Entering Saturday night’s start at Anaheim, Cubs pitcher Cade Horton is 7-4 with 70 strikeouts, a 3.08 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP in 87⅔ innings this season, his first in the major leagues.
AP
There’s an alternate universe somewhere with Cade Horton starting at quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners, rather than in the starting rotation for the Cubs.
Maybe he’d even be in the NFL by now if he’d chosen football over baseball. Horton’s original plan was to play both sports at Oklahoma. In one interview during his senior year, he said he couldn’t imagine not playing football.
“I definitely love football season,” Horton said this week at Wrigley Field. “It’s the best time of the year. So I’m just excited to be able to watch college football come back on and the NFL and everybody gets started.”
The numbers were impressive. A three-year varsity starter at Norman High School, Horton threw for over 3,000 yards, ran for 1,100 and accounted for 41 touchdowns during his senior season.
“He had the mentality of a linebacker, really,” Norman head coach Rocky Martin said. “He always wanted to play linebacker. He kept asking me over and over to play linebacker. He had that mental toughness and that physical toughness that you want leading your team.”
Horton began playing football right around the time he started kindergarten. Memorial Stadium, home of the Sooners, was a short bike ride from his high school.
Some coaches say throwing a football and pitching a baseball require different mechanics and it’s not smart to do both. Obviously, it didn’t slow down Horton at all.
“I don’t feel like it ever affected me,” he said. “I just would go out there and compete. It’s like, they tell hitters not to play golf, but you know, a lot of hitters play golf. It’s two different swings. Doesn’t mean you can’t do both of them.
“It is two different throws, but baseball’s a lot more stressful on your arm than football. But also, I think throwing a football can make your arm stronger for baseball. So there’s give and take to both sides.”
Checking out some highlights from his senior year at Norman, Horton stayed in the pocket, mostly, and showed off impressive accuracy downfield.
“He was a dual-threat guy,” Martin said. “Teams had to prepare for both. We were a spread offense, but if teams chose to drop eight, he could take off and run. He was dangerous that way too. Obviously, he could make every throw in the book, but he was really a phenomenal athlete.”
Horton not only mastered the quarterback-pitcher combination, he was also considered a potential MLB prospect at shortstop in high school. He went to great lengths to prepare for two sports in the summer of 2019, attending four national showcases and playing in four MLB stadiums — in Phoenix, St. Petersburg, Cleveland and San Diego.
Still, he attended a reported 80% of Norman’s summer football workouts. After winning just one game when Horton was a sophomore, the Tigers went 7-4 and made the playoffs his senior season.
“He got rolled up, had a real bad high ankle sprain late in the season his senior year,” Martin said. “Most kids wouldn’t have gone the next week. Cade was the type of kid, no one was going to hold him out.
“Every single game, he made multiple plays, whether it was throwing the ball 55, 60 yards in the air or taking off and running for 65 yards. He was really that special with it.”
Horton did suit up for Oklahoma football practice when he arrived as a freshman in the fall of 2020 but decided pretty quickly to drop the sport. He ended up having Tommy John surgery the following spring and didn’t do much pitching until late in his sophomore season, when his performance at the College World Series caught the eye of the Cubs.
“I just ran a scout team (in football practice),” Horton said. “I decided to leave the team after the first game. I was just in a spot where I was not really getting many reps, ‘I could be focusing on baseball right now.’ At the end of the day, I’ve got to do what’s best for my career.
“At some point the game will choose you, and that’s why I ended up choosing baseball.”
No complaints from the Cubs on that decision.
Cade Horton hoped to play football and baseball while at the University of Oklahoma, but he wound up focusing on baseball.
AP
Gerald Steele is the founder of Stonegate Health Rehab. He shares expert insights, recovery tips, and rehab resources to support individuals on their journey to wellness.