- the face of bojordan.png (20.15 KiB) Viewed 1023 times
Bo Jordan is the face of the JLA and the whole JL in my opinion. The dude is 30 and is expected to be around in the year five billion and fifty-three, according to this doctor dude of his who operates out of an oldfashioned blue telephone box. Anyway, the vote for who should be the face of the JL gives me the chance to write a feature of a guy I once hated, and mostly still do, but I have to say he's the most recognized player of the JL. And deservingly so (short story: read the last paragraph).
FAMILY:
Bo is the older brother of both Deion Jordan, who plays in the Des Moines system and Luke Jordan (born 2001), who just won the Bo Jordan Batter Award, which is the MVP for College. I don't know the rest of the family history, but there is this retired Bo Jordan (active 1973-81), who might for all I know be the father of the three. [EDIT: this has been confirmed.] But sources say that our Bo Jordan was named after Bo Jackson, and not the retired Bo, but who knows. Then ther is this retired Deion Jordan (1973-75), who was born two years after Bo (Senior). I am starting to see a family connection between these names-there are two Bo Jordan's and two Deion Jordan's, a generation apart. The earlier generation also has Malcolm Jordan (1973-79) and James Jordan (1973-83). Just to be complete, there is also Ricky Jordan (active: 1991-96) and a John Jordan, who used to play in the United States but he plays for London now. I don't know if P Chad Jordan is any relation-he was born ten years before our Bo. Chad retired in 2018 with 378 saves.
So we got Bo, Deion and Luke all born in Las Vegas and who are brothers. All three played at different colleges. Luke is still at Kodiak College. He just won the Bo Jordan Batter Award. I am pretty sure that this award was named after big brother, Bo, since Bo holds the all-time college career records for OPS, SLG, TB, RBI, and WAR. We could say Bo Jordan is still the face of the CCAS. I guess it helped he played five full years in college, but they were consistent years, with home run totals of 16-14-17-25-17. In the last three years, 2011-2-13 Bo led his team to the College WS and they won two out of those times. After that, Bo was the first round draft pick of...wait for it...the Yellow Springs Nine. This was second overall pick of the 2014 rookie draft (Billy Chapel Jr (CAR) was first. This means we could have a potstove argument of all time regarding which one "should have" been picked first, or did both teams pick the best player for them.) Bo was given a $3M ML contract right off the bat. His brother Deion Jordan was picked 4th overall by Des Moines in 2019, given a ML contract, and has played in the Majors only in 2020. He was traded to Huntsville in 2021. Meanwhile, Bo was racking up hits, chicks and awards.
In 2015 Jordan didn't spend a day in the minors. And once he was put in the ML line up, he started 110 games (4th on the team), 106 at first, and he led the 4th-place Nine (56-106) with 20 homers. He won the ROTM for June, his first full month. He did not win the ROTY: that went to Valencia's Kevin 'Little Captain' Minuso, who played in 153 games, mostly at third. Jordan started all 162 games in his second season-a consecutive game streak that is still active seven years later. He hit 29 homers and knocked in 102 guys-this was the last year he would hit under 40 home runs in a season. In his third year, Jordan started the crazy streak of finishing as Runner Up in the Silver Slugging Voting for Best Batter for four straight years (2016,17,18,19), behind Juan Garcia (HLX-triple crown), Bruce Wayne (GRE-career year) and then twice to nemesis Doug Glover (GRE). In three of those four seasons, Jordan was the face of YS9 and led the team to finish first. In Jordan's last year with YS9, he led the team to the LMS. The 2019 LMS would be the last in a YS9 uniform. Because on the day before the 2020 season opener, in an eye-popping deal involving eight players, Meseck sent Big Bad Bo to his current team, Halifax and received the very talented but often injured pitcher Steve Hoffman and the terrific outfielder Mike Love. I didn't like the deal at the time, partly because I was with GRN and Jordan was now in the JLA. But I also didn't understand why YS9 would trade away its best hitter when hitting was the weakest part of the team, epecially for Hoffman, who has had several severe injuries. And boom he had a 12-month injury in May. Jordan kept bashing 40 homers a year-he led the JL in homers in both 2020 and 2021 (career high of 48 last year-and he is on target to hit that many this year-which will give hm 40+ in seven straight years). In 2020 Jordan was in his second straight LMS, but the Hawks lost to Carolina (and Chapel, who was 19-4 that year). That season was the 5th in a row that the Hawks made the playoffs. In 2021 they slipped to third, but Jordan hit 48 home runs-this included career number 300. For the second time, Juan Garcia, now a teamate, won the Silver Slugger Award. This season (2022) Halifax has been trading left and right and then some, but Jordan dos not seem to let this bother him- and he is projected to hit .308/48/115. He is currently second in WAR, and that is not to Rob Childers but to former YS9 teammate Benjamin Franklin Pierce. Jordan and Childers are in fact tied for OPS. Three years ago I might have said Glover was the face of the JL. If you go by just one season, then yeah maybe Childers (or Pierce). But if you go by the last half dozen (or actually the last seven), I vote Bo Jordan.
From the period 2016 to present, Jordan leads the JL in WAR (41.8), hits (1256), home runs (296), RBI (807), walks (612), OBP (.394), SLG (.591). He is also third in batting average (.305), and of course first in OPS (.985). He has made the JL All Star Team seven years in a row. The face of the College League is also the Face of the Johnson League. And, pssst, only one MBWBA player, the Glover, has a higher WAR that time period.
