There are years that are not like all the others. I don’t know if it’s a question of cabala, numerology or something else. I only know that there are years in which the stories seem to chase each other and pile up on top of each other. As if they wanted to end up there, all on the same page of the book.
1994 is one of them. The year of Roberto Baggio who sends the most famous penalty in Italian football over the crossbar and the last, tragic, curve of Ayrton Senna. Even the one where the heart of Massimo Troisi stopped beating shortly after finishing filming The postman. The year of Kurt Cobain e Agostino Di Bartolomeiwho can no longer see any light at the bottom of the abyss.
As you may have guessed, there will be no shortage of anniversaries in the coming months. Thirty years ago, however, we also witnessed one of the most unexpected and indecipherable sporting seasons ever. For its protagonist, for the uniqueness of the choice and for the fleeting nature of the experience. So much so that, to this day, there is no shared opinion on that comet that crossed the sporting sky for six months. Yes because, in 1994, Michael Jordan played baseball.
I’ll play baseball
Small space-time summary: on October 6, 1993, in one of the most famous press conferences in the history of sport, Michael Jordan communicated to the world the sensational decision to retire from the Chicago Bulls and from professional basketball.
Jordan, live on TV, announces his retirement from basketball
A few months of speculation about his future followed, until MJ officially reveals that he wants to play baseball and, on February 7, 1994, he signs for the Chicago White Sox. It had never happened before that the greatest global exponent of a discipline, during his primeabandon it to try another sport.
At the time, Jordan was 31 years old and hadn’t played baseball since high school. The landing of His Airness in the circuit of Major League it’s something more than a bet. For some insiders it is even an offense. “It takes at least fifteen years of training to learn the fundamentals of the game and this guy thinks he can make it to the pros overnight just because he’s a superstar in another sport,” one GM blurts out. But the famous cover of would be enough Sports Illustrated “Bag it, Michael!” (stop it, Michael), with Jordan missing the ball by almost half a meter, to understand the skepticism of the environment.
Welcome to the Barons
Once spring training is over, the White Sox, having to decide which affiliated team of the Minors to send Jordan to, opt for the Birmingham Barons. Especially thanks to the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium. The new stadium, which opened its doors in 1988, is the most suitable to accommodate the crowds of public and media expected to follow MJ.
Waiting for Jordan is the manager on the launch pad Terry “Tito” Francona. One who was MVP of the College World Series, first pick in the 1980 MLB draft and with a career spent between Montreal, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Milwaukee. Francona was only 34 years old at the time and starting his second year as manager of the Barons.
After two acclimatization races Jordan, who is at roster with number 45, he put together a positive streak of thirteen games which led him to have a more than respectable batting average.
Soon the music changes. Opposing pitchers stop throwing fastballs at him and start bombarding him with breaking ball, one after the other. On those MJ has clear difficulties, but his competitiveness still leads him to try to hit them all. The numbers, inevitably, drop.
Sweet home Alabama
Leaving aside the results on the field for a moment, Jordan’s adventure in Birmingham is paradigmatic of what place the USA is and what historical-social phase it is going through in the heart of the nineties.
The famous cover of Sports Illustrated
Alabama, now as then, is clearly the most racist state of the confederacy, with social rifts that have lasted for decades. Own the city of Birmingham between 1950 and 1960 was one of the main headquarters of the Civil Rights Movement, often hitting the headlines nationally and internationally for dramatic episodes. Suffice it to say that the city, following numerous bombing events involving the Ku Klux Klan, was nicknamed “Bombingham“.
At the beginning of the following decade Birmingham was the hub of the activity of Martin Luther King. Here too, there is a year that stands out more than the others: 1963. On May 4th, the day after a demonstration ended in repression, the publication in the New York Times of the photo of a black boy attacked by police dogs forces the Kennedy administration to raise the issue of civil rights before the nation. From there the elimination of the “Jim Crow laws”, still in force in the city, and the acceleration that, on August 28, leads King to the “march for jobs and freedom” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, when he will pronounce the immortal of him “I have a dream”.
Sports and epic
Be careful though, on a sporting level, Alabama has a tradition of the highest level. The national sport is undoubtedly college football, with the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama (18-time NCAA champions) ei Tigers of Auburn University, bitter rivals in the Southeastern Conference.
Alabama also gave birth to some names who wrote immortal pages of twentieth-century sports, but they were never able to enjoy them. Misery and poverty took them elsewhere. Jesse Owens at age 9 he moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio. Joe Louis He spent 12 years in abject poverty in the rural areas around La Fayette before moving to Detroit, Michigan. Carl Lewis was born in Birmingham, but grew up in Willingboro, New Jersey. The son of the wind he is fresh from his latest achievement, the golden double in long jump and 4×100 in Barcelona ’92, when MJ arrives in the Barons jersey.
This is the planet on which, three decades later, the spaceship Jordan lands. One of the three greatest black athletes in history (on the podium together I put Muhammad Ali and Usain Bolt) is staged in the heart of Alabama. Today, as in the 1960s, we would have seen him involved in dozens of social initiatives. Netflix would build a dedicated TV series about it. In 1994Instead, US sport is essentially a galaxy apart, travels at its own speed and is the privileged pen with which the contemporary American epic is written. Jordan himself, moreover, has never been the face of the great civil battles. “Energy must remain on the field,” he would have said.
For the most romantic, therefore, only the ultra-celebrated story of the Jordan Cruiser, the new bus that MJ would have donated to the team for away trips. “In reality Michael didn’t pay a cent for the bus – declared Jim Thrasher, owner of the company that sold the vehicle to the Barons –, but it became such a good story that we avoided denying it, also because it brought us excellent publicity” .
Overs
If Michael Jordan puts all his obsessive desire to improve on the pitch, the effects of his presence in the stands are immediate. In the 1994 season the Barons set their attendance record, attracting 467,867 people to the Hoover Met and pushing Southern League spectators over 2.5 million. Even when away, each stadium records entries never seen before.
Jordan figurine with the Barons
On July 30, in his 354th plate appearance, Jordan hit his first home run. He does it in front of the home crowd, 13,279 people, in the match against the Carolina Mudcats. Opposing pitcher Kevin Rychel’s fastball is sent over the left field fence. Arriving at home base Michael points to the sky with a finger, the thought of his father, murdered a year earlier: “I’m sure he saw it from up there.” The ball of his first homerun it was recovered over the fence by two young fans, who returned it to Jordan in exchange for two autographed baseballs.
Two more home runs arrive, on August 8th and 30th. About a week before the latter, the MLB players association went on strike. A lockout that will last for 232 days, leading to the cancellation of the last six weeks of the regular season, the playoffs and the World Series. With this void, the Barons’ latest challenges become the most followed sporting event in America. Jordan’s last match in the black and white jersey takes place on 3 September. He finishes with 127 games played and 497 plate appearances.
Between September and November 1994, MJ played 35 more games with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League. Not satisfied with his performance, he will continue to train with the White Sox until March 2, 1995. The day he declared his baseball career over.
Report card time
Jordan on the field with the Scottsdale Scorpions
According to many analysts, Jordan’s experience in professional baseball led to quite modest results, and it is utopian to think that he could have reached the Major League.
Coach Terry Francona has an opposite opinion. “Don’t look at his batting average, Michael hadn’t played baseball since high school and by August he was already hitting balls out of the park. He had speed, power and hitting ability. But most importantly, he knew how to get into players’ heads and would find a way to beat opponents on the pitcher’s mound. Two more seasons and he would have been a roster in the White Sox, maybe even a starter.”
Steve Wulfthe journalist of Sports Illustrated author of the criticism of Jordan’s first steps on the diamond, he later changed his opinion. He also admitted to having written a second, more encouraging article, which was not published.
Where comets end up
1994 ended and, with it, Michael Jordan’s journey in baseball. On March 17, 1995, the now legendary fax arrived in the media containing only two words: “I’m back”. Jordan returns to the Bulls and the NBA, a few months of readjustment, and then returns to make basketball history.
The Birmingham Barons, who in any case in their history have had a roster future baseball icons, they never had a season like 1994 again. The number 45 jersey is still the best-selling ever. Francona became a successful manager, winning two World Series at the helm of the Boston Red Sox, in 2004 and 2007, thus breaking the almost century-old curse of Babe Ruth.
Comets cross the sky and force us to follow them with our eyes. To imagine where they will end up, and what we will find at the end of their parable. What Michael Jordan found in that year of baseball made it clear Phil Jackson. “I really believe that he has rediscovered himself, the joy of competition and basketball.”
From there comes the season of 72 victories, the second threepeat with the Bulls and the mythological last shot in game 6 against Utah in 1998. Moments written in the empyrean of sport. A champion who replicated himself, improving himself. And, if you believe in comets, you already know: everything started again in 1994.
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2023-12-31 16:25:17
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