The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Yankees past, present share memories of Sanders
NEW YORK — It didn’t take long for Ron Guidry to identify Deion Sanders’ greatest attribute on the diamond.
“The first thing you tell yourself is this son of a gun can run,” the former Yankees ace told the New York Daily News. “He might have been one of the fastest guys I ever saw in a baseball uniform.”
Indeed, Sanders could sprint. That speed helped him blaze a path as a twosport athlete in the majors and the NFL. He achieved his greatest success on the gridiron, cementing himself as an all-time cornerback while playing for the Falcons, 49ers, Cowboys, Washington and Ravens between 1989 and 2005. More recently, “Prime Time” has become “Coach Prime,” heading collegiate football programs at Jackson State and Colorado.
The Colorado Buffaloes have enjoyed a return to relevancy in Sanders’ first year at the helm, as the 56year-old still commands the spotlight with ease. But long before the Florida State product became a football Hall of Famer, the magnetic personality began his professional athletic career trying to prove his baseball chops with the Yankees.
With the late George Steinbrenner fond of drafting two-sport athletes, Sanders joined the Bombers as a 30th-round pick in 1988.
“George went out of his way to draft guys like Deion, whether it was Bo Jackson … John Elway. There was a quarterback, Billy Cannon Jr.,” longtime Yankees pitcher Dave Righetti told the News. “Star power, right?”
But Sanders didn’t play like a star with the Yankees.
After spending parts of two seasons in the minors, Sanders played in 71 games for New York from 1989-1990 while also beginning his NFL career. The center fielder hit .178/ .248/.306 with five home runs, 16 RBIs and nine stolen bases for the Yanks.
Guidry said Sanders could have been just like Rickey Henderson — the legendary base-stealer and leadoff man — for the Yankees if he had learned to hit breaking balls and dedicated himself to baseball right away. But Sanders had two passions, and Guidry said his situational baseball instincts paled in comparison to his football smarts early on.
“Deep down inside, I think he knew football was his game,” Guidry said. “So I don’t know if he really gave 100% to make it in baseball. And it might be harsh of me to say it that way, but I just think that he knew he was going in football and baseball was a thing that he tried.”
The Yankees released Sanders toward the end of the 1990 season. He didn’t spend much time in the Bronx, but he left teammates with colorful memories before blossoming in both sports.
You’ve got the wrong number
After wearing No. 2 at Florida State and in the minors, Sanders received No. 71 for spring training in 1989. According to the Sun-Sentinel at the time, Sanders didn’t care for the number and asked for a single-digit.
But the lowest available figure was No. 30. Willie Randolph wore that number for 13 years while also serving as a co-captain alongside Guidry before joining the Dodgers the previous offseason.
Yet Sanders was given the number. That didn’t sit well with some veterans, and Guidry quickly told equipment manager Nick Priore to find Sanders a new uniform.
“We weren’t mad at (Deion),” Guidry said. “I wasn’t mad at him or anything like that. I just thought that that number should have been left alone for a while because of what Willie did there. Certainly, as good a player as (Deion) was and as great a football player as he became, he didn’t earn that number.”
Colorado declined to make Sanders available for an interview for this story, but back then he was quoted as saying, “When they told me that they were thinking about retiring it, I understood. Otherwise, I hadn’t thought about it.”
The Yankees never retired No. 30 for Randolph, but he has a plaque in Monument Park. Sanders, meanwhile, didn’t wear the number for long.
“I think it lasted a day,” Righetti said, though The Sentinel reported that Sanders switched to No. 44 — Reggie Jackson’s old number — midway through his first workout in a No. 30 uniform.
Lace ’em up
Sanders wasn’t much of a power hitter, but he had some pop. He demonstrated that in his fifth MLB game when he hit his first career homer off Bryan Clutterbuck in Milwaukee on June 4, 1989.
Sanders’ shoelaces must have come undone on the play, because after a slow trot around the bases, he tied them while standing on top of home plate.
“The Milwaukee guys got pissed at him because, you know, he’s Deion, and the league was all buttoned up then and all that (expletive) ,” Righetti said. “He harmlessly did that. He did not do that to show anybody up. He just bent over, stopped and tied his shoe. And I said, ‘Well, he didn’t want to trip.’ ”
It wouldn’t be the last time Sanders irritated an opponent while wearing a Yankees uniform.
A fiery Fisk
On May 22, 1990, Sanders and White Sox catcher Carlton Fisk, a future Hall of Famer, had a dispute when the Yankee didn’t run out a third-inning, infield pop-up. Fisk, already annoyed because he thought Sanders had drawn a dollar sign in the batter’s box dirt earlier in the game, erupted.
“Run the (expletive) ball out, you piece of (expletive),” Fisk barked, per multiple accounts.
“I wanted to fight, and not Deion,” Righetti recalled. “(expletive) A, man. I was (expletive). I said, ‘We gotta take care of that.’ And I loved Carlton Fisk. We competed against him. He wasn’t our favorite with the Yankees, but he was one of our pros in our league.
“We knew what he meant. He told Deion you gotta run in this league and all that. I know he did that. But I just felt (expletive) that we weren’t the ones to be able to go, ‘You can’t do that. You gotta run.’”
Today, what Sanders did wouldn’t cause a stir, as players regularly opt against running on routine balls. But expectations were different back then.
“Guys do it all the time now. They do it all the time,” Yankees great Don Mattingly told The News. “That was just a different time. And (Deion) was kind of ahead of his time as far as his deal on the field.”
The conflict escalated during Sanders’ next atbat. At that point, Fisk said that Sanders told him, “The days of slavery are over,” according to Newsday. That led to a benches-clearing confrontation. Mattingly stood by Sanders’ side as the outfielder pointed his bat at Fisk.
While Fisk took offense to Sanders’ slavery comment, Righetti remembers things playing out differently.
“He went up to bat the next time, stuck his hand
down and tried to shake his hand, and Fisk just looked at him,” Righetti said. “Deion turned around and stuck his hand out to say, ‘I messed up.’”
Sanders was known for having a habit of drawing dollar signs in the dirt, but he said Fisk lied about that during an interview with “The Rich Eisen Show” last year.
“For him to say I drew a dollar sign in the dirt, that was a lie,” Sanders said. “I grew up in the inner city … we didn’t have chalk batting boxes. So I used to always draw half a circle; it was like a B in the middle where I put my back foot and up to my stride point. That’s what I always drew in the batter’s box every time I went up my whole career.”
Bo Knows vs. Prime Time
Sanders wasn’t the only athlete splitting his time between baseball and football in 1990. Bo Jackson had already been starring with the Royals and Raiders for years at that point, which made for a spectacle when Kansas City visited Yankee Stadium on July 17.
“Bo was in the Bo Knows campaign,” Righetti said. “Here’s the new guy, Deion, Prime Time. They’re both playing two sports. It was pretty awesome.”
The game, a 10-7 Royals
win, lived up to the hype, as the powerful Jackson homered in each of his first three at-bats. But Sanders showed off his legs in the sixth inning, racing his way to an inside-the-park-home run after hitting a ball past a diving Jackson in center field. Jackson injured his shoulder on the play, while Sanders ended it on an acrobatic note.
“Bo Jackson ran and dove headlong like Superman, but he landed on his left shoulder,” Righetti said. “He messed his shoulder up and came out of the game. But the ball went to the fence, and that’s when Deion jumped over the catcher.”
Post pinstripes
Sanders only played in 11 more games for the Yankees after that matchup with the Royals. In the grand scheme of his accomplished career, the pinstripes were merely a footnote.
Still, he left a lasting — and positive — impression on his Yankees teammates.
“He’s a lot different than probably the general public perception,” Mattingly said. “For me, he was always in the locker room. He was just like one of the guys. He wasn’t like Prime Time. But when he got on the field, you knew it was like, the lights came on, he was going to be rolling.”