Mr. Gorbachev, watch Bo Jackson run up this wall.

Of all the and-then-there-was-the-times comprising the lore of Bo the Professional, his lead-off home run in the 1989 MLB All-Star Game is if not the most impressive, than arguably the most (distinctly) memorable (neck and neck with the ruination of Bosworth). It came at the apex of his monopoly on professional sports and helped seal his reputation as the sports icon of his too-short generation. Nike’s “Bo Knows” campaign? It actually started that night, not much later into the broadcast (the “Bo Knows What?” sign seen waving in the stands after the hit was either a clairvoyant fan or a Nike plant).

He was that year’s top vote-getter and was chosen to lead off for the American League.

Who was calling the game (or had at least joined Vin Scully in the broadcast booth)?

RONALD REAGAN, who would have turned 101 today.

He watches Bo destroy the second pitch. It’s a home run. And then the Great Communicator says: “I just don’t know if there’s ever been another one like him.” A couple of hours later, he goes down to the locker room to shake the MVP’s hand. And that’s how awesome 1989 was.

Photo via @si_vault.

Related: Danny Glover talks to Bo Jackson in Lethal Weapon 2.

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But unlike the opening scenes of Pretty Woman, the Lethal Weapon 2 cameras didn’t just pan past a television with Nike’s “Another Day, Another Hobby” commercial for its Bo Jackson Cross-Trainers on in the background or something. No, Danny Glover actually engaged Bo the pitchman in conversation: “Yeah—another day, another hobby… what’s new?”

I’m not sure what would be more flattering to Bo’s pop culture status: that this scene was written exactly this way, or that the commercial just happened to be on the television they had hooked up and Danny just went with it (and they kept it in for realism).

Eagle Eye Award to cigar-lovin’ Walt Austin.

Related: ‘Bo had better commercials’: An interview with author Michael Weinreb.

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Write "Brian Bosworth" on the outside of an egg, crack it open on the pool table in the middle of David Painter's basement, and it will cook in five seconds.

David Painter went over the top, as it were.

“I look back and say, ‘I must have been crazy.’ I guess for whatever odd reason some people collect salt and pepper shakers. I just happened to collect Bo Jackson.”

“Happened to collect” almost seems inadequate in describing what Painter, a life-long Auburn fan, has done with Bo Jackson, in the same way that “happened to play” would be an insult to what Bo Jackson did at the plate, or on the outfield wall, or between the hash marks. David Painter’s Bo Jackson collection is the Bo Jackson of Bo Jackson collections.

Over the course of nearly 30 years, Painter has turned the 1,200 square ft. basement of his Greenville, South Carolina home into a veritable Bo museum, piece by significant piece.  The collection has been featured in various newspapers. It’s been featured in Sports Collectors’ Digest. When Auburn’s athletic museum needed pieces for a display to commemorate Bo’s induction into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1998, they called Painter.

He doesn’t know how many pieces he has—hundreds? thousands? He doesn’t know how much he’s spent on them. He doesn’t really want to know. It’s enough to tile his walls floor to ceiling with framed posters, game programs, Becketts guides, media guides, and Sports Illustrateds with Bo on the cover, and rare photos from almost every phase of Bo’s athletic career. Glass cases hold Bo’s football helmet from his junior year at Auburn and one of the bats he struck out with and broke over his thigh while batting for the Royals –those are worth the most, at least to Painter. But the most visually arresting thing in the room is a life-sized print of the photo of Bo going Over The Top [click top photo to enlarge], the iconic play that broke Bear Bryant’s stranglehold on the Auburn-Alabama rivalry. Somehow, even that thing is autographed.

“It was signed at Soxfest in ’93,” Painter says. “There is a company out of Charlotte, NC that makes life size murals. This one is done in three panels on a heavy, vinyl-type material. I rolled the one panel up in a poster tube and took it with me. When I returned home, the company came to my house and put it together on backer-board. It was a long, expensive project.”

No, that's not Painter with a life-size wax statue of Bo, that's actually him, posing with Painter while promoting the opening of James Snell Motors in Opelika in the early 90s. Many pieces from Painter's collection were on display at the event.

But long and expensive kind of defined that level of collecting in the days before eBay. Most of Painter’s pieces were acquired via fan expo road trips and classified ads and back booth rendezvous at the Opelika Road Chili’s in the 80s and 90s, before the internet made it all so easy, so dull.

“I was always looking for something of value to add to my collection. Heck, the hunt was half the fun.”.

Only an analog-era level of commitment could justify flying an intermediary to Los Angeles to broker a deal with the Raiders’ former head trainer for Bo’s practice jersey, game-used pants, pads, even used (and of course autographed) ankle tape–that’s how I found out about David. He put the ankle tape up for auction on eBay. I saw it. He’s slowly trying to unload some of the later-era stuff. He sent me some pictures.

“I’m holding on to pretty much all of my Auburn stuff, it’s those items I cherish the most. I’d actually like to have one area of my basement for another project so it’s time to make room and let some other folks enjoy some of the collectables.”

“I guess as we get older our priorities do eventually change.”

David Painter can be contacted at davidpainter@KW.com.

Related: Bo and Me.

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A giant card postmarked Tampa Bay and addressed to the Number One draft pick in the 1986 NFL Draft arrived at Sewell Hall the week of May 12. But its 3,000 signatures were all for naught.

Bo Jackson hated Tampa Bay and blamed Bucs management for costing him his senior season of baseball at Auburn with their “it’s just a physical” junket he was assured had been cleared with the NCAA. It wasn’t. He was declared ineligible. The Auburn dugout lost its Heisman winner.

Tampa Bay told him to stop crying and put on his shoulder pads, he wasn’t good enough to play professional baseball. In “Bo Knows Bo,” Jackson says he told his lawyers to tell the Buccaneers to “go f**k themselves.” Then he signed a contract with the Kansas City Royals.

Photo from the May 16, 1986 edition of The Auburn Plainsman.

Related: Bo Jackson in Japan, 1986.

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So you’re obviously wanting to relive Auburn’s national championship season now more than ever.

Go to WarEagleDVD.com and enter TWER as your promo code. You’ll get free shipping… and you’ll help your favorite Auburn website keep the lights on during the long winter.

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You send out a link to an old post that’s once again relevant and that maybe not a lot of folks saw the first time you posted it, and then Dan Wetzel retweets it and you flush with the thrill of an unexpected traffic surge (totally addictive) and they you’re like, ‘wait a minute, we’ve got tons more currently-relevant materiel related to Bo Jackson’s Heisman Trophy than just the promotional materials that helped Bo land the trophy, stuff we never did anything with,’ stuff like the press release that announced him as the winner.

It includes the obvious noteworthies: closest race in history, Auburn’s second trophy, multi-sport superstar, right, right, right. But it also includes voter breakdowns by candidate / region, which might give it a little more clickable, tweetable historical hmmmph—I’m assuming those sorts of details aren’t readily available online—than mere memorabilia. Wouldn’t you agree, Dan?

Click to enlarge.

Related: Randy Campbell’s “Mr. Bo Jackson” song.

…

So you’re obviously wanting to relive Auburn’s national championship season now more than ever.

Go to WarEagleDVD.com and enter TWER as your promo code. You’ll get free shipping… and you’ll help your favorite Auburn website keep the lights on during the long winter.

…

Keep Reading:

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Photo via Will Hart.

…

So you’re obviously wanting to relive Auburn’s national championship season now more than ever.

Go to WarEagleDVD.com and enter TWER as your promo code. You’ll get free shipping… and you’ll help your favorite Auburn website keep the lights on during the long winter.

…

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His 171 yards and three touchdowns, including the game winner, a 57-yard run in the 4th quarter, was enough to beat the West team (31-14), earn him MVP honors, set a Japan Bowl rushing record (previously 85 yards), and land the cover of the program for 1987 game (is that Ed King behind him?)… that as far as Auburn-related programs go, has got to be pretty rare.

A quick Google search yielded other rare records of Bo’s visit to the land of the rising sun: snapshots of Bo the tourist taken with a camera belonging to Columbia kicker and on-sides specialist Larry Walsh, who represented the Ivy League in that year’s Japan Bowl.

Proud sponsor of the Heisman Trophy indeed, Nissan.

Japan Bowl cover via @owensco79; photos via.

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But it’s nice seeing it again—and so large. And to be reminded of the eternal truth in what Ben might call the idea of Bo Jackson. Anything you can do he can do better.

Via @owensco79.

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UPDATE: … and Cam Newton:

We’ll never take him down, you hear us God?!

First photo via, h/t, courtesy @benquackquack, rest via the one and only @brownbw.

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(Bo knows accessories.)

When Dyer wins it, so hoping he’ll change it to “My Three SAUns.”

Related: Bo takes off his belt and tells Cam he throws like a girl.

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