(USA TODAY Sports Images)
The Texas Rangers selected Russell Wilson — the Seattle Seahawks quarterback — in Major League Baseball’s annual Rule 5 Draft on Thursday.
The draft allows teams to choose players who have spent at least four years in another team’s farm system without being added to its 40-man roster. Wilson played Class A ball for the Rockies in 2010 and 2011.
Since Wilson hasn’t played since and is pretty busy being an NFL quarterback, it’s unclear why the Rangers bothered taking him. Here are a couple of reasonable theories:
“At the end of the day, he obviously has a lot bigger things that he’s working on right now,” Rangers assistant general manager A.J. Preller told the Associated Press, “and we don’t want to interrupt with that aspect of it. But if at some point down the road he decides he wants to do baseball again, we felt like it would be a positive to have him with us.”
“It’s a pretty cool thing,” Wilson said. “At the same time my focus is on football. (Rangers GM Jon) Daniels and I talked about that obviously.”
Though the Rangers likely won’t be able to talk Wilson into shedding the shoulder pads for an infielder’s glove anytime soon, he wasn’t all that terrible in his minor league stint.
Wilson batted only .229 in 315 career minor league at-bats, but his .354 on-base percentage combined with his obvious athleticism mean he might have eventually made a decent big-league utility player. But there’s almost no way he’d have been as good at baseball as he was at football.
Also, and as a reminder: The way we giggle at the idea of Wilson playing both football and baseball now underscores just how incredible Bo Jackson was.
