how however only a year later the Braves traded him to Cincinnati to Dion this was just the team and GM trying to get back at him again saying John Sher Holtz has never been straight with me Dion's time with the Yankees and the Braves both ended with extremely toxic fights between him and his own team from the outside looking in it was easy to see Dion as an arrogant Clubhouse cancer both teams couldn't wait to get rid of but his teammates had the opposite impression Dave Le Point called him quote maybe the most misread player ever Steve Sachs said that he had a preconceived notion of Dion but said in reality he was humble and respectful Chipper Jones called him his favorite Brave of all time and Tom glavin said that when the team signed Dion players were scared of what he was only to find out he was an amazing teammate when Dion was on the way to Cincinnati the team's Clubhouse manager says the Reds were also worried about his personal but when he got there he was 100% the opposite saying he was quiet he fought for the rookies and was humble people outside of the clubhouse in Cincinnati probably didn't feel this way especially after he got arrested at the stadium for allegedly riding a scooter where he wasn't supposed to then dragged a security guard who tried to stop him 15 ft while trying to get away it was a big news story however it was probably somewhat exaggerated as Dion was completely exonerated 2 years later in baseball the peak of his on the field accomplishments were behind him however perhaps the darkest and most life-changing event in Dion's life happened in Cincinnati while playing baseball Dion once again seemed to be using baseball as leverage proclaiming before the 1994 season that he was done with football and would play baseball fulltime while pursuing being a rapper and an actor he then signed with the 49ers one Defensive Player of the Year and a Super Bowl then went to the Cowboys won another Super Bowl had a rap album out was on every TV commercial and hosted SNL pretty much all at the same time but according to Dion he was empty after the Super Bowl he says he was the first one to leave the stadium went to the hotel room and just went to sleep the next year he didn't play baseball for the first time maybe ever he actually had a full training camp he was not only a pro bowler and first Team all proo cornerback that year he also was the Cowboys second leading receiver after the season he says he still felt empty and needed a new challenge he returned to the Reds but this also didn't work he was in the midst of a divorce and spiraling out of control according to Dion while playing for the Reds this year he went on a stretch where he didn't sleep for three days and lost 10 lb he even ate an entire bottle of Tylenol in in front of his teammates as I cry for help but nobody realized anything was wrong and in the middle of the Season he drove his car 65 to 70 mph off a road down a 30 to 40t drop on purpose in a suicide attempt somehow Dion walked away uninjured he missed the reds next game and news of the accident hit the papers however nobody had any idea he tried to take his own life he justified the incident by by telling the media that quote situation just caught up with me it's okay now I shouldn't miss any more games and only 2 days after trying to take his own life he was back with the Reds playing despite all of this Dion was second in the National League in Steels while missing 47 games to play football but that was the least of his worries during this time Dion fully committed to religion and his family and seemingly found peace he stepped away from baseball again playing football exclusively for three seasons but once again he couldn't stay away he returned to the Reds and went off in an historic game in Dion's first game back he got three hits three RBI including a homer and even stole a base after not playing a game for 3 years however his production wavered and was eventually released by the Reds Dion seemed to want to have nothing to do with playing for the Redskins that year signed a minor league deal to avoid going going to training camp and at the end of August was still in the miners and contractually obligated to go to the Redskins Dion left the team but instead of playing for Washington elected to retire ending his two sport career for good at 33 years old eventually Dion did come back taking another three years off Dion returned to football at 37 and in his final year at 38 he played in every single game and was the team's leader in interceptions he was undoubtedly one of the greatest football players ever while skipping training camp almost every year to play baseball where he briefly reached Elite status in the most elite league in the world while only playing 5 months a year doing both pushed him to his physical and mental limits it might have nearly cost him his life but he also accomplished things that will never be accomplished again

Channel: Baseball Doesn't Exist

Views: 1,395,772

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Id: A4KgzM45k68

Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 04 2023