Legendary Royals Scout Tells Story of Employee Who Blew Opportunity to Sign Deion Sanders

Deion Sanders is widely regarded as one of the greatest cornerback in NFL history. However, he might have never played a game in the NFL if a certain scout did his job when Sanders was coming out of high school in 1985.

According to legendary Kansas City Royals scout Art Stewart, when he was the team's scouting director, he had instructed the area scout to sign Deion Sanders, but things went terribly wrong.

Sanders had been drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the sixth round of the 1985 MLB Draft. But he was being heavily recruited as a football players by a number of schools, which is why Stewart stressed urgency in getting to Sanders in his neighborhood that night. The area scout was afraid to go to Sanders' neighborhood at night and waited until the next day, but by then it was too late -- Florida State already got him to sign on to play football.

Stewart fired the scout.

The rest is history. Sanders had a legendary college career at FSU and then dominated in the NFL. He was drafted fifth overall by the Atlanta Falcons in 1989 and was also taken by the New York Yankees in the 1988 MLB Draft and signed with them later that year after passing on the Royals.

Sanders played baseball part-time for nine years, appearing in games for the Yankees, Braves, Reds and Giants. He totaled 641 MLB games, hitting . 263 with 39 home runs, 168 RBI and 186 stolen bases.

Who knows what would have happened if that scout had went to Sanders' house that night?