{"id":52045,"date":"2024-05-30T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=52045"},"modified":"2024-05-07T17:10:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T22:10:47","slug":"human-highlight-reel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/human-highlight-reel\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Highlight Reel"},"content":{"rendered":"

There once was a boy named Vincent, whose life lent itself easily to hyperbole.\u00a0 One of ten children born to a single mother in abject Alabama poverty, Vincent had a severe stutter and a mean streak a mile wide.\u00a0 That’s where his resemblance to mortals ended.\u00a0 Superlatives lacking, tales of his exploits resembled that of baby Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Bill Brasky.\u00a0 \u00a0Thing is, most of them were true.\u00a0 The laws of physics and the rules of sport simply didn’t apply to Vincent.<\/p>\n

Vincent was what analysts call a pretty decent athlete once he found an outlet for his aggression.\u00a0 He landed in the state track finals in an event he first attempted a couple weeks prior…as a high school freshman.\u00a0 Despite a hatred of lifting weights, Vincent exhibited Herculean feats of strength the few times he actually entered the weight room.\u00a0 Not content to be good at one sport, he ridiculously dominated in all of them.\u00a0 \u00a0His duplicity extended into adulthood, being a star in both the NFL and MLB at the same time.\u00a0 \u00a0 Okay, game is over.\u00a0 \u00a0 You know Vincent better by his\u00a0 nickname “Bo”, an athlete in a class all his own.\u00a0 You have to go back to Jim Thorpe to find anyone of such DC Comics omnipotence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you made the mistake of throwing Bo a fastball , you might still be on Youtube today.\u00a0 Sometimes those 500-foot home runs would damage stadium lights and scoreboards a la The Natural.\u00a0 Bo regularly clocked sub-4.2 second 40m dash times.\u00a0 A pedestrian 4.2 AFTER destroying his hip.\u00a0 Ever see that in the NFL draft?\u00a0 No, you do not.\u00a0 As a running back, Bo would trample defenders so soundly their ancestors could feel it.\u00a0 With a howitzer as an arm, Vincent would throw men out at home from the warning track — skipping the cutoff man.\u00a0 He ran up an outfield wall.\u00a0 He broke a bat over his head.\u00a0 Alas, anyone of age in the late 80’s or with an internet connection has likely seen video of these exploits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That being said, the best parts of this book are recollections of the “human” mashing those NASA mission homers.\u00a0 Despite possessing great generosity,\u00a0 he is someone against whom you should not quarrel.\u00a0 Prior to high school he was on a pathway to prison.\u00a0 Since the age of 18 he has been a man beset on all sides by unrelenting autograph hounds.\u00a0 He has a degree in Family and Child Development.\u00a0 \u00a0He has been married to Dr. Linda Jackson for 35 years.\u00a0 That’s the real Bo Jackson, and the reason to check out this book, The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson<\/em><\/a> by Jeff Pearlman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There once was a boy named Vincent, whose life lent itself easily to hyperbole.\u00a0 One of ten children born to a single mother in abject Alabama poverty, Vincent had a severe stutter and a mean streak a mile wide.\u00a0 That’s where his resemblance to mortals ended.\u00a0 Superlatives lacking, tales of[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8418,8416,8417],"class_list":["post-52045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reference","tag-jeff-pearlman","tag-the-last-folk-hero","tag-the-life-and-myth-of-bo-jackson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-dxr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52045"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52079,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52045\/revisions\/52079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}