According to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globle, Russell Wilson is planning to go to the Rangers spring traning to do what he did last season. He wants to take ground balls, take batting practice and be in a Rangers uniform.
Wilson said to Cafardo, “I love baseball, so any opportunity I would have to hang out with the guys and take some swings, I’ll take.”
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Russell Wilson was selected by the Colorado Rockies in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. Nobody thought anything of it, but insiders are confident that he had the athleticism and work ethic to reach the big leagues if he had not decided to take on a football career.
"There was no doubt in my mind - and some call me crazy - that he would someday have worn a major-league uniform," Joe Mikulik, Wilson's manager during his 2011 stint in the Low-A South Atlantic League, told Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.
The infielder got tons of attention as both a football and baseball player at North Carolina State, but did not devote his time to baseball. Instead, he chose football. Through his junior season, Wilson threw for 8,545 yards and 109 touchdowns. He only tossed 30 interceptions.
Wilson spent two summers in the Rockies low level minors after the 2010 draft. He held a slash line of .229/.354/.356 and managed five home runs over 93 games. Another asset that he possessed was speed. He stole 19 bases over that same amount of time.
"He was a good athlete and a tremendous teammate," said Rockies scouting director Bill Schmidt, the man who drafted Wilson for Colorado. "He had a lot of passion and amazing work ethic. It was going to take a lot of at-bats. But I thought he had a chance."
He spend his last season of college at Wisconsin, proving that his baseball career was on hold. That decision turned out to be permanent as he entered the 2012 NFL Draft.
Wilson was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He has appeared in two straight Super Bowls.
Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels selected Wilson in the 2014 Rule 5 draft.
I wouldn't put it past him," said Daniels. "He wouldn't be out-worked. He would have had to do more offensively than defensively, but I would not bet against the man if he committed himself."
Wilson led the Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship in 2014, but the squad fell short against the New England Patriots after an interception was thrown by Wilson late in the game at the one-yard line.
- Evan Petzold