While making it pro in one of the leagues is an incredibly rare achievement, an extremely select group of athletes have gone professional in more than one league over the years.
Having grown up as someone who is so obviously not athletic in the slightest sense of the word, it was always interesting taking note of those who were athletic – and the fact that they often played multiple sports.
When watching any given major professional sporting event in North America, you’ll likely hear an anecdote from a broadcaster, reporter or even teammate about a given player’s history in other sports – about how they excelled in two or three sports in high school before possibly going on to play multiple sports at the collegiate level as well.
But making it to the highest level of professional play is an incredibly lofty barrier to clear in any sport – let alone for an athlete to be able to do both.
This was a subject that sparked significant curiosity for me as a kid when I was learning about the major professional sports leagues. Having been born in 1996, I’m a bit too young to have seen the era of Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders somehow managing successful NFL and MLB careers at the same time, a feat we still have not seen since.
Jackson and Sanders get the disproportionate amount of attention when it comes to this topic due to the fact that they played in both leagues simultaneously – hell, Sanders even played for both the Atlanta Falcons and Braves at the same time.
The achievements across both sports for the aforementioned athletes are incredible. Jackson was of course a Heisman Trophy winner in college football and went on to make a Pro Bowl in the last of his four NFL seasons. On the diamond, Jackson hit 141 home runs in 694 MLB games, making the AL All-Star team in a 1989 season that saw him hit 32 homers with 105 RBI and 26 stolen bases, good enough for a 10th place finish in AL MVP voting.
Sanders was primarily known for his achievements on the gridiron, going down as a Pro Football Hall of Famer with eight Pro Bowls, six AP 1st Team All-Pro honors, two Super Bowl titles and a Defensive Player of the Year award, generally being regarded as one of the greatest cornerbacks of all-time.
Yet Sanders was no slouch in the MLB, where he appeared in 641 games across a nine-season career. Sanders notably led the league in triples with 14 in 1992 and also recorded a 56-stolen base season in 1997 as a member of the Cincinnati Reds – a season that saw him play in a career-high 115 games. Additionally, Sanders remains the only player to ever play in both a Super Bowl and World Series.
Since the days of Jackson and Sanders, a lot of attention on multi-sport athletes has been given to players that haven’t quite made it pro in one of the sports they were known for. Despite spring training action under his belt in addition to time as a college baseball player, Russell Wilson never made his way to MLB – a similar fate so far for Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray, who was a first round draft pick with the Oakland Athletics back in 2018. The A’s retain Murray’s rights shall he ever decide to return to baseball.
Typically in today’s sporting world of specialization, even multi-sport athletes tend to choose one sport at a time to focus on – even when they go professional to some degree in both of them.
Perhaps the most famous example of this is former NFL quarterback Brandon Weeden, who was a second-round draft pick of the New York Yankees back in 2002 as a pitcher. After five seasons in minor league baseball which saw Weeden also play in the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Dodgers organizations without advancing past the High-A level, Weeden decided to abandon his professional baseball career as a 22-year-old in 2006.
The next year, Weeden enrolled at Oklahoma State University in hopes of becoming a college football quarterback, redshirting the 2007 season before appearing in just one game in 2008. After another year of limited action in 2009, Weeden emerged as one of the sport’s most effective quarterbacks as a junior in 2010. As a senior in 2011, Weeden led all of college football in passing yards, touchdown passes, completion percentage and completion in a campaign that saw Oklahoma State cruise to a 12-1 season and a No. 3 end of season ranking.
Despite being 28 years old at the end of his college football career, Weeden was a first round draft pick for the Cleveland Browns in 2012, spending that season as the team’s full-time starter. Weeden went on to play in parts of five NFL seasons, posting a 6-19 record as a starting quarterback.
Similarly, Arkansas Razorbacks wide receiver Monte Harrison is attempting the same career path now – though one that actually did involve making it to The Show. First drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2014, Harrison eventually made his MLB debut with the Miami Marlins in 2020, going on to appear in 50 games (and two playoff games) from 2020-22 with both the Marlins and the Los Angeles Angels. Harrison has since abandoned his baseball career, and is entering his junior year at Arkansas as a 31-year-old.
When it comes to players that have made it to both the NFL and MLB, there have been a few examples in the years since the Jackson/Sanders era – though none of these athletes played both sports simultaneously.
Longtime St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves outfielder Brian Jordan put together an impressive 15-year MLB career after three seasons with the Atlanta Falcons as a defensive back from 1989 to 1991. As a baseball player, Jordan posted 32.9 WAR with 1,454 hits, 184 home runs and 119 stolen bases in 1,456 career regular season games. Jordan also appeared in 38 postseason games, including the 1999 World Series.
A couple of other players have enjoyed cameos in both leagues. Drew Henson, a third baseman who appeared in eight games with the Yankees across the 2002 and 2003 seasons, went on to play in nine games as an NFL quarterback in the 2004 and 2008 seasons, with his lone start being a victory with the Dallas Cowboys in 2004.
Chad Hutchinson appeared in just three games as a pitcher for the 2001 St. Louis Cardinals, allowing 11 earned runs in just four innings before pivoting to football. Hutchinson had a bit more meat to the bone on his NFL career, serving as the primary starting quarterback for the 2002 Cowboys. After going 2-7 across nine starts, Hutchinson went on to appear in six more NFL games, going 1-4 across five starts made for the 2004 Chicago Bears.
Some combinations of the leagues have never been achieved by a professional athlete. Excluding cups of coffee in the MLB and NHL from Jim Riley in the 1920’s, there has never been a player in the modern era to make it to both leagues – although Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Glavine was famously a Los Angeles Kings draft pick.
Similarly, there has never been an athlete to play in both the NFL and NHL or the NBA and NHL, while Bud Grant of the 1950’s remains the only athlete to make it to both the NFL and NBA.
There have been 13 players across the histories of the MLB and NBA to have played in both leagues, with the majority of these athletes having done so in the infancy of the NBA. There are two famous, more recent examples of the rare multi-sport crossover, however.
Longtime Boston Celtics guard Danny Ainge, who had a successful 14-year NBA career that included winning two NBA titles and playing in six different NBA Finals, had begun his time as a professional athlete with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Playing in 211 games across the 1979, 1980 and 1981 seasons, Ainge compiled 146 hits, two home runs and 12 stolen bases with a .533 OPS in his MLB career, finishing with a -2.0 WAR. Ainge was notably a utility player for the Blue Jays, appearing at least once at every position other than catcher, pitcher and first base.
The most recent player to make it to both the MLB and NBA is lanky left-hander Mark Hendrickson, who followed up a four-year NBA career as a bench player with 10 years in the MLB, appearing in 328 games while also making 166 starts.
Though Hendrickson only played in three MLB playoff games and none in the NBA, he does hold the incredibly unique distinction of being the only athlete to have faced Michael Jordan in the NBA and Barry Bonds in the MLB.
Hendrickson encountered Jordan twice during his NBA career, once during his first season with the Philadelphia 76ers and again in the famous 1997-98 season as a member of the Sacramento Kings. The power forward went on to spend the 1998-99 season with the New Jersey Nets before splitting the 1999-00 season with the Nets and Cleveland Cavaliers.
In his 10-year MLB career from 2002 to 2011, Hendrickson posted a 58-74 record with 4.1 WAR, posting a 5.03 ERA with 345 walks and 666 strikeouts in 1,169 innings of work with the Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, Florida Marlins and Baltimore Orioles.
Not only did Mark Hendrickson face Barry Bonds, he actually kind of dominated him. In 15 plate appearances against Hendrickson, Bonds managed just two hits, both of which were singles, and four walks – althoug Hendrickson never managed to strike Bonds out.
Since Hendrickson’s retirement, there has not been another athlete that has played in multiple of the big four North American professional sports leagues – something Monte Harrison likely hopes to change soon.
In an era where sports are only becoming more demanding and specialization-heavy, it is only becoming a harder feat to accomplish.
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