NEW YORK — John Elway almost became a Yankee. Not for a summer. For a career.
The Hall of Fame quarterback revealed in his new Netflix documentary that he was ready to abandon football entirely. The reason had nothing to do with a lack of love for the game.
It had everything to do with Baltimore.
“I wanted to play football,” Elway said in the documentary, which began streaming on Dec. 22. “If I couldn’t get out of being drafted by Baltimore, I was going to go play baseball for a year. You never know. If I’d had a good year in baseball, would I have stayed in baseball?”
That question lingered for decades. Now 65 years old, Elway finally answered it.
The Boss wanted his next superstar
George Steinbrenner saw something special in Elway long before the football world crowned him a generational talent.
The New York Yankees selected the Stanford star in the second round of the 1981 MLB Draft. He went 52nd overall. The player taken six picks later? Future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn.
Steinbrenner was convinced he had found something bigger.
“George was enamored with the idea of John,” Yankees scout Gary Hughes told ESPN in 2013. “We’ve got to have this guy. He’s going to be great. He’s going to be a Yankee.”
The Yankees paid Elway $140,000 to sign. Steinbrenner reportedly planned to make him the starting right fielder by 1985. He envisioned Elway joining the legendary line of Yankees outfielders.
“Right then I knew,” Steinbrenner said after watching Elway take batting practice. “He will be a great outfielder for me, in the great tradition of Mantle, Maris, DiMaggio and all the others.”
A summer in the minors
Elway reported to the Oneonta Yankees in the New York-Penn League during the summer of 1982. He was between his junior and senior seasons at Stanford.
The start was rough. He went 1-for-22 out of the gate.
Then something clicked. Elway finished the season with a .318 batting average, four home runs and 25 RBI in 42 games. He stole 13 bases and showed off an arm that made baserunners think twice.
His manager, former Gold Glove outfielder Ken Berry, still remembers one throw from right field.
“Ball went to the fence in right field, and it was a pretty deep right field, and the guy was trying for a triple,” Berry said. “He picked the ball up and turned, took just a short crow hop and threw it all the way in the air right to the third baseman. The ball got there about 20 feet before the guy did.”
Hughes believed Elway could have reached the majors if he committed to baseball.
“The sky was the limit,” Hughes said. “He would’ve been off the charts.”
Baltimore changed everything for Elway
The Baltimore Colts held the first pick in the 1983 NFL Draft. Elway made his feelings known early: he did not want to play for them.
The team was in turmoil. Owner Robert Irsay clashed with coaches. The franchise lacked stability. Elway’s father, Jack, who coached at San Jose State, publicly said his son would never play for Irsay.
The Colts drafted him anyway.
At a draft night press conference, Elway dropped a bombshell.
“As I stand here right now, I’m playing baseball,” he declared.
When a reporter pointed out the Yankees played on the East Coast, not the West Coast where Elway claimed he wanted to be, he had a quick response.
“They play baseball during the summertime,” he said.
The Yankees became his leverage. And it worked.
Five days that shaped NFL history
Steinbrenner and the Yankees were ready to welcome Elway with open arms. Shortly before the draft, they brought him to Yankee Stadium. They gave his mother a gold “NY” necklace. Manager Billy Martin personally greeted the family.
The New York Post ran a back-page headline: “ELWAY THUNDERBOLT: I’LL PLAY FOR YANKEES.”
For five tense days after the draft, it looked like Steinbrenner might get his wish.
Then the Denver Broncos called. They offered a trade package the Colts could not refuse. On May 2, 1983, Elway became a Bronco.
He signed a five-year deal. The rest is football history.
What might have been
Elway went on to win two Super Bowls with the Broncos. He made nine Pro Bowls. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
Yet the thought of what could have been still crosses his mind.
“I think about that all of the time,” Elway said in a 2011 interview with Yankees Magazine. “Even though my football career turned out the way it did, to be dead honest with you, if there is one thing I would have liked to have done, it would have been to be a Yankee.”
He added: “I really don’t think about what it would have been like to play baseball. I think about what it would have been like to have played for the Yankees.”
That summer in Oneonta gave him the confidence to believe he could make it.
“Finishing the season the way I did gave me the confidence that I could play baseball at a high level,” Elway said. “Baseball became a viable option for me that summer. I enjoyed playing baseball everyday. I left there thinking, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, but this is something I would definitely be happy doing for a long time.'”
A documentary 40 years in the making
The Netflix documentary “Elway” explores every chapter of the quarterback’s life. His time with the Yankees is just one piece of a remarkable story.
Produced by Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions and directed by Ken Rodgers and Chris Weaver, the 99-minute film features interviews with ESPN’s Adam Schefter, former Broncos coaches Mike Shanahan and Gary Kubiak, and Elway’s family.
“I had the opportunity to put my legacy on tape rather than in a book,” Elway said. “I thought, with 10 grandkids and four kids, that to be able to show them what their poppy was all about when he played football, that it was the right time.”
The documentary is now streaming on Netflix.
For Yankees fans, it offers a glimpse at the franchise’s greatest what-if. Steinbrenner saw Elway as the next Mantle. Instead, he became the greatest Bronco of all time.
Baltimore made sure of that.
What do you think?
