THIRTY YEARS AGO THE WORLD STOP
BASKETBALL AND ALL SPORTS STOPPED
IT LOOKED LIKE A LATE APRIL FOOL
IT WAS A VERY POWERFUL STORY
THAT COULD HAVE ENDED DIFFERENTLY
It was October 6, 1993, thirty years ago.
Michael Jordan called a press conference. He was thirty years old, he was the best player in the world, he had won 3 NBA titles and as many MVP awards. He was also in a bad moment: two and a half months before him his father James had died, killed by two thugs who had tried to rob him. And there was that bad story about betting in Atlantic City: a topic on which in America they are less tender towards sportsmen than here. Those who follow this page know about baseball and what happened to Pete Rose, the man with the most valid hits in the history of the MLB
As soon as Michael Jordan gave the news he had to give, live broadcasts, TV and radio, across America interrupted what they were saying to relaunch it. And shortly thereafter, on the rebound, the same thing happened in the news around the world. Michael Jordan said he was quitting basketball. Already a bomb. And yet he was much more. Because MJ didn’t leave because he was tired, because he was unmotivated, because he wanted to enjoy the money or be with his family, no. He quit to play baseball.
The best basketball player in the world and ever accepted being one of many, in the third or fourth series. To go from a global star with the silhouette printed on the shoes of kids from all over the world to a pitch in a small town in some suburb of America. From super-luxury jets, often private, to the bus, the means by which you travel from one city to another in the Minors.
And if this aspect of MJ’s extraordinary career seems secondary to you, we have a different idea of sports and the reasons why we talk about sports.
In a famous interview with NBC, Jordan said that trying baseball was a kind of way to prolong his life with his father James. When Michael was a kid, James always thought of him as a baseball player, also because at 12 he was the best prospect in North Carolina. “Baseball was what we talked about.”
So going to bat, putting on a glove and catching a fly ball would have become ways to continue talking, somehow.
The world was shocked by that decision. Some more, some less. Said Magic Johnson: “I understand his decision. Sometimes in life you want to be left alone, without constantly being under the microscope.” But it is also true that Magic would later buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. So he too is fascinated by baseball. And it should be added that Magic himself had then predicted Jordan’s change of heart. “He will want to prove that he will always be the king.”
They say that in 1994 MJ went from millions to a salary of 5 dollars an hour, in reality the owner of the Chicago White Sox, for whom he signed, was the same as the Chicago Bulls, and probably the money story went a little ‘ different. It is true, however, that he bought the bus for the team he went to play for: the Birmingham Barons, in Alabama. Whose merchandising still makes him fat by selling number 45 jerseys (not the 23rd, it was in another chapter) with Jordan written on the shoulders.
The Barons, then as now affiliated with the White Sox, were and are in AA, the C series, if you really want the Italian translation. In the 1994 championship, while the MLB went on strike, Jordan played 127 games as a right fielder (11 errors). He batted 497 times, including 436 ABs, with 88 hits, for a less-than-exciting batting average of 202. With 51 runs batted in, 17 doubles, 1 triple and 3 home runs. But even with 30 stolen bases, not a little eh.
For a year the Barons had press and TV coverage almost as if they were in the Majors. And the opponents went to MJ to ask for his autograph. Then he would get on the bus and travel for maybe 10 hours for an away match.
So Jordan has never seen MLB, not even from afar. Yet he played one game with the White Sox, only one. April 7, 1994. A derby against the Cubs. At the time there was no Interleague yet, the American teams (White Sox) never faced the National teams (Cubs). It only happened at the World Series, with the two champion teams playing (and playing) the title. But the city rivalry, between the Northsiders (Cubs) and the Southsiders (White Sox) was and is too great. So at the time they organized unofficial exhibition derbies. And that year, for the occasion, the White Sox called on Michael Jordan. Nice move: 37,825 spectators arrived at Wrigley Field, the mythological but small Cubs stadium.
With the Cubs up 1-0, Michael Jordan hit a foul double to third base off Chuck Crim to make it 1-1. And you should have seen his smile (look for it on Youtube). Then he would go 1-for-3.
That episode therefore leaves some doubt about what would have been if… That and another fact. Success in the fall of 1994. When Jordan went to play the Skorpions in Scottsdale, Arizona, in the Fall League. It’s a kind of AAA, a B series, in whose teams players from various MLB clubs end up. And where the level is much higher than the one he played at in Alabama. An ESPN documentary on the subject suggests that Jordan was improving, and a lot. In the Arizona Fall League he batted 252 and could have started thinking about making his MLB debut as well. But the industrial dispute was still ongoing. The 1994 World Series was canceled (it hadn’t happened since 1904), the future was uncertain. This too, or rather especially this according to ESPN, decided MJ’s return to basketball.
The whole story should have been made into a film. By and with Will Smith. The title was already there: The Prospect. So a film about Michael Jordan, but without basketball. Only about baseball. Because beyond the results, as we can see, inside there is the true, great story of an epochal phenomenon – not just sporting – which is content to become promising. Ultimately not maintained. Then I don’t know: probably Will’s events jeopardized its realization.
“Baseball is America’s sport,” says Michael Jordan in the aforementioned NBC interview. “And there’s a perception that you can’t try it if you haven’t played it your whole life, but that shouldn’t be the case.”
2023-10-06 20:50:26
#years #Michael #Jordan #baseball
