Why Deion Sanders was beloved by MLB teammates: He wasnt Prime Time all the time

Publish date: 2021-01-28

It was the summer of 1995, and on one side of his double life, the time couldn’t have been more prime for Deion Sanders.

He was coming off a Super Bowl victory with the San Francisco 49ers, and he had established himself as more than a sideshow on the baseball field. He was then, as he is now, a flashpoint and lightning rod in the sports world. The two-sport star lived up to his nickname and, like NBC’s Thursday night lineup at the time, all eyes were on him.

Advertisement

But things were not as smooth in the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse, where emotions were still raw from the pain of the 1994-95 players’ strike. Now, Sanders was among a group of big leaguers who listened as the team’s general manager shared his plans to promote a scab — the term widely used for players who had broken ranks during the strike.

Sanders, the star of all stars, had little outward motivation to be concerned about the plight of people like Rick Reed, then a 30-year-old journeyman pitcher who would later be known as “the poor man’s Greg Maddux.” At this moment, only the first part of that descriptor proved accurate, which is why Reed crossed the picket line.

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

Weird & Wild: The weekend the baseball gods worked overtime

Growing up in West Virginia, Reed’s mother had encouraged him to chase his dreams. “When I was 12, I told her she was going to watch me play on TV,” Reed recalled recently. “I told her if I ever had a chance, I don’t care how I got the money, I was going to help my parents out.” So when Reed’s mother became a diabetic without health insurance, he made good on his word. Even though he’d already been released three times, he was the one paying his mother’s medical bills.

Now, the lengthy work stoppage meant life without a steady paycheck, and for Reed’s parents, that meant the possibility of losing their home. With few other prospects, Reed reluctantly agreed to do the one thing he knew he could do to make money: pitch. He had been slated to be the Opening Day starter on the Reds’ replacement team. Then the strike ended and he was sent to the minors. Although he never actually appeared in a game as a replacement, he would be among those who were forever shunned.

But soon it was July and the Reds were desperate for arms. With Reed pitching well at Triple A, the solution was obvious. But the situation was so touchy that then-Reds general manager Jim Bowden called a team meeting to announce what would otherwise have been a routine roster move.

Advertisement

In the back of the clubhouse, at least one player stood up and declared that he would refuse to share the field with a scab.

Then someone else stood up. As Sanders was known to do, he made his opinion loud and clear.

“You know what? You have no idea what that man went through, what he’s going through, so how can you sit here and judge him?” Sanders said in the version of the story that got back to Reed. That account was later confirmed by Bowden.

“I never had a player in any clubhouse that cared more about winning and his teammates than Deion,” said Bowden, now a columnist at The Athletic. “He did more to help other players both on and off the field more than anyone else I’d ever had.”

Deion Sanders looks on during a Reds spring training workout in 1995, when raw emotions from the strike still lingered. (Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)

Reed wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms, but he was ultimately called up to the Reds without incident. On the day Reed joined the team, Sanders was traded to the Giants in exchange for much-needed pitching, meaning the two were teammates for less than two hours. But decades later, the gesture nevertheless endures.

“I didn’t know him at all, I’d never met the man, and he stood up and he said what he said,” Reed said. “I tell you, to this day, there’s nothing I can say but good things about that man. He was a terrific human being.”

For so long — in football and baseball, as a player and coach, as an athlete and a pop-culture icon — Deion Sanders has been a touchstone for takes. Where he goes, attention and controversy tend to follow.

Understanding him remains a complicated venture, one that involves grasping the split personas of Prime Time and Deion and all the ways the two have morphed together.

Prime Time is a character designed to steal the spotlight, to get people talking.

Deion? According to his baseball teammates, that’s a different story.

“He wasn’t Prime Time, he was Deion in the locker room.” — Rick Stowe, Cincinnati Reds clubhouse manager

Advertisement

Most sports have a locker room. Baseball has a clubhouse. The distinction lies beyond semantics.

A major-league clubhouse is everything that its name implies — exclusive, parochial and, at times, juvenile. They tend to be staid places where individuality is frowned upon. In short, not the type of place you might imagine a character like Prime Time being well-received.

While the players are the primary occupants, the true backbone of any clubhouse is the clubbies, or the clubhouse attendants. They are the people who do the work behind the scenes. Unloading bags, washing clothes, knocking mud off spikes.

“I remember just watching him on a football field and thinking, ‘Oh no,’” recalled Rick Stowe, who succeeded his father, Bernie, as the Reds’ clubhouse manager. “He came to the locker room and it was 100 percent the opposite. He was awesome. He was quiet, sat back. He fought for the rookies. I can’t say a bad word about him.”

While playing for the Reds, Deion Sanders asked clubhouse attendance to outfit the balcony of his apartment with a net so he could hit at home. (Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)

Tony “Mort” Walter, who has worked in the Reds’ clubhouse for more than 20 years, remembers Sanders sitting at his locker and reading his Bible. Occasionally Sanders would play music — gospel singer Kirk Franklin was his favorite — but he was among the most unassuming people in the room.

Sanders also loved Cincinnati. He could walk around downtown with his dog and nobody would bother him, Walter remembered Sanders saying. There was no chance of that happening in Dallas or San Francisco.

While he was with the Reds, Sanders lived downtown at the Garfield Suites, where several teammates also stayed. His apartment had a balcony and he asked if Stowe could order him a net and a batting tee. The clubhouse crew helped him set up the net on his balcony, where Sanders would work on his swing when he wasn’t at the ballpark.

“The guy didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, he wouldn’t go out clubbing or anything like that,” Stowe said. ”He’d be on his deck hitting.”

Advertisement

That’s not to say he didn’t have his idiosyncrasies. Sanders used to ask Stowe for extra thick socks because he was concerned that his calves looked too skinny. He would also bring his Persian cat into the clubhouse and set her atop his locker. Occasionally he’d let the cat out, and it would walk atop the row of lockers until Sanders called her.

The cat’s name? Precious.

“He loved that cat,” Stowe said, “and that cat loved him.”

“They thought (Prime Time) is who he really was, not just the persona that he carried. I knew him, and we knew him a lot deeper than that.” — Jim Leyritz, 1990 New York Yankees

When Deion Sanders entered the clubhouse for the first time with the Double-A Albany-Colonie Yankees, Jim Leyritz was paying close attention. Leyritz had spent his offseasons in Florida and was well aware of what Sanders did on the football field at Florida State.

“Whenever a personality like that comes into your locker room, you kind of just sit back and say, ‘OK, what’s he gonna do?’” Leyritz said.

The way Leyritz remembers it, Sanders walked in and went straight to the manager’s office. Then he came out, saw his new teammates gawking at him and said, “What’s up guys? How you doing? I’m here to play.”

Leyritz later went up to introduce himself. He tapped Sanders on the shoulder and told him he was a big fan of his football career.

“You see this guy and you see him playing football, and he looks like he’s a pretty big dude,” Leyritz said. “And he’s really not. … (But) as I hit his shoulder, I realized, ‘OK, this guy doesn’t have an ounce of fat.’ He’s solid as a rock.”

In Leyritz’s first game with his new teammate, Sanders hit a ball that one-hopped the wall down the right-field line. What followed left his dugout in awe.

“We’re sitting there watching him go from first to third, and we were just like, ‘Where did that gear come from?’” Leyritz said. “He did it on the football field. But this was right in front of us. I was like, ‘How is he standing up on third base?’ I wouldn’t have even made it to second on that ball.”

Deion Sanders slides into third base as a member of the Yankees in 1990. He impressed teammates with his speed. (Bettmann / Getty Images)

In the clubhouse, Leyritz remembered that Sanders was often quiet, unless he was reading from the Bible or talking about God. And though Sanders was not a drinker, Leyritz recalled how he still enjoyed going out with his teammates. Out in public, they saw more of the Prime Time persona. But not in the way you might think.

Advertisement

“If he went out with us, he never forgot he was out with us,” Leyritz said. “A lot of guys might be like, ‘Oh, I went to the bar with these guys and I got caught up with some other people because they loved Prime Time.’

“He never forgot the guys that he was hanging out with.”

“I never met anybody that was with him or around him or a teammate that thought anything less of him than being a great teammate.” — John Smoltz, Hall of Famer

Deion Sanders wasn’t a fan of the way Steve Avery dressed.

Avery was one of the heroes of the 1991 playoffs, coming off a year where he posted 18 wins and a 3.38 ERA. A Sports Illustrated article at the time reported Sanders telling Avery: “You had a great year, you played great, you are great, everybody loves you, and now you’ve got to look great.”

Avery was a 22-year-old kid from Taylor, Mich., a working-class downriver suburb of Detroit. Avery’s tight relationship with Sanders was uncanny to begin with. Nevertheless, they became fast friends. Which led to this anecdote regarding Avery’s waspy wardrobe: Asked how Avery dressed, Sanders paused for effect in front of a crowd of sportswriters.

“Like a sheltered kid,” he said.

Avery wasn’t big on shopping, so he gave Sanders $5,000 to go buy him a new wardrobe. Sanders hit the mall and spent all five grand.

“Plus another grand he owed me when I got back,” Sanders said at the time. “It only took me a couple of days. I can spend money very fast, especially when it’s not mine.”

One day, Avery showed up in a floral shirt and mustard-colored pants.

“The kid is raggin’” Sanders told the Washington Post.

“They would go at it, man,” Smoltz said of Sanders and Avery. “Him and Steve used to bag each other left and right.”

There was a lot of friendly competition around the Braves in those days, and nothing got more heated than their Tetris games on the bus.

Advertisement

“We’d play this Tetris game, hook up Tetris,” Smoltz said. “Gah, if I could go back in time and have a video of just those games and how much trash-talking, how much fun we had, we had a blast.”

Deion Sanders, left, joins Braves teammates Steve Avery and Ron Gant in greeting Terry Pendleton following a homer in 1992. (Focus on Sport / Getty Images)

One day, Sanders challenged Smoltz and Avery to a 60-yard dash, though with one condition. He granted the two pitchers a 20-yard head start.

“I didn’t think there was a way he could beat us,” Smoltz said. “But yeah, he did.”

Sanders was an avid fisherman — “Deion has probably been to more fishing ponds than anybody I know,” Smoltz said. “He’ll pull off the side of the road sometimes” — and he and Smoltz loved to go back and forth over who was the better angler.

Another competition between Sanders and Smoltz: One-on-one basketball.

“He said I couldn’t beat him in one-on-one,” Smoltz said, “and I said, ‘Buddy, not only are we gonna play one-on-one, but the loser is gonna stand up in front of our locker room, on the picnic table, and declare the other the champ.’”

One night, Sanders was having a birthday party for one of his children. Smoltz came over, and the two ended up by the basketball hoop. Per Smoltz, all Sanders had on hand was a women’s basketball.

The game commenced.

Smoltz took Sanders to school.

“For the longest time, he would not stand up on that picnic table and declare me the champ,” Smoltz said. “He finally did it, but he had that asterisk that it wasn’t a regular-sized basketball. He just …  he wasn’t boring. Nothing was boring.”

In 1991, Deion Sanders was arrested. He had an alleged dispute with a police officer that began over parking in a fire lane outside a Kroger in Duluth, Ga. The reason Sanders was at that Kroger?

Per newspaper reports at the time, it was about an hour after the Braves lost to the San Diego Padres, 7-2, and Sanders was informed he was getting sent back to Triple A. His teammates had just given him an emotional sendoff.

Advertisement

So on the way back from the park, Sanders and his wife stopped to buy them thank-you cards.

“What we got to see was the human being of Deion Sanders. Prime Time was what everybody else got to see.” — Dave Gallagher, journeyman outfielder

In 1994, Dave Gallagher was excited just to be on the Atlanta Braves. An outfielder who had spent his career to that point on the fringes of the major leagues, he viewed this as his first real shot at winning a World Series.

He was taken aback, then, one day during spring training when he was shagging balls with Sanders.

“That’s where I should be,” Sanders said as he pointed toward left field. “You should be here.”

They were standing in center field.

“I looked at him and thought he was just trying to be a nice guy,” Gallagher said. “I’m not stupid. I’m Dave Gallagher. He’s Deion Sanders.”

Deion Sanders in 1994, when he hit .283 in 375 at-bats. (Stephen Dunn / Getty Images)

Gallagher recalled how Sanders told him he was simply more comfortable in left. Gallagher countered by telling Sanders about watching him play football, and how he could patrol the field and get a jump on balls exactly like a center fielder.

“Again, he might have just been thinking, ‘Let me say something nice to this guy that I’m just meeting,’” Gallagher said. “But I know I meant what I said. ‘Yeah, I want to win, and we have a better chance of winning with you in this spot right here.’”

“He was just a team guy. Had us laughing in the clubhouse. … We’d go out to dinner in different cities. He was just a baseball ‘team’ dude.” — Terry Pendleton, 1991 National League MVP

Prime Time owned Atlanta in the early 1990s. He was the marquee attraction for the Falcons, and after the Yankees released him in 1990, he signed with the Braves. That made Atlanta his home base for both sports.

In 1992, he attempted to play two sports in one day. He suited up with the Falcons as they played the Dolphins in Miami, then jetted to Pittsburgh to play in Game 5 of the NLCS. To get from the airport to the stadium in time, Sanders took a helicopter.

Advertisement

Though Sanders didn’t enter the game for the Braves that night, his two-sport venture was a tremendous athletic feat. But at the time it also caused plenty of controversy.

Sanders even feuded with the late Tim McCarver — throwing a bucket of ice water on him after the game — in response to critical comments made during the broadcast. But many of those in the Atlanta clubhouse had a different perception of Sanders’ two-sport day. Taking a helicopter to a playoff game after playing in an NFL game?

“If that doesn’t scream, ‘Team,’ what does?” said former Braves third baseman Terry Pendleton.

Sanders produced mixed results in his nine MLB seasons. He was a lifetime .263 hitter, but multiple players believe he could have been one of the game’s best leadoff men had he focused solely on baseball.

By the end of his Braves tenure, Sanders had been through his share of disagreements with general manager John Schuerholz. Sanders began refusing to take part in team functions beyond baseball games. Per a New York Times story at the time, when Sanders skipped a team picture day in May, the rest of the Braves refused to leave the clubhouse because of his absence. They reportedly did so only after Bobby Cox, their irate manager, told the players he would fine Sanders.

The Braves, needing a right-handed bat, soon traded Sanders to the Reds in exchange for Roberto Kelly. But behind-the-scenes tensions were always thought to have played a role in the deal.

“We thought that was ridiculous,” Smoltz said. “Certainly everything Deion said he was going to do, he did. There were no issues in our clubhouse. Zero. The stuff that played out there, that’s unfortunate, but that wasn’t Deion.”

“He wasn’t Prime Time all the time. He was Deion until he got out on the field and then he truly flipped a switch.” — Barry Larkin, Hall of Famer

Barry Larkin had brothers who played big-time college football and basketball. He’d been teammates with the likes of Ken Griffey Jr., Eric Davis and Dave Parker. His first big-league manager was Pete Rose. He’s been around his fair share of talented athletes.

Advertisement

“Special,” though, is the word Larkin uses repeatedly to describe Sanders, both as an athlete and as a person. Being that special comes at a price. In his 1998 autobiography, Sanders recounted a suicide attempt the year before, driving his car off of a cliff.

“I can appreciate what he’s been through and the pressure. The expectations,” said Larkin, a Hall of Fame shortstop. “I was a good player. Junior, great player. Eric Davis, a great player. The expectation is not even close to the expectations of Deion Sanders and the criticism of Deion Sanders. Not even close.”

Deion Sanders and Barry Larkin chat during a spring training workout in 2001. (Peter Muhly /AFP via Getty Images)

Like so many others, Larkin didn’t know what to expect when Sanders joined the Reds in 1994. Here was one of the most famous athletes in the world, Prime Time, coming to Cincinnati.

“There was a lot of hype when he came,” Larkin said. “What I was expecting was to see Prime — Prime the whole time — and what I saw was a very, not quiet, but humble guy that wanted to try to get better at playing baseball. He knew he had deficiencies and was trying to get better.”

Larkin said he’d go out with Sanders at times. Sanders didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. Though, it should be noted, he titled his autobiography “Power, Money & Sex: How Success Almost Ruined My Life.”

But when the lights went on? Whether it was on the field or out on the town, Prime Time sparkled.

“I saw things he did before he came to Cincinnati and all that was Prime,” Larkin said. “It was every time I saw him in a public setting, it was all the hype. All the hype. And then I was certainly expecting that in the clubhouse, and it was so polar opposite of that.”

Before a recent game, Larkin sat in the media dining room at the Great American Ball Park. He was telling stories about Sanders when his broadcast colleague, the former Reds closer Jeff Brantley, interjected.

Advertisement

“You remember the boots?”

Larkin smiled. Then Brantley told the story.

Brantley came into the clubhouse one day and there was a new pair of Lucchese boots on his chair, a gift from Sanders. The only problem was they were way too big.

Unsure of what to do, Brantley approached Larkin, explained the situation and asked for advice.

Unfazed, Larkin held up the box and shouted to Sanders: “Too big.”

“He brings me another pair of boots two days later and they fit,” Brantley said. “They were good boots — I still have them.”

Sanders has said before that his Prime Time alter ego was reserved for football. It endures today as Coach Prime. But even though he often inscribed his nickname on football memorabilia, he refused to sign “Prime Time” on baseballs.

Deion Sanders’ “Prime Time” moniker did not appear on the baseballs he signed. (Getty Images)

“I didn’t know Prime, I only knew Deion.” — Rick Reed, two-time All-Star

Reed — the replacement player from 1995 — started against the Giants less than a week after Sanders was traded from Cincinnati. Reed retired Sanders all three times he faced him.

The next year, Reed pitched in Triple A with the Mets and eventually pitched seven more seasons in the big leagues. He made two All-Star teams and was the winning pitcher in the Mets’ lone victory in the 2000 World Series.

During his Mets tenure, Reed was with his wife in a mall in Cincinnati. They ran into Sanders.

“He talked to me like I’d been his best friend forever,” Reed said. “He remembered who I was. And that would’ve been 1997 — (two years) later — there he is remembering who I am. What a great guy. I mean, say what you want to about him. At the end of the day, he’s a great, great human being. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

“I’m gonna be honest: I don’t think I’ve watched two Colorado football games in my lifetime,” Smoltz said. “And I was glued to the first two.”

Smoltz is not alone. So many of Sanders’ former teammates have found themselves turning into accidental Buffs fans since Sanders took over as Colorado’s football coach. His latest act as Coach Prime again generated controversy. Upon taking over the program last year, he used the transfer portal to pull off a sweeping overhaul of a roster that managed just one win last season. As much as ever, Prime knows how to capture an audience.

Advertisement

Last weekend, Gallagher was out running errands on Saturday morning, but he was dead set on being home by noon so he could watch Sanders’ team beat Nebraska.

Leyritz has a daughter who is a senior at TCU, which is why he attended seven Horned Frogs games last season. So it’s safe to say he was following closely when Sanders’ Colorado team upset TCU in Week 1.

“When you can get these kids to believe in themselves, be grateful that God gave them those abilities to leave it all on the field, I think that’s a special quality that a coach has,” Leyritz said, “and Deion’s got it, by far.”

Deion Sanders of the sidelines when Colorado upset TCU earlier this month. (Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)

Pendleton and Sanders remain in touch to this day. Last year, the two spent a morning together at Jackson State, where Sanders lifted the program to national relevance.

“What you’ve done at Jackson State, only you could do. Lord put you there,” Pendleton recalled telling Sanders. “And what he’s doing now, tell me how many people could do what he’s doing?”

Once, Rick Reed was a fringe player at risk of being alienated in his own clubhouse. Now, despite being a Marshall University alum who lives in Kentucky and roots for the Wildcats, Reed is spending his Saturdays closely watching Coach Prime and the Colorado Buffaloes.

“I only had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with him as a teammate. Those couple of hours, it was like, ‘My God, I wish I could at least have a week, a month or whatever to just really get to know him,’” Reed said. “What he did for me, it was just unbelievable. This guy didn’t have to do any of that. I really appreciated it then and I really appreciate it now. And I’m a big fan, big fan of his.”

— The Athletic’s David O’Brien contributed reporting to this story.

(Top photo of Deion Sanders playing in the 1992 World Series for the Braves, and at 1997 spring training for the Reds: V.J. Lovero, Mitchell Layton / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k3Ftam1oZXxzfJFsZmlxX2aBcLDEoqanZaOWu6Wx0axkpqSSYrCwrcKhZKmqmaKycA%3D%3D