Jordan was a sports star at Milford Mill Academy in Baltimore. After graduating from the University of Richmond, Jordan embarked on a dual baseball and football career. He was drafted in the first round of the 1988 draft by the St. Louis Cardinals and also became a member of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons.
While climbing the ladder in the Cardinals' minor league system, Jordan played as a defensive back for the Falcons from 1989 to 1991. He had five interceptions and four sacks in his brief career, but Jordan decided to give up football to concentrate on baseball.
Jordan made his Major League debut on April 8, 1992 with the Cardinals. He served mostly as a utility outfielder during his first three seasons, but in his first full year, in 1995, he had a breakthrough season. His stats included 145 hits, 20 doubles, and a .296 batting average in 490 at-bats. He also flashed his power by hitting 22 home runs and 81 RBIs. He built on his success in 1996, hitting .310 with 104 RBIs and a .349 on base percentage, playing mostly as the rightfielder for the Cardinals. In the postseason that year, Jordan hit .333 in the NLDS and had a game-winning home run in Game 4 of the 1996 NLCS.
Shrugging off a relatively disastrous and injury-riddled 1997 season in which he hit .234 with no home runs, Jordan had possibly the best season of his career in 1998, his last year with St. Louis. He scored 100 runs, saw his power return with 25 home runs, and batted a career-high .316, with an outstanding .534 slugging percentage.
His stats in 1998 helped earn Jordan a 21.3 million dollar contract with the Atlanta Braves. Jordan had a strong April and May to help carry the Braves early in the 1999 season. This propelled him to his only All-Star appearance. He finished the season with 100 runs again and drove in 115 runs. Jordan was a savior in the 1999 NLDS for the Braves against the Houston Astros. He batted .471, had the game-winning double in the twelfth inning of Game 3, and drove in seven of Atlanta's 18 runs during the series. He contributed two home runs in the 1999 NLCS, but went 1 for 13 in his only World Series appearance.
Jordan's batting average and RBI totals dipped in 2000, but in 2001 Jordan hit 25 homers with a .295 average and was superb in the final games of the season, helping to push the Braves to their tenth-straight division title after a tight race with the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets.
After a solid season in 2002 in which he hit .285, injuries signicantly decreased Jordan's playing time in 2003. The aging Jordan signed a one-year contract with the Texas Rangers in 2004, but only batted .222 and again missed chunks of time with injuries. In 2005, he returned to the Braves, but he spent most of the season on the disabled list with left knee inflammation while rookie sensation Jeff Francoeur took over in right field. Relying more on his veteran savvy than natural talent at this point, he made the team again in 2006, but was limited to a platoon role at first base before again going on the disabled list.
Jordan is extremely active in the Atlanta community with the Brian Jordan Foundation [1]
When Jordan returned to the Braves in 2005, he learned that third base coach Fredi González's jersey number was #33, which had been Jordan's number throughout his career. González switched numbers so that Jordan could keep his long-time number, and in gratitude, Jordan bought González a new motorcycle.
