All eyes will be on Glendale, Arizona this Sunday. The biggest single game of the calendar year pits the Seattle Seahawks versus the New England Patriots. It is the old guard of Tom Brady trying to prevent the new kids on the block and Russell Wilson from repeating as world champs.
There was a time when Seahawks All-Pro quarterback Russell Wilson wasn’t all-in on only a football career. In fact, there was a time when several scouts felt Wilson was going to make it to the big leagues.
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“I thought he could be a super-utility guy and be that 12th guy offensively that could play second, short and even center,” Texas Rangers’ scout Chris Kemp told ESPN. “I do think he could have been a major league player. An everyday guy? I wasn’t so sure. But I knew he could have a role on a big league team. His work ethic was a separator.”
Wilson was first drafted in the 41st round in the 2007 draft right out of high school by the Baltimore Orioles. He, of course, passed on the offer and decided to go to North Carolina State University. Three years later he was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 2010 draft, this time in the fourth round.
“He wanted to play football and baseball and be the best he could at both,” Jay Matthews, the Rockies scout, said. “Years later, he was still that focused, motivated player. We saw him as a Jerry Hairston-type big leaguer — athletic enough to be versatile at multiple positions, possibly second, third, left field and center. The defense was ahead of the offense. But we thought if he had at least 1,500 minor league at-bats, the upside was there and he was going to be a big league player. We wouldn’t have drafted him in the fourth round if we didn’t think that.”
The Rockies signed Wilson with a $200,000 signing bonus, which he would of course pay part of back to the team when he would leave for Seattle two years later. But before he was poised to go for his second Super Bowl championship in three professional seasons, Wilson put together a decent minor league career.
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His first season was spent with the Tri City Dust Dust Devils in the short-season Rookie-level Northwest League. There he slashed a .230/.336/.377 line while hitting two home runs and driving in 11. The following season he was bumped up to the Low-A South Atlantic League where he played 55 games at second base for the Asheville Tourists. He would finish the 2011 season with a .228/.366/.342 line with three home runs, 15 RBI and adding 15 stolen bases to his career totals. That would be the end of the story for Wilson’s baseball career as he would be drafted by the Seahawks 75th overall the following season. And the rest is, as they say, history. Well, kind of.
Wilson was technically still on the Rockies books, so when he wasn’t protected on the 40-man roster at the end of the 2013 season, he was put into the Rule 5 Draft. The Texas Rangers swooped in and picked him up, maybe with hopes that he would return to the game of baseball, or maybe just to have that ultimate leadership in camp. Wilson did show up to Rangers camp, wearing a No. 3 Rangers jersey, but after some drills, that seemed to be it for the now elite quarterback.
“I believe that I would’ve played in the big leagues, I believe it would have taken me a couple years, I would’ve gotten there,” Wilson told MiLB.com. “I would’ve loved the game, but there’s nothing like playing football. There’s nothing like the game being on the line.”