Key Takeaways We all know how great of an NFL career Tom Brady had, but most are unaware of how dominant he was on the baseball diamond as well.
Brady was one of the few athletes skilled enough to be drafted to both the NFL and the MLB, as he was the Montreal Expos’ 18th-round selection in 1995.
How could things have worked out if Brady decided to pursue his baseball career instead?
Tom Brady is easily the most iconic player in the history of the NFL . He’s accomplished everything there is to win, and cemented his legacy as the greatest to ever do it. However, one thing most fans don’t know about Brady is that he nearly chose a career in the MLB instead.
In 1995, the Montreal Expos, whose title charge in 1994 was thwarted by a league-wide strike, used their 18th-round selection on Brady, who was a catcher coming out of high school. Brady also had the option to play football for the University of Michigan at the time, and as we all know now, he ended up choosing that route for himself instead.
While we know Brady as the legend he is today for his performance on the football field, let’s take a second to imagine what life would be like if Brady became a legend on the diamond instead.
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Brady was very involved in sports during his time in high school, to say the least. We know he played baseball and football, but he also played basketball as well.
When it came to baseball, Brady was very solid. The furthest his career went was Junipero Sierra High School, which he attended in San Mateo, California. Brady played catcher, and his game was centered around the power he brought to the plate.
GIVEMESPORT Key Stat: When Tom Brady retired after the 2022 NFL season, he became the last Montreal Expo draft pick to retire from a professional sport. The last Expo draft selection to play baseball and retire was Ian Desmond, who retired from the MLB in 2019.
Brady was a left-handed swinging, power-hitting catcher. In his last year of high school, he managed a .311 batting average, while hitting eight home runs, 11 doubles, and pitching in 44 RBI. As a catcher, he was tasked with calling and reading the game, similar to how a quarterback does during a football game.
Although Brady was drafted in the 18th round, he didn’t go that low due to a lack of talent compared to his peers. John Hughes, the scout for the Expos at the time who drafted Brady, spoke with the Hartford Courant. He says a large part of the reason Brady was selected that late is the result of concerns he would choose football over baseball, which he eventually did:
He was drafted in the 18th round because everyone knew how difficult it would be to sign him… He was very talented. I mean on talent alone he would have been projected a late second-round pick…. We knew we didn’t have a good chance to sign him, because he had the scholarship (to play football for the University of Michigan).
While Brady enjoyed playing baseball, he still thinks he made the right decision to choose football instead. When talking to Dan Patrick back in 2022, he chose the route of extreme modesty when discussing his non-NFL career options:
I’d be selling insurance, man. Baseball was not my sport.
When making their selection, Montreal knew they had to pull some strings to convince Brady to sign with them instead of choosing Michigan. In an effort to convince him, Montreal offered him significantly more money than they would have for a normal 18th-round selection, according to Hughes:
In the neighborhood of bottom of the second (round), top of the third type money… If we were going to offer him that type of money, we felt he was going to be a future big-leaguer.
Based on the money he’s made from the sport of football, as well as his legendary career on the field, it seems like Brady ended up making the right decision.
What if Brady Chose Baseball Instead?
If Brady pursued baseball, the NFL & MLB world would look completely different today
Bob Breidenbach / USA TODAY NETWORK
If Brady chose baseball over football, who knows what the NFL would look like now?
This ad shows what things could have been like if Brady had chosen baseball instead. In the commercial, Brady is considered the greatest baseball player of all-time, with seven championships over his 23-year career.
On a hilarious note, they also include two championship losses to the Giants. Maybe in this alternate universe, Eli Manning becomes Brady’s rival yet again, this time on the baseball diamond in the Bay.
On a more serious note, the sports landscape would be vastly different. In 1994, the Expos were 74-40, the best record in the MLB, when the strike ended the season early. It was widely accepted that the Expos were the best team in the league that year, fielding a roster that included Hall of Famers Pedro Martinez and Larry Walker as well as five 1994 All-Stars.
But instead of going on to a World Series title, the season was suspended, and that Expos team was dismantled. The Montreal Expos eventually moved to Washington D.C. due to attendance issues and poor performance on the field following the tragedy of 1994. Maybe if Brady played there instead, and became a star, he could have helped keep the Expos in Montreal by creating a new era of success after the dominant 1994 team was taken apart.
As for the NFL side of things, there would be massive repercussions.
Robert Kraft bought the New England Patriots in the mid-1990s. The purpose of his purchase was to keep the Patriots in New England, as they were under the threat of relocation at the time. When Kraft bought the franchise, they had never won anything of substance. If Brady never came along, and the Patriots continued to lose, could Kraft have sold the team? In a bigger twist, could the Patriots have ended up relocating?
Tom Brady won seven championships during his NFL career. Currently, the Patriots are tied for the most Super Bowl wins of any franchise, with six. If Brady never played football, it’s extremely unlikely the Patriots would still get to six championships. That means there’s more of an opportunity for other teams to pick those up instead.
The possibilities here are endless. Do players like Aaron Rodgers or Peyton Manning add more Super Bowl wins to their resume? Did the Atlanta Falcons end up winning the 2016 Super Bowl instead? Would the Kansas City Chiefs have won the Super Bowl in 2020, giving Patrick Mahomes four Super Bowl wins in his first six years?
In all likelihood, his rivals in the AFC would have won much more than they did in reality. The Pittsburgh Steelers (who were tormented by Brady for two decades), Indianapolis Colts , New York Jets , and Baltimore Ravens could all have added more to their trophy cabinets.
You could go down this rabbit hole for days. What we do know is, Tom Brady made the right decision, and his choice changed the course of professional sports entirely.
All statistics courtesy of Pro Football Reference unless stated otherwise.