Ah, who can forget the bit-ter rivalry of Jordan vs. Bird?
They wouldn't be competing for an OSCAR, but things could have gone quite differently. . .
Most people think of Jordan like this, but as a baseball fan first, I wasn't all that interested in Michael Jordan until he tried playing for Chicago's AA team in Birmingham:
30 steals is pretty impressive for someone's first pro season- it takes more than pure speed to steal a base...
And of course people think of Larry Bird like this:
But did you know about this?
Pretty Cool Story!
Just imagine if The Hick From French Lick stuck with Hardball, and ended up playing against Jordan in the majors... we never would have had the ridiculous Nintendo game then, I'm sure.
Thanks to Jeff from Wish They Still Came With Bubblegum to send this card along to me! If you've got an awesome baseball card of a non-Baseball player and want to trade it to me, I'm all ears. Maybe a Tracy McGrady card with the Sugarland Skeeters? Or a Russell Wilson prospect card? Let me know! I love that stuff.
Man, that Larry Legend baseball card is awesome.
ReplyDeleteBefore it showed up on my doorstep, I had no idea it existed - I think I had just recently added the "non-baseball Players playing baseball" category to my Collecting Goals page and Jeff delivered!
DeleteThat Skylights MJ was one of my first Jordan cards. I love that card.
ReplyDeleteI still have a handful of basketball cards from my first round of collecting as a kid, the ones shown in the post are pretty much all of my remaining Jordan/Bird cards.
DeleteTwo days in a row, I learned something. Grandpa would be proud.
ReplyDeleteI just imagine how weird it must have looked to see Bird (and Jordan for that matter) on a baseball field. Not just because they are known for basketball, but because they were so tall compared to the average baseball player.
DeleteMost guys taller than 6'5" or so are not running around the diamond. Every once in a while you'll see a guy like Randy Johnson, Mark Hendrickson (a former Basketball player), Jon Rauch, or Gene Conley... Those guys are all pitchers, though.