Colorado Rockies, Russell Wilson, and baseball as his “best sport”

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson recently said he believed baseball was his best sport, making Colorado Rockies fans go down the “what if” road.

In a recent interview on the Barstool Sports “Pardon My Take” podcast, Seattle Seahawks All-Pro quarterback Russell Wilson said that baseball was “my love” growing up and that he believed he could have been a legitimate Major League Baseball player had he not turned his back on baseball after being drafted by the Seattle Seahawks with the 75th pick in the 2012 NFL draft.

“I always feel like baseball was actually my best sport,” Wilson said during the podcast.

Now those words strike the heart of a number of Denver sports fans. After all, had Wilson stuck with baseball, he likely would have come up through the Colorado Rockies farm system after the Rockies drafted him in the fourth round of the 2010 MLB draft. Wilson played a total of 93 games (all at second base) in the Rockies farm system, advancing to Class-A Asheville before professional football came calling.

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In 315 at-bats at short-season Tri-Cities and Asheville, Wilson put together a slash line of .229/.354/.356 with five homers and 26 RBI. It’s hard not to wonder what would have happened if the Seahawks hadn’t selected Wilson in 2012. Would he have continued to climb up the minor league ladder, knowing how the Rockies valued versatility over the past few seasons?

“We saw him as a Jerry Hairston-type big leaguer — athletic enough to be versatile at multiple positions, possibly second, third, left field and center,”  Jay Matthews, who scouted Wilson and got to know him when he was in high school, said in this article.

Of course, had Wilson stuck with the Rockies, that also means he wouldn’t have been throwing touchdown passes in the NFL. Denver Broncos fans can shake their head about that knowing what Wilson and the Seahawks did against Denver in Super Bowl XLVIII.

By the way, there’s another Wilson-Denver connection from that recent podcast. Wilson was asked who he would choose as a baseball player, him or former Broncos quarterback and current New York Mets minor leaguer Tim Tebow.

“I’m going with me,” Wilson said. “I can turn a mean double play, Tim.”

Rockies fans can only dream about that.