FanHouse Bojackson

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

It was 20 years ago that Bo Jackson became a pop-culture icon when Nike featured him in a series of "Bo Knows ..."commercials for what was then a new kind of shoe, the Nike Cross Trainer. Now Nike has come out with a new Trainer 1 shoe, and to celebrate the release they brought together superstars from all sports for the 2009 Nike Training Summit. Superstars like Amare Stoudemire, Brandon Roy, Larry Fitzgerald, Adrian Peterson, Troy Polamalu (right) and more talk about everything from who they think the greatest athletes are (Troy's answer will surprise you) to what other sports they would play if they could cross over like Bo (again, Troy's answer will surprise you).

Check out the video after the jump.

Last week, I left the comfort of my mother's basement shoddy little East Coast apartment to rep FanHouse at the 2009 Nike Global Training Summit in Newport Beach, California. The primary reason for convening 50-some media members in sunny SoCal? The introduction of the Nike Trainer 1, the Swoosh's newest crosstraining shoe, which celebrates the 20-year anniversary of the "Bo Knows" campaign, featuring Bo Jackson.

Bo Jackson, the 1985 Heisman Trophy winner, returned to Auburn Saturday to give the school's commencement address.

It's not often that we approach the end of April and the Kansas City Royals are hovering around first place, but that's the situation the team currently finds itself in as they trail the Detroit Tigers by a game in the AL Central. Still, it's not that rare, considering that on this date in 2003 the Royals were 17-5 and 4 1/2 games ahead of the White Sox.

No, what's truly rare is seeing a Kansas City Royal grace the cover of Sports Illustrated during the baseball season. The last time it happened was when Bo Jackson was taking the country by storm in 1989, and now, 20 years later Zack Greinke will be carrying on the tradition for the Royals.

If you were to ask me who the greatest athlete I've ever seen in my lifetime is, I wouldn't have to think about it before answering. I'd simply say, Bo Jackson.

So it's pretty obvious that I have a ton of respect for the former two sport superstar, who suffered a hip injury that robbed us all of years of enjoyment. You may remember all those Bo Knows commercials, the ones that informed us that Bo knew everything.

Well, apparently there's one thing Bo knows nothing about, and that's the legal system.

I asked Bo to weigh in on the recent indictment of baseball's Barry Bonds for perjury and obstruction of justice regarding the use of steroids.

"The steroid issue is out of my league because I barely watch baseball anymore," said Jackson. "But I will support Barry until someone or something proves he is guilty. Personally, I don't think he has done anything illegal."

Well, Bo, he has. For some reason the federal government doesn't take too kindly when you lie to a grand jury, and generally they don't indict somebody until they already know he's guilty.

FanHouse's Top Five scans the sports blogosphere for the best posts of the last 24 hours so you don't have to. Got something for this feature? Hit us up at fanhouse@googlegroups.com.

1) Yesterday was quite a day for us headline-hungry sports fanatics: not only did Kevin Garnett finally, finally get traded -- and to Boston! -- the sports world lost a true mastermind in Bill Walsh. Walsh's accomplishments (the West Coast offense; a coaching lineage to rival Moses's) are well know, but EDSBS remembered to mention one of Walsh's greatest additions to the football fan canon: College Football National Championship. Even then, Bo Jackson was unstoppable.

2) It wasn't hard to find Garnett news yesterday; news outlet after news outlet jumped in on the story (albeit with differing versions of the deal) throughout the day. But lost in all of that was the fact that CelticsBlog.com, a, you guessed it, blog about the Celtics, actually broke the news first.

3) Believe it or not, Barry Bonds might have, maybe, maybe became a Devil Ray back in the day, if the chips would have fallen ever so slightly. The Sporting Orange looked at what might have been.

4) It's the offseason, but Carnival of the NBA never rests.

5) Finally, FanHouse's own Pat Lackey had the best take on the Mark Teixeira trade anywhere on the net. Sellers market? You better believe it.

If you needed more proof of that, well, you've never seen Ichiro play. Still, it is an incredibly unique feat to score on an inside-the-park home run in a professional baseball game, let alone the MLB All-Star Game, as Ichiro did in last night's 5-4 American League win. A lucky carom was involved, sure, but mostly that's the result of Ichiro's deadly speed outpacing an All-Star right fielder's best efforts. Impressive, to say the least.

It also brings to mind great home runs of All-Star games past. It recalls Cal Ripken's blast in his farewell All-Star appearance, when the baseball world stopped and realized what they had been taking for granted for so many years (and so many consecutive games). And Bo Jackson's home run to lead off the game in 1989 -- if there was anything that could have created more of a Bo Jackson frenzy, that was it.

What about you, commenters -- got a favorite All-Star game home run?

FanHouse All-Star Game Coverage:
Jeanie Zelasko Didn't Get the Ichiro Memo
What Was Tony La Russa Thinking?
Come On Feel the Noise: Your 2007 All-Star Game Live Blog
Albert Pujols Wasn't Happy, Either
Four At-Bats for Reyes; None for Ramirez, Rollins, Renteria

Saber Bombs are MLB FanHouse's introduction to sabermetrics, those new and sometimes unwieldy metrics that are changing the way we think about baseball. Each post highlights a specific stat, player, team or media member either embodying that understanding, or missing the boat completely.

Since I know there are at least a few of you out there that don't think too highly of these new-fangled statistics, I decided to highlight an Alex Belth piece over at Sports Illustrated that dropped earlier today. As some of you may or may not know, one popular metric is VORP (value over replacement player). It measures how many runs a player at a given position scores above what a replacement player would contribute at the same position.

Today, Belth turns a new twist on the stat with FORP or "fun over replacement player." (He writes his friend Emma Span coined the term earlier this year.) Predictably, it measures which players are the most fun to watch and "exude the most joy" on the field.

It's totally based on opinion -- so haters of mathematical algorithms take solace! Belth names Jose Reyes as his posterboy for VORP -- eh, can't really argue there. My boy Eric Byrnes in on there too, so three cheers to Belth for that.

Personally, I would have liked to see this list extend beyond current players. Kenny Lofton (Belth lists him as a player with the least amount of FORP, thanks to commenter Davey for that. Also, Lofton is still in the league. I'm an idiot.) comes to mind as does Lance Johnson and -- due to recent events -- Bo Jackson.

Joe Posnanski's Kansas City Star piece about Bo Jackson's baseball career is getting a lot of play, including here at FanHouse. Jackson could do things that few if any baseball players have ever done, and his baseball career should be lauded.

But as a football fan, it makes me sad to think about the time Jackson spent in Major League Baseball. Jackson was probably the most talented football player I've ever seen, and by choosing baseball over football, he deprived football fans of seeing -- and being inspired by -- his gift.

If you didn't know anything about Jackson and looked at his career stats, you'd wonder if there was a misprint. Is it really possible that a running back averaged 5.4 yards a carry -- better than Jim Brown -- but played just parts of four seasons and ran the ball only 515 times? Yes, Jackson was really that good. So good that in 1987, the Raiders had a Hall of Fame running back in his prime, Marcus Allen, and they moved him to fullback when Jackson showed up, even though Jackson had been playing baseball for two years.

Jackson's football career just makes me ask "What if?" What if Jackson had devoted himself full time to football? What if he had been durable enough to carry the ball 20 times a game, 16 games a season, for 10 years?

Jackson did some spectacular things with a baseball bat in his hands. But nothing close to what he did with a football in his hands. It's sad that his NFL career lasted just 38 games.

This story made its rounds a bit yesterday (see Deadspin and Baseball Primer Newsblog), but I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't bring it over to the FanHouse.

Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star penned a column Sunday about the legend that is Bo Jackson. There are some remarkable anecdotes within the column, things I wish were all documented in a video compilation for us all to see. Here's just a taste:

July 29, 1988: Bo Jackson was facing Baltimore's Jeff Ballard. He called timeout and stepped out of the box. He adjusted his batting glove when he realized that the umpire did not actually grant his timeout, and Ballard was throwing the ball. Jackson jumped back into the box, swung that bat and ... yeah. He hit a home run.

"Most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life," says Bob Schaeffer, Kansas City's first-base coach at the time.

•May 15, 1989: Legendary baseball writer Peter Gammons was in Minnesota to write a Sports Illustrated cover story about Jackson, so he watched Bo take batting practice. It was a typical Bo hitting session - he cracked rockets all over the field. Then it was time for his last swing. Bo jumped into the cage and hit left-handed.

He hit a titanic shot 450 feet off the Hardware Hank sign in right field.

Left-handed.

"I got work to do," Bo said to the other players, whose jaws had dropped. He ran out to the outfield to shag some fly balls.

Um, yeah, WOW. I myself am a little too young to really appreciate the man, but I do remember his short stint with the White Sox. It's a shame his career was cut short by his nagging hip, but at least he'll always live on in Tecmo Bowl infamy, no?