For every baseball player who becomes a star in the big leagues, there are many others who have short and fairly unremarkable minor league careers.
After hanging up their baseball cleats, lots of ex-players find success in a wide range of fields. Some stay in the game as coaches or scouts, but most leave baseball behind entirely to become teachers, contractors, firefighters, salespersons, and just about any career you can name. A small group even becomes famous for reasons unrelated to their baseball careers.
This list looks at five public figures who spent time in the minor leagues. You’ll likely know most of the names on this list — but you might not be aware of their short baseball careers.
Kurt Russell
By the time he suited up as a professional baseball player, actor Kurt Russell had appeared in more than half a dozen films and more than 50 TV show episodes. While most people know Russell as an actor with credentials such as Escape From New York, Tombstone, Big Trouble in Little China, and many, many more, serious film buffs may know that he was also a child actor. And in the years between acting as a teenager and a young adult, Russell had some time in the minor leagues. His MiLB rookie campaign came in 1971 as a member of the Bend Rainbows of the short-season Northwest League. In 51 games, the 20-year-old Russell amassed 51 hits, had a home run and 14 RBIs, and batted .285.
His 1972 campaign consisted of just 29 games, but he hit an impressive .325 (and struck out fewer times than he walked) for the Walla Walla Islanders, also of the Northwest League. Russell split 1973 between Portland and El Paso. In Portland, yet another Northwest League club, he played in 29 games and hit a career-low .229. He had much more success with Double-A El Paso that season. Although his six games with the El Paso Sun Kings represent an extremely small sample size, Russell batted .563 (nine hits in 17 plate appearances over six games). Over the course of his 110-game minor league career, Russell predominantly played second base, but also spent time at shortstop and in the outfield.
Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo served the state of New York as governor from 1983 to 1994 and had a wide-ranging impact during his tenure. The three-term governor from the Democratic Party enjoyed an extremely high approval rating at times, including a rating of 71 percent in a 1986 Marist poll. Before his legal and eventual political career, Cuomo played a single season in the minor leagues. The future governor was a member of the 1952 Brunswick Pirates, a member of the Class-D Georgia-Florida League. An outfielder, Cuomo played in 81 games and had more than 300 plate appearances. He batted .244 with 62 hits, one home run, and 26 RBIs.
Playing in an era in which batting helmets were rarely worn, Cuomo was knocked out and hospitalized after being hit in the head in an August game. His injury caused him to miss the remainder of the campaign, and while he was offered a contract for the following year, he declined his club’s request to have surgery to investigate a blood clot that had resulted from the injury. His pro baseball days now behind him, Cuomo used some of his minor league earnings to buy an engagement ring for his future wife of 60 years, and then earned his bachelor’s degree and law degree from St. John’s University in New York City.
Russell Wilson
Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson has earned numerous accolades on the gridiron, including nine Pro Bowl nominations and a Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award in 2020. Through the 2023 season, he has thrown for more than 300 touchdowns and rushed for almost 30 — a true dual-threat QB. His speed helped him during his short MiLB career, which he pursued in the summers of 2010 and 2011 before his collegiate seasons at NC State University and the University of Wisconsin.
The Colorado Rockies drafted Wilson in the fourth round of the 2010 MLB Draft, just eight spots behind decade-plus big leaguer James Paxton. The quarterback patrolled second base for the Tri-City Dust Devils of the Northwest League that summer, batting .230 with 28 hits in 32 games. A season later, as a member of the South Atlantic League’s Asheville Tourists, Wilson played in 61 games and swiped 15 bases. He had 44 hits for a .228 average. More recently, Wilson participated in one MLB Spring Training game in 2018, suiting up with the New York Yankees. He struck out on three pitches in his lone plate appearance.
Randy Poffo
Long before he was a semi-household name as “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Randy Poffo spent four seasons in the minor leagues. Signed by St. Louis out of high school, Poffo was assigned to the Gulf Coast League Cardinals in 1971 as a catcher and occasional outfielder. The 18-year-old future WWF champion hit .286 in 35 games and boasted a 1.000 fielding percentage. Poffo had 46 hits in 52 games the following season, before splitting his 1973 campaign between Rookie ball and A-ball. He’s said to have begun his wrestling career in 1973, but returned to the minors in 1974 — this time, in the Cincinnati Reds system. That summer, Poffo played in a career-high 131 games, hitting .232 with nine home runs and 66 RBIs.
Interestingly, Baseball-Reference lists Poffo’s measurements as a minor leaguer at 6’1″, 195 pounds. Wrestling as “Macho Man” in the 1980s, his billed size was 6’2″, 237 pounds. As Randy Savage, Poffo is commonly regarded as one of wrestling’s all-time great performers, often known for his rivalry with Hulk Hogan. Poffo was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015, four years after his death at the age of 58.
John Elway
John Elway is widely known as a two-time Super Bowl winner with the Denver Broncos. The quarterback led his club to championships in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII before retiring and eventually ending up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But before he slung the pigskin professionally, Elway had dreams of making it as a big leaguer. He was drafted twice — out of high school in the 18th round of the 1979 Draft, and again in the second round of the 1981 Draft out of Stanford University. (Six spots later, the Padres selected future HOFer Tony Gwynn.)
Elway had a promising, albeit short, stint in the minor leagues. He was assigned to the the Oneonta Yankees in 1982, appearing in 42 games. At the age of 22, and with an impressive 6’4″, 205-pound frame, Elway had four home runs, 25 RBIs, and a team-best .318 batting average. He even chipped in defensively with eight outfield assists. His baseball career, however, came to an abrupt end when he was selected with the first overall pick of the 1983 NFL Draft. His 16-year pro football career began that autumn, and he never played an inning of pro baseball again.
