True Double Duty: Braves to Get Sanders : Two-sport athlete: He will play football by day, baseball by night. Braves are rained out.

With time on his hands from a day job of knocking down passes and returning punts, Atlanta Falcon defensive back Deion Sanders has decided to take on a little night work.

Sanders, who spends his football off-season playing in the Atlanta Braves’ outfield, has rejoined the club for the stretch run of the National League West Division race, playing in the evening after football practice, but leaving baseball for Falcon games on the weekend.

He was available to the Braves Tuesday, but their home game against the Cincinnati Reds was rained out. Sanders is expected to be on hand for tonight’s doubleheader and Thursday’s night game against the Reds, but miss the weekend series at Houston. He will play with the Falcons at home Sunday against the New Orleans Saints, then will rejoin the Braves for a three-game series Monday at Cincinnati and three more games against Houston at Atlanta during a Falcon bye week.

He will be available for nine of the Braves’ final 12 games, plus postseason play, if they can overtake the Dodgers.

Though others have played two professional sports--most recently, Bo Jackson and D.J. Dozier--Sanders is believed to be the only player with an opportunity for a bump-and-run one day and a base-on-balls the next.

Still, his value does not lie with his bat but with his legs.

“I think we will use him mostly as a pinch-runner,” Brave Manager Bobby Cox said. “I’ll probably forget he is on the bench. I think every player around here is glad to see him.”

Before leaving the Braves on July 31, Sanders was batting only .193. But he had stolen nine bases in 12 attempts, and his position now will be designated baserunner, with the task of providing the speed that was lost when left fielder Otis Nixon was suspended Sept. 15 for a drug violation.

Sanders took over Nixon’s locker in the Braves’ clubhouse Tuesday after signing a contract that reportedly will pay him a $5,000 bonus and $12,000 for playing as much as he can the remainder of the season.

He was animated, as usual, Tuesday at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, where he played a major role Sunday in the Falcons’ 21-17 victory over the Raiders.

“I have a batting cage at home,” Sanders said. “I hit in it all the time. . . . I had packed my baseball bag away until spring training. I saw it down there and said ‘wake up, wake up.’ ”

Sanders’ first day back in baseball was easy enough. He had Tuesday off from the Falcons, who got word of his return to baseball from the Braves.

Today, though, might be another story. He’s due at the regular 9:30 a.m. Falcon meeting, followed by practice. With luck, he will finish by 3 p.m. at Suwanee, “probably stop by the crib, kiss the baby and keep going.” Atlanta traffic being what it is, he undoubtedly will miss the first pitch of today’s doubleheader against the Reds.

And he will have to deal with the Falcon brass, with whom he has had stormy relations. They pay him $650,000 a season to play football, but he has returned $65,000 of that over the past two years in fines for being late to training camp because of baseball.

And though Falcon President Taylor Smith said there would be no recriminations from Sanders’ rejoining the Braves, Smith’s father, Rankin, the Falcon owner, clearly has decided that a stadium is enough to share with baseball.

“First of all, the controversy was started by (the Braves),” Rankin Smith, normally a Braves’ fan, said. “They didn’t even see fit to call us while they were discussing this thing. They just did what they chose to do without any regard for (the Falcons).

“They’ve put us in a no-win situation with this thing from the very beginning. No matter what we do, we look like the bad guys here; that’s not right. We’re all big Braves’ fans. We all want them to win, but they handled this Deion thing in an unprofessional manner.”

Sanders said he had not called the Falcons about the matter because “I usually don’t call them on my day off.”

His Brave teammates were upbeat.

“He’s special around here,” pitcher Steve Avery said. “He means a lot to lot of guys on this team, and everybody wants to see him here. Sure, he’ll give the team a lift.”

Still, the Braves’ aren’t paying him to be a mascot or good luck charm. “The more he gets himself back into baseball condition, if he looks like he will be able to swing the bat or play defense, (he will do just that),” Brave General Manager John Schuerholz said.

The move may portend Sanders’ next step. “This is a pretty good sign of what I want to do in the future,” he said. “I got a family to worry about, and when my little girl is in school, I want to be able to walk in and visit her and not be rolled up in a wheelchair.”

Times staff writer Jim Hodges wrote this story from information provided by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.