Brady, Baseball and What Might Have Been
Here’s a piece of trivia you might not know: Tom Brady (yes, THE Tom Brady) was taken in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft. Crazy, right? Like, he turned out to be pretty good, and a whole bunch of people who turned out to be not so good were taken ahead of him, and it’s just unbelievable, no?
OK, yeah, of course you’ve heard that story, heard it a million times, heard how getting taken in the sixth round was like the worst day in Brady’s life, and how outraged and determined it made him to prove everybody wrong, and, yeah, this feels like pretty well-covered ground.*
*When someone asked Brady on draft day if he was disappointed by slipping from a projected second- or third-rounder down to the sixth, he said, “I don’t think disappointment is the word. Whether it’s the second or sixth round, I think everyone starts on the same level.” It’s actually a really shrewd comment by Brady. He didn’t say he was disappointed, but he also didn’t say he wasn’t disappointed. He simply said, “I don’t think disappointment is the word.” We would later find out that “devastation” or “in a blind rage” or “ready to make all those teams pay for their insolence” would have been more descriptive words for his feelings.
Oh, hey, have you seen this — the one-paragraph summary of Brady in The Boston Globe the day after he was drafted?
6, 199 — Tom Brady, QB, Michigan
A pocket passer who will compete for a practice squad spot with the Patriots … Drafted as a catcher by the Montreal Expos in 1995 out of Serra (San Mateo, Calif.) Hs … Completed 62.8 percent of his passes with 20 TDs and six interceptions. Only Elvis Grbac had more TD tosses in a season for the Wolverines … Throws a great slant … At almost 6-4, 214 pounds, has some mobility … Platooned with sophomore Drew Henson … Was projected to go in the third round, but dropped quickly.
I cannot tell you how much I love the “Throws a great slant” line just thrown in the middle there.
Anyway, Brady was kept as the fourth-string quarterback by the Patriots because they didn’t want to lose him on waivers and the rest is history.
But what interests us here is a different line in the Boston Globe synopsis — Brady was indeed drafted by the Expos in the 18th round of the 1995 baseball draft. He was taken one pick after the Yankees took Steve Randolph, a left-handed pitcher who made it into 109 big league games with the Diamondbacks and Astros.
And so, yes, for our weekend fun read, let’s look at some of the more, um, famous football-player draft picks in baseball history!