“Lucky enough to play in the Major Leagues for about one hundred and some days. That was a great experience. But that December (’63), Lombardi called me up and said, ‘Brown.’ I said, ‘Yes, Coach.’ He said, ‘We’re still interested in you and playing football, but you can’t sit out another year.'”

That’s how Tom Brown — the man who made history in two sports — remembered the life-changing phone call from Vince Lombardi during a 2021 interview on Delmarva Life’s Monday Memories. No frills, no dramatics. Just straight-up Tom: humble, sharp, and very aware of the once-in-a-lifetime ride he had lived. Now, the Packers world is tipping its cap and taking a knee for the legend who passed away last Wednesday, April 23, at 84 years old in Salisbury, Maryland.

Before he was making game-saving picks for the Lombardi-era Packers, Brown was a big-league dreamer with a bat in his hands. Born December 12, 1940, in Laureldale, Pennsylvania, he cracked the Washington Senators’ roster at just 22. Spring training? He hit .312 — pretty good if you ask anyone who’s tried to square up major league pitching. But once the regular season hit, Brown’s bat cooled off faster than Lambeau in December. After bouncing between the Senators and the minors, Brown knew something had to give. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t going to be Vince Lombardi’s patience.

“I’d been drafted by the Green Bay Packers in February of ’63. I wanted to play baseball,” Brown recalled. But when Lombardi called again — that firm, unmistakable voice offering one more shot at the gridiron — it was decision time. By mid-1964, Brown signed with the Packers. Coaches toyed with his position like a new Madden roster: flanker, cornerback, then finally — safety. Once he settled in, the man didn’t just play; he owned the backfield like it was a frozen fortress.

Brown started almost every game for Green Bay from 1965 through 1968, grabbing a firm seat during their NFL championship three-peat and two Super Bowl wins. But the real moment Packers fans will always shout from the rooftops? Brown’s clutch interception in the dying seconds of the 1966 NFL title game against Dallas, sealing a 34-27 win. Not bad for a guy who once thought he’d be a “utility guy” in baseball. Ice in his veins? Brown had it before it was a meme.

By 1969, Brown found himself traded to Washington for a fifth-round pick, reuniting with Lombardi one last time. Unfortunately, that chapter didn’t last long — just one more game before Brown decided to hang ’em up for good. “I loved baseball. It was my favorite sport,” he said during a 2009 sit-down, explaining how football had initially been just a way to snag a scholarship. But life had other plans. And luckily for the Packers, so did Lombardi.

Today, the football world remembers Tom Brown as more than just a “player.” He was a gamer. A guy who showed up, punched the clock, and changed outcomes when it mattered most. Baseball may have been his first love, but Green Bay became his lasting legacy. Rest easy, Tom. Heaven just got itself a two-sport star… And maybe, just maybe, Lombardi’s waiting with another play call.

Tom Brown leaves Green Bay in mourning

“May he rest in peace. Go Pack Go.” That’s how one Packers fan signed off their tribute to Tom Brown, the two-sport marvel who forever left a cleat mark in Green Bay’s history books. You can almost hear the echoes from Lambeau as fans sit with the news. A bittersweet reminder that legends, even the ones built like brick walls, aren’t immune to time. After all, Brown wasn’t just a name on a roster.

Before Tom Brown wore the Packers’ green and gold, he was just a 6-year-old kid chasing his brother onto the baseball field, being told he was too young… Until he wasn’t. Thanks to his brother Richard’s insistence, Brown earned his spot by catching and running bases better than kids three years older. That drive? It never left him. Even when he promised Vince to suit as a Packer.

Another fan listed it all out like a proud stat sheet: “#RIP Tom Brown 1940-2025 #MLB #NFL #Senators #Packers #Redskins 3-Time NFL champion 1965, 1966, and 1967 2-time Super Bowl Champion I and II.”

Baseball or football? At first, football felt too brutal. Yankee Stadium’s frozen turf during the 1962 NFL Championship game had Brown thinking he’d rather stick with a bat than get flattened by a linebacker. Only a call from Vince Lombardi himself — with that dry humor and a nudge about Brown’s batting average — pulled him back to the gridiron. And that’s why, a fan rightly wrote: “Rip legend.”

And legend really is the right word here. Tom Brown didn’t just cash his checks and move on. After winning with the Packers — including Super Bowl I and II — he took Vince Lombardi’s words to heart: “Find something you’re good at and make a contribution to the community.” Brown lived it.

He started the Tom Brown Rookie League on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, creating a place where kids could play pickup baseball without parents yelling from the sidelines. No over-coaching. No pressure. Just pure, sandlot fun. Just the way he played it as a kid until suppertime. Can you imagine that? A world where kids call their own safe-or-out plays at second base without instant replay! One fan summed it up in a way that’ll stick with you: “Frozen Tundra legends are immortal.”

Brown was a character of it. From having President John F. Kennedy—yes, that JFK—joke about putting him in the Senators’ starting lineup, to winning titles with the Packers when the NFL was still shaping its identity, he became part of the culture. He was Green Bay’s reminder that greatness isn’t loud. Sometimes it’s steady, humble, and is hidden in the stories from the past.

And as Brown once said, finding out he was inducted into the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame — after thinking he wasn’t eligible — was the cherry on top: “When you think of all the people who lived in Maryland or born in Maryland, it’s a great honor.” Now, the Green Bay and the football world take a collective knee in your honor. Rest easy, #40. The Frozen Tundra just got another guardian.