Deion Sanders

In 1999 Sanders missed the first two games of the football season while recovering from toe surgery he had undergone during the off-season. With a punt-return average of 11.5 yards, he finished fourth in the NFC for the season. The most impressive of Sanders's punt returns that season came in an October 31 game against the Indianapolis Colts, when he returned a punt 76 yards to the two-yard line. On November 25, Sanders enjoyed his fifth career two-interception game when he picked off Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino twice. In the spring of 2000 the Cowboys cut Sanders for salary cap reasons. Once again a free agent, Sanders on June 6 was signed by the Washington Redskins to a seven-year, $56 million contract. Interviewed by Jet, Sanders said of his new team: "It's wonderful to be a Redskin. They've always had something special. There's nothing like these fans, this tradition." Although he turned in a credible performance for the Redskins in 2000, Sanders announced a year later that he was leaving football.

Never one to remain idle for long, Sanders in the spring of 2001 returned to baseball after an absence of more than three years. But it proved to be a very short stint indeed. After only 32 games with the Reds, Sanders, who was batting a disappointing .173, was released in late June.

Another major change in Sanders's life came in the late 1990s in the wake of the breakup of his first marriage. He renounced his flashy, hedonistic lifestyle to become a born-again Christian. In an interview with Bob Cohn of the Washington Times, Sanders spoke of the challenge he had faced in separating his job from his life. "Does Michael Jackson wear his glove home? Does Bill Cosby sit around and eat Jell-O at home? Is there a pulpit in the pastor's living room at home? You have to distinguish between the two—this is my job, and this is my life.

Deion Sanders

I've always been able to separate the two, even when other people haven't. But I took that other person with me sometimes. I took him to nightclubs, to bars, to places where he shouldn't have been. And now, I'm murdering slowly a person that I built up to take me into prosperity and financial gain. I'm killing him slowly. I'm working on Deion now."

These days Sanders is focusing most of his energies on being a family man. He lives with his wife, Pilar, and three children in Plano, Texas, outside Dallas. He began working full-time as a studio analyst for the NFL Today on CBS Sports. Whether he stays retired from both baseball and football remains to be seen. But even if he never plays again, there can be no doubt that Sanders has left an indelible mark on both sports.