Even the greatest of athletes — maybe especially them — wonder what if? That’s especially true for those who must consider what the poet Robert Frost memorably called “The Road Not Taken” — that is, multi-sport athletes who have to leave one passion behind to follow a different road to success.
With the exception of a few wildly talented overachievers like Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson, who against all odds managed to play two sports professionally at the highest level, athletes who excel at two or more sports usually have to choose just one.
[This list could go on forever, but consider that NBA Hall of Famer Allen Iverson was the best high school quarterback in his state, MLB legend Dave Winfield was drafted in all three major U.S. sports leagues, and Charlie Ward — a 1990s era Knicks guard — won the Heisman Trophy at Florida State before joining Patrick Ewing in the NBA. Tough choices. Even a guy named Michael Jordan never wanted to leave baseball behind.]
Yet rarely has there been such a sure athletic thing as young John Elway, the longtime Denver Broncos QB who won two Super Bowls and had an arm like a rocket launcher.
Elway, who also excelled in baseball in college at Stanford, was drafted by the New York Yankees with the 52nd pick in 1981, even playing a little Single-A ball before the siren song of the the NFL untied him from his bat.
Below, while napping, Elway gets to relive his experience thanks to comic legend Larry David, who reprises his famous Seinfeld portrayal of Yankees owner and iconoclast George Steinbrenner.
In the ad for Topps trading cards, Steinbrenner’s stubborn single-mindedness won’t allow him, despite the recommendations, to see — and choose — future Hall of Fame star Tony Gwynn, whose baseball career was, you might say, a lot longer and a little better than Elway’s. The what if? here has two sides: the path Elway didn’t take, and the path the Yankees never traveled.
