McGrady, Ainge and Other Members of the Basketball Hall of Fame Who Tried Baseball
Tracy McGrady has finished his basketball career, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to retire from the sport. T-Mac won’t be throwing the big orange ball to the basket anymore, but maybe he’ll throw the little white ball into the catcher’s mitt? For those who follow multi-sport athletes and are interested in betting on their performances, you can find reliable options at 2024 online sports betting sites. As T-Mac began preparations for the new season today, we take a look back at all the NBA basketball players who tried their hand at baseball.
Tracy McGrady
Once upon a time, McGrady was scouted by the Sugar Land Skeeters, a minor league baseball team from the Houston suburbs, as a pitcher and even earned an invitation to spring training camp, which will result in the team’s roster for the upcoming season. Sure, it’s a marketing move, but who says it can’t turn into something more?
Back in 2006, T-Mac admitted in an interview that baseball was his first favourite sport, not basketball. Tracy played baseball until his senior year of high school when he had to turn his full attention to basketball (the NBA draft was coming up, after all). Tracy always dreamed of trying baseball again someday.
Danny Ainge
The last notable NBA player to have a promising career in baseball was current Celtics general manager Danny Ainge. However, in his case, his baseball career was a ‘mistake of youth’ and ended precisely when his basketball career began.
As a high school student, Ainge was a three-sport star – and to such an extent that he made the first high school all-America team in baseball, basketball and American football. Such an achievement was conquered by no one else. Football was the first of Ainge’s passions to break away – despite two Oregon high school state championships, student Danny Ainge settled on Brigham Young University’s basketball programme. But the NCAA basketball tournament runs from October to April at best, and what’s an athlete to do the rest of the time? In 1977, Ainge was selected in the draft by the Toronto Blue Jays of the MLB, and Danny began building his professional baseball career alongside his university studies.
By 1979, Ainge had been through minor league hell and made his way to the MLB, making his debut for the Blue Jays. The second base player played 211 major league games in three years and even hit two home runs, the first of which – shot at 20 years and 77 days – is still the youngest in Toronto history. Danny could make a name for himself in baseball.
Bill Sherman
While Danny Ainge’s number in Boston has yet to be raised to the Garden, Bill Sherman’s number has been there for nearly 50 years. Ainge and Sherman are united not only by their position on the court, titles in Boston and successful general manager careers in the NBA – but also by their appearance in the MLB.
However, Sherman never played a single game in the big leagues. In 1950, after university, he went to the NBA in the Washington Capitols and, at the same time, signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers and began to play for their farm club. At that time, basketball was a poor relative of American sports, so Bill decided that a baseball career suited him better when the Capitols ceased to exist. In the NBA, his rights went to the Pistons, who thought that Sherman’s basketball career was over and quietly gave the future member of the Basketball Hall of Fame to the Celtics.
