Unfortunately, most people seem to measure success by one’s paycheck. If you’re a professional athlete or an entertainer, your salary is public knowledge. The biggest story of this offseason is the record deal that Shohei Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, and the money he is deferring so that they can sign everyone but Mayor McCheese.
It’s easy to write about all of the two-way players in MLB and how they compare with Ohtani. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more players attempt the feat in the next decade with one or two being relatively successful. However, with Ryan Minor’s recent passing, I wanted to celebrate the two-sport athletes.
Professional sports has a long history of guys attempting to play two sports at the same time. Most recently, Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson have been the most successful. However, several athletes play multiple sports in high school and will continue to do so despite the proliferation of travel teams and specialization. More often than not these are the best athletes and multiple coaches want them to play multiple sports (maybe more so for female athletes).
In the two + decades that I have written about professional baseball, I’ve interviewed and featured several guys that played multiple sports, most settling on baseball in college. And while I never did a feature on Ryan Minor, I did have the occasion to speak with him extensively on his experiences and how it helped him in his coaching.
To look at his brief ML playing career, one wouldn’t say he was the most productive player. He is probably best known for being the guy to step in for Cal Ripken Jr when he ended his consecutive streak back in 1998. In parts of four ML seasons, he only batted .177. He was also drafted in the 2nd round of the 1996 NBA draft by the Sixers.
His greatest successes on the diamond and hardcourt came at University of Oklahoma. Not only were he and his twin brother, Damon members of the 1994 CWS champions, he averaged 16.2 pts in four seasons for the hoops team. He earned several Big Eight honors. Ask your parents about the Big Eight.
There are thousands of ballplayers that played on CWS championship teams and most never were drafted nor played in the big leagues. Ryan achieved that and was an excellent college basketball player. Yet, his greatest professional successes may have been as a minor league coach. After retiring as a player, he almost immediately joined the Orioles organization which is how I met him.
Because my time and energy were split between two teams and a few other individuals that season, I wasn’t with him every day. He provided me with needed content on the players I was covering, but more importantly, we spent some down time on the field talking about baseball, basketball and life.
Years earlier, I did a feature on Matt Szczur for his hometown paper in New Jersey. Matt was a member of the 2016 World Champion Cubs and played baseball collegiately. But more to the point of this post, he was the stud on the football team that won the 2009 FCS National Championship. That he wasn’t a 6’5 starting quarterback, made the accomplishment all the more impressive.
In the history of the Arizona Fall League, several players have attempted to reinvent themselves as either pitcher-position player or vice versa. The most famous two-sport star in the years I covered the AFL was Tim Tebow, a Heisman trophy winner at the University of Florida. I know when he was in the Mets organization, many critics assumed it was a publicity grab. While that may not have been his intent, the controversial former NFL quarterback did draw a lot of attention. I know that several former Gator baseball players weren’t as keen on his attempt-especially those that played on the CWS championship team that made the choice to play baseball their profession.
Hopefully, in the next few days I’ll find the notes I took from my interview with Ryan. He was a good guy that left a great legacy behind and not just as an athlete or coach.
