At age 19, Bo Jackson is drafted June 7 in the second round of the 1982 amateur draft by the New York Yankees. Instead of honoring his football scholarship to enroll at Auburn as a freshman in the autumn, George Steinbrenner courts Bo and gets him to sign a contract with a $150,000 bonus to become a Yankee. In late June he joins the team’s (Low A) New York-Penn League team in Oneonta. In 23 games, he only hits .234, but with 6 home runs. [In an interesting side note of history, Bo is briefly a teammate at Oneonta with future NFL Hall of Famer John Elway, another one of George Steinbrenner’s dalliances into raiding other sports for top athletes. Alas for George, Elway, despite playing very well in the NYP League, opts to return in the fall to Stanford and resumes his college football career.]
In 1983 at age 20, Bo, primarily playing center field, splits his season between Oneonta and Greensboro in the (A level) South Atlantic League. In 30 games with Oneonta he produces a .298 batting average, a .357 on base percentage, and a .578 slugging percentage while belting 10 homers and stealing 18 bases. Promoted to Greensboro his production lowers to a .265 batting average, a .321 on base percentage, and a .488 slugging percentage in 65 games. He still dazzles scouts with his prodigious demonstrations of speed and power.
In 1984, based on a brilliant minor league spring training camp, the Yankee organization don’t return him to the South Atlantic League, but instead start him with their Fort Lauderdale team in the (High A) Florida League. He plays the entire first half of the season with Fort Lauderdale, leading them to first place after 71 games. He hits 12 homers in the pitcher’s park dominated Florida League, while swiping 30 bases. This earns him a promotion to Nashville in the (AA) Southern League. At Nashville, he plays with future Yankee teammates Dan Pasqua, Bob Tewksbury, and Doug Drabek. Bo slows facing the more advanced pitching in the Southern League. His plate appearances bring a .230 average, a .317 on base percentage, and a .463 slugging percentage, while smacking 16 home runs, stealing 18 bases, patrolling a decent centerfield, and showing a gun that keeps opposing base runners from taking an extra base. Despite Steinbrenner’s love of Jackson, the front office convinces him that Bo’s struggles in AA would only intensive if they brought him to the Bigs with a September call up. George is placated when dead man walking GM Murray Cook promises that Bo will spend all of spring training in 1985 at the major league camp.
The 1984-1985 off season is a pivotal one for the Yankees. They finished 3rd in the American League East with an 87 win and 75 loss season under icon Yogi Berra. Dave Winfield in RF, Don Mattingly at 1B, and Don Baylor at DH are the core of the offense. Willie Randolph at 2B, Butch Wynegar at C, and Ken Griffey in LF are effective table setters and complementary players. Center field, primarily under Omar Moreno, was a gaping hole of suckitude for the team in 1984. With Bo Jackson not quite ready for the primetime centerfield Yankee stadium spotlight, the Yankees pull off a blockbluster trade in December, 1984 to bring over Rickey Henderson from the Oakland A’s. For Henderson, they give up Jay Howell, Jose Rijo, Stan Javier, and Eric Plunk. The gamble with the trade is whether Henderson can play Center effectively. In Oakland, he predominantly played left as the A’s had a better Center Field glove in Dwayne Murphy. The front office hopes Rickey’s speed will translate well enough to center. The other significant off season move is the shipping out of Toby Harrah, confirming the young Mike Pagliarulo as the starting third baseman.
The new GM Clyde King sees enough out of Bo in spring training, along with plenty of commentary from owner George Steinbrenner, to assign Jackson to their top farm club at Columbus in the (AAA) International League. In April and May, both Bo and his Columbus Clipper teammate Dan Pasqua are torching AAA pitching for over .300 batting averages and .500 slugging percentages. In late May, when Yankee manager Yogi Berra, who’d barely held on to his job after a slow first month of the season, looks for some young legs and exuberance to help the aging Ken Griffey in left field as the Yankees fight for first place with the Blue Jays, GM Clyde King, under direct pressure from King George, chooses Bo over Pasqua to make the flight from Columbus to the Show. On May 30th, 1985 for his major league debut he hits a home run in Yankee Stadium to help the Yanks beat the California Angels 3 to 1. The legend of Bo Jackson had begun. The right hand hitting Bo played in 75 games, mostly platooning with the left hand hitting Ken Griffey in Left, but occasionally starting in Center or Right to spell Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield. In 200 At Bats he scored 40 runs and drove in 45 runs while hitting 15 home runs and stealing 19 bases. His rate stats of a .265 batting average, a .330 on base percentage, and a .510 slugging percentage weren’t quite the stuff of superstars, but his best seemed to come out in clutch situations and the Yankee faithful fell in love with the electric 22 year old. And no moment of his career was more cherished than his October 6th, last game of the season, blazing run home from first on a routine single, leveling Blue Jays catcher Ernie Whitt at the plate, in the top of ninth to score the winning run and seal the AL East against Toronto. His manager Yogi Berra was quoted more than once that fall saying Bo did things on the field that he’d thought only Mantle or Mays could do. The Yankees lost the AL pennant to the Kansas City Royals in 7 games, but Bo played better than any other Yankee. Clearly, room had to be made on the Yankees 1986 roster for ‘Blazing’ Bo to play every day.