Kyle Long is genuinely enjoying retirement. The 31-year old has started a total of 76 games in his seven-year NFL career but many people don't know that baseball was actually one of Long's first loves.
Long played both baseball and football at St. Anne's-Belfield School in Charlottesville, Va. and was a physically imposing prospect who White Sox Senior Adviser to Scouting Operations Doug Laumann—who was the White Sox director of amateur scouting at the time—stated: "looked like Paul Bunyan."
On a scouting trip in the summer of '07, Laumann saw Long turn heads with stuff that was 95-96 mph from the left side of the plate.
Despite the White Sox taking Long as a "draft-and-stash" prospect in the 23rd round of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft, he decided to stick with his commitment to Florida State University as a baseball prospect (a pitcher), shocking many who assumed he would stick with the sport that his father—Hall of Fame defensive end Howie Long—and brother Chris both played.
Long faced some adversity as he transferred from FSU to Saddleback (community) College for academic reasons and re-committed himself to the game of football, and the rest is history. Kyle still very much believes he could be a solid pitcher if he picked the sport back up, saying that if he has Tommy John surgery now, he would be able to "throw 100 [mph]."
With his NFL playing days now behind him, Long says pretty much "every day" he thinks about what might have been had he stuck it out with baseball and played for the White Sox organization:
"What it would be like? Where I'd be living? Would I be with the White Sox still? Would I have a World Series? Would they let a pitcher partake in the Home Run Derby? Just ludicrous s**t like that."
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