Vikings safety pursuing baseball career

Vikings safety Jarrad Page, who is scheduled to be a free agent on Tuesday, signed a Minor League contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers instead.

Jarrad Page’s NFL career could be coming to an end with the start of his professional baseball career.

Page, the safety who joined the Vikings midseason last year after a series of injuries thinned their defensive backfield, signed a Minor League contract as an outfielder with the Los Angeles Dodgers, MLB.com reported.

Page, 27, is scheduled to be a free agent when the NFL market opens on Tuesday and the Vikings weren’t expected to make a play for him anyways. He has also played for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, but made his biggest impression with the Kansas City Chiefs, where he was a seventh-round draft choice in 2006.

After starting five of the first six games of the 2011 NFL season with the Philadelphia Eagles, he was released and signed with the Vikings two weeks later, on Nov. 29. He played in five games for the Vikings but didn’t have any starts and registered only one tackle.

Page participated in an open tryout with the Dodgers two weeks ago. He played college baseball for UCLA and was drafted by MLB teams three times as a centerfielder but opted to pursue an NFL career first.

With the Bruins in 2004, he batted .233 with 19 RBI and three home runs as a 19-year old. In football, he started 45 of 49 games for UCLA and ranked second on the team as a senior with 75 tackles.

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