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The two-sport club
Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Danny Ainge, Dave DeBusschere: the 22 players in our data who made it to two major leagues, and who they played with in each.
By Austin · October 16, 2026
Making one major league is a career. These players made two. We checked every name that appears on both a baseball roster and a football or basketball roster in our data, one by one, and kept the ones who are the same person (most shared names aren’t). That left 22 players, every one of them a baseball player who also made it in football or basketball.
Baseball and football
Baseball's season and football's overlap only in September, and a few players have tried to do both. Most of them tried the two one after the other; Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders did them in the same year.
Bo Jackson is the only player picked for both baseball's All-Star Game and football's Pro Bowl. He played left field for the Royals in the summer and ran for the Raiders in the fall, until a hip injury in a 1991 playoff game ended his football career.
Deion Sanders is the only player to appear in both a World Series (1992, with Atlanta) and a Super Bowl, which he won twice, with the 49ers and the Cowboys.
| Player | Baseball | Football | Best-known teammates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bo Jackson | 1986–1994: Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox, California Angels | 1987–1990: Los Angeles Raiders | George Brett and Tim Brown |
| Deion Sanders | 1989–2001: New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants | 1989–2005: Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, Baltimore Ravens | Barry Bonds and Jerry Rice |
| Brian Jordan | 1992–2006: St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers | 1989–1992: Atlanta Falcons | Ozzie Smith and Brett Favre |
| D. J. Dozier | 1992: New York Mets | 1987–1992: Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions | Eddie Murray and Randall McDaniel |
| Drew Henson | 2002–2003: New York Yankees | 2004–2008: Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions | Derek Jeter and Jason Witten |
| Chad Hutchinson | 2001: St. Louis Cardinals | 2002–2004: Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bears | Albert Pujols and Jason Witten |
| Josh Booty | 1996–1998: Florida Marlins | 2001–2003: Cleveland Browns | Gary Sheffield and Shaun O'Hara |
| Matt Kinzer | 1989–1990: St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers | 1987: Detroit Lions | Ozzie Smith and Lomas Brown |
Baseball and basketball
Baseball and basketball barely overlap at all, so in the 1940s and 50s, when neither paid enough to live on all year, a good athlete could play both. Most of the list is from then.
Gene Conley won the 1957 World Series with the Milwaukee Braves and three NBA titles with Bill Russell's Celtics, from 1959 to 1961: champion in two major sports.
Danny Ainge played infield for the Toronto Blue Jays for three seasons before he gave up baseball for the Celtics, where he won two NBA titles.
Dave DeBusschere pitched for the Chicago White Sox while starting his Hall of Fame basketball career in Detroit, where he became the youngest coach in NBA history at 24.
Dick Groat played a season for the Fort Wayne Pistons before baseball took over. He was the National League's MVP in 1960.
Chuck Connors played for the Boston Celtics in their first season and first base for the Cubs, then became an actor: The Rifleman.
| Player | Baseball | Basketball | Best-known teammates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gene Conley | 1952–1963: Milwaukee Braves, Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox | 1952–1963: Boston Celtics, New York Knicks | Hank Aaron and Bob Cousy |
| Danny Ainge | 1979–1981: Toronto Blue Jays | 1981–1994: Boston Celtics, Sacramento Kings, Portland Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns | Alfredo Griffin and Robert Parish |
| Dave DeBusschere | 1962–1963: Chicago White Sox | 1962–1973: Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks | Luis Aparicio and Dave Bing |
| Ron Reed | 1966–1984: Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago White Sox | 1965–1966: Detroit Pistons | Hank Aaron and Dave DeBusschere |
| Dick Groat | 1952–1967: Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants | 1952: Ft. Wayne Zollner Pistons | Willie Mays and Larry Foust |
| Chuck Connors | 1949–1951: Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs | 1946–1947: Boston Celtics | Pee Wee Reese and Connie Simmons |
| Mark Hendrickson | 2002–2011: Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, Florida Marlins, Baltimore Orioles | 1996–1999: Philadelphia 76ers, Sacramento Kings, New Jersey Nets, Cleveland Cavaliers | Vladimir Guerrero and Shawn Kemp |
| Howie Schultz | 1943–1948: Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds | 1949–1952: Anderson Packers, Ft. Wayne Zollner Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers | Pee Wee Reese and Slater Martin |
| Steve Hamilton | 1961–1972: Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs | 1958–1959: Minneapolis Lakers | Willie Mays and Elgin Baylor |
| Dick Ricketts | 1959: St. Louis Cardinals | 1955–1957: Cincinnati Royals | Stan Musial and Jack Twyman |
| Frank Baumholtz | 1947–1957: Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies | 1946: Cleveland Rebels | Ernie Banks and Clarence Hermsen |
| Cotton Nash | 1967–1970: Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins | 1964: San Francisco Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers | Rod Carew and Wilt Chamberlain |
| Hank Biasatti | 1949: Philadelphia Athletics | 1946: Toronto Huskies | Nellie Fox and Clarence Hermsen |
| Don Grate | 1945–1946: Philadelphia Phillies | 1949: Sheboygan Red Skins | Jimmie Foxx and Bob Brannum |
Why this matters in Teammate Chain
Each sport in Teammate Chain is its own world, so you can’t cross from baseball to football in a puzzle. But these players are the only people who could: Deion Sanders is a teammate of both Barry Bonds and Jerry Rice.
How we counted
We matched names across the baseball, basketball, football and hockey rosters, kept the pairs whose careers were close enough in time to be one person, and checked each against their biographies. A player counts if he appeared for a team in a regular-season game in both leagues. “Best-known teammates” is his most famous teammate in each sport, by how often they were picked for All-Star teams and how long they played.
About the data
These numbers come from the rosters behind Teammate Chain, not from every league a player ever played in. Two players count as teammates only if both are on the same club’s roster for the same season in our data, so a player who spent part of his career somewhere we don’t cover has fewer teammates here than he really had.
- Baseball: every MLB and major-league season since 1871. Every major-league season is included, back to the National Association, so baseball careers are complete.
- Basketball: every NBA season since 1946-47 (BAA included). The ABA isn't included, so ABA seasons (Julius Erving's, Moses Malone's, Spencer Haywood's first) don't count. Some rosters from the 1960s to the 1980s are incomplete.
- Football: every NFL season since the 1970 merger. Nothing before 1970, so the AFL and the pre-merger NFL are missing, along with the USFL, XFL and other leagues. A career like George Blanda's (1949-1975) only counts from 1970.
- Hockey: every NHL season since the 1967 expansion. Nothing before 1967-68, and no WHA, so Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull, for example, only count from 1967.
- Soccer: Europe's top five leagues since 1963-64. Only league matches in the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1. Seasons anywhere else (Portugal, the Netherlands, Turkey, MLS, lower divisions) and cup and international matches aren't included. Teammates count from the club's squad list, even a player who didn't play that season; career lengths count only the seasons he played. A career that starts with a newly promoted club may have begun in a lower division, so those careers are left out of the lists.
Our football rosters start in 1970, so earlier two-sport players (Jim Thorpe, Ernie Nevers, Tom Brown) are missing, and so is anyone whose basketball was in the ABA or the NBL rather than the NBA.
Careers that are still going count through the latest season in the data, as of October 17, 2026. Players who share a name are kept apart by their league ids and birth dates, and a player listed on a roster for a season he didn’t play (an injured rookie, a draft pick still overseas) isn’t counted for it. Spot a mistake? Let us know.
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