Macho Man's Hidden Talent: Baseball's Loss Was Wrestling's Gain

• Savage played baseball in high school when he lived in Illinois.
• He played for the Gulf Coast, Western Carolinas, and Florida State League.
• Savage looks unrecognizable in baseball photos without his signature beard.

Randy Savage was born as Randy Poffo in Columbus, Ohio in 1952. After moving around, he graduated from high school in Downers Grove, Illinois in 1970. During his high school years, Savage was a standout baseball player who was so good that the MLB's St. Louis Cardinals signed him to play catcher in the minors. He played two seasons in the Gulf Coast League, before playing in the Western Carolinas League and the Gulf Coast League in 1973.

Randy Savage's last year in baseball was 1974, when he was still just 21. That year he moved on from the Cardinals to the Cincinnati Reds, playing in the Florida State League. It's wild to get online and see photos of Savage as a young man wearing a Reds hat and not sporting his signature beard. Even for wrestling fans, it's easy to look at photos from this era and not know this is Randy Savage.

Was Randy Savage Any Good At Baseball?

His Stats Show He Was Not Going To Make It To The Major Leagues

• Savage never made it out of the minor leagues.
• He did have decent stats during his four years in baseball.
• His best year saw him playing the most games with the Tampa Tarpons.

Like many minor league baseball players, Randy Savage never made it to the major leagues for the Cardinals or the Reds. After 1974, he was done with baseball, but was he any good when he played?

Looking at his stats on Baseball Reference, Savage's four-year baseball career saw him play 289 games, where his batting average was.254, and he had 221 hits and 16 homeruns. Most of his games came in his final year of 1974, when he played 131 games for the Reds' Class A Tampa Tarpons but only had a low .232 batting average.

Randy Savage Spoke About His Baseball Career

"The Macho Man" Became A Wrestling Icon

• Savage wanted to be better than Babe Ruth.
• He was released while training with the Chicago White Sox and never played again.
• He lost his temper, making threats and hitting a tree with his bat.

In the 80s, during the early days of his wrestling career, Randy Savage was asked about his failed stint playing baseball. Savage said he had two good years with them before they released him. He added:

"A bunch of the directors must have got together and said the Macho Man ain't doing it right now."

Savage called it a huge setback because he wanted to be the greatest baseball player of all-time, even bigger than Babe Ruth. During a short stint with the Chicago White Sox, he did impress by being the very rare player to both hit and throw right or left-handed. However, while training with the White Sox in 1975, he one day discovered that his uniform was missing from his locker. He found out he'd been let go again and was so angry that he made threats and busted a tree with his bat. Seeing that he wasn't good enough to go pro, Savage decided to pursue professional wrestling.

"And what I did in professional wrestling is use that same attitude and found out that it was a blessing that they took the uniform out of my locker. And it's great for the history of professional wrestling, because it is now known, 100%, all over the world, that the "Macho Man" Randy Savage is the greatest professional wrestler of all-time."

Savage made that comment in character, but it's not hyperbolic. He was one of the all-time greats, a name so famous that he became part of pop culture. When Savage passed away in 2011, even Major League Baseball recognized him with an article where perhaps the greatest talker in wrestling history was remembered in baseball as a quiet kid who didn't say much. Baseball might have been his passion, but it wasn't his path. It was wrestling that brought out the best in Randy Savage and made his name live on forever.