Happy Birthday: Drew Henson - Feb. 13, 1980

Today we celebrate the birthday of Drew Henson who turned 44 years old Tuesday. Henson was an amazing schoolboy athlete, but he had one of the shortest MLB careers ever for a player surrounded by so much hype. Let’s get to it.

For those of us old enough to remember Chip Hilton, the fictional high school football, basketball and baseball hero in Claire Bee’s long-running series of kids’ sports books, Drew Henson was the Chip Hilton of his generation growing up in the 1990s.

Henson hailed from Brighton, Michigan where he earned all-state honors in all three sports, earned Valedictorian honors, and was one of the most heavily recruited athletes in Michigan history. In football, by the time he graduated he ranked second all-time in the state for yards passing and TD passes, and as a baseball player, he set the national high school record for career home runs (70), RBIs (290) and runs scored (259). As a pitcher, he struck out 163 hitters in his junior season, and he had a 14–1 record with a 0.86 ERA and 174 strikeouts in his senior season.

The Yankees picked him in the third round of the 1998 draft - Derek Jeter even gave him a call when that happened, advising him to choose his agent, Casey Close, to represent him - but he also chose to accept a football scholarship to the University of Michigan where, as a true freshman, he battled a kid named Tom Brady to be the starting quarterback in 1998.

Brady won the job, but Henson still played parts of eight games, and then in 1999 the two fought again to be the starter and for the first half of the season they shared the position, alternating every quarter before coach Lloyd Carr finally chose Brady to be the full-time QB in the second half of the season.

“He and I were the only guys who understood, going through a situation like that, that that was not the way the position was meant to be played,” Henson said. “Coach Carr told us he knew it wasn't fair to either of us, but we both deserved to play.”

Brady graduated in 2000, became a sixth-round NFL draft pick of the Patriots, and went on to what some would say was a pretty good career in the NFL. Henson became Michigan’s full-time starter for 2000, but then made the interesting decision to leave school after his junior year to join the Yankees, signing a six-year, $17 million contract in March 2001 that stipulated he could only play baseball.

Henson had spent his summers playing in the Yankees’ minor league system between 1998 and 2000, occasionally dining with other Yankees at Jeter’s home in Tampa, but they grew tired of waiting for him to commit to baseball so he was traded to the Reds in July 2000. However, when he left Michigan after the 2000 season fresh off having thrown for 303 yards in defeating arch-rival Ohio State, the Yankees re-acquired him in spring training 2001 and signed him to a six-year, $17 million contract that stipulated he play baseball only.

The Yankees believed he would be their third baseman of the future after Scott Brosius retired at the end of 2001, but that never came to be. Henson flashed some power in the minor leagues and in 2002 at Triple-A Columbus - home of the Buckeyes which was never comfortable for the former Michigan QB - he had 18 homers and 65 RBI, but he batted just .240 with a .736 OPS.

Ultimately, he saw action in just eight MLB games - three in 2002, five in 2003 - and the Yankees gave up on him. Robin Ventura had begun 2003 as the starting third baseman, and then he was traded to the Dodgers at the deadline and rather than turn to Henson, the Yankees traded for Aaron Boone.

And then when Boone tore up his knee playing basketball before the 2004 season, the Yankees told Henson he would not be the replacement and that’s when they traded for Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod had barely held up his new Yankees jersey at his introductory press conference when Henson announced he was done with baseball, and he was released from his contract and went back to football.

The Houston Texans had picked him in the sixth round of the 2003 draft to secure his rights if he ever decided to go back to football, but he never played there as they traded him to Bill Parcells’ Cowboys in March 2004. With Dallas he started one game when Vinny Testaverde was injured, and then from 2005-07 he was a practice squad player with the Cowboys behind Drew Bledsoe and Tony Romo, and later with the Vikings in 2007. Henson’s journey finally ended with the Lions in 2008 where he got into just two games.

So, one of the best high school athletes this country has seen wound up batting nine times in the major leagues, and throwing 20 passes in the NFL, completing 11 for 98 yards and one touchdown.

When he put his cleats in the closet for the last time, he said, “You come around and say, ‘OK, I’m 30 years old, what am I going to do for my next career?’ What am I going to put my energy into?”

That wound up being a minor league hitting coach for the Yankees and later a scout which lasted through 2017 when he became a financial advisor for pro athletes.