OAKLAND -- The reasonable hesitation that accompanied thoughts of selecting a two-sport athlete surely infiltrated the A's Draft room. Billy Beane sensed it.
"Everyone was sort of dancing around the obvious," Oakland's vice president of baseball operations said. "I knew who they really wanted, but they were fearful of sort of dealing with the whole football issue."
The talent at stake: Oklahoma Sooner standout Kyler Murray. The risk at stake: Murray wished to succeed Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield at quarterback in the fall before resuming baseball.
The novelty of it all scared off other teams, agent Scott Boras said. The A's, though, were enamored with his athleticism.
"And probably about 36 hours before the Draft, I was talking to David [Forst]," Beane said, "and I said, 'We should take Kyler Murray; that's who everyone wants to take.'
"Everyone kind of looked at me as if [asking], 'Is that OK?' And I said, 'Yeah, we're going to do it. If it's the best player, we're going to take him.' I think it really energized everyone. No one really wanted to mention the whole football thing and I said, 'Hey, listen guys. In January, we're going to be really excited that this kid is playing for the Oakland A's. We're going to be hitting ourselves in January if we haven't taken this kid.' That's when we called Scott, and it happened pretty quickly."