Jordan At The Bat

After I wrote the "Today In Baseball History" from my last post, I got to thinking about Michael Jordan's career as a minor league baseball player. If you're not sure how it went, maybe his introductionary sentence on Wikipedia may help you: "Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is a retired American professional basketball player and active businessman." What, no baseball?

Laugh if you want, but I should remind you that one reason why he wanted to start playing baseball was because his murdered father always envisioned his son as a MLB player. There, do you feel a little worse about the smirks? Good.

On October 6, 1993, Jordan unexpectedly announced his NBA retirement, telling the media he had a loss of desire to play the game. More unexpected was when he told the world of his intention to play major league baseball a few months later. Being one of the most famous Chicagoans in history (by way of North Carolina) and a natural athlete, most people accepted that he inexplicably started his baseball career in AA for the White Sox organization.

By all accounts, his heart was in the right place. He respected his teammates and coaches, willing to learn like a developing younger player (or in Mike's case, a 30 year old developing player) should. A boatload of reports indicate that he was the first at batting practice, doing the drills and acting as if he actually felt he was on the same level of those peons in AA who worked their whole lives to get there and will most likely never see a major league game. At least they can go to the grave saying they played with Air Jordan, right?

Looking at his numbers, they're really not as bad as you may think - at the very least better than how the average NBA star would perform. In 436 at bats he hit a gentleman's .202 with a .285 OBP, 3 home runs, 51 RBI's and 51 walks, not to mention a respectable 63% SB% (30 for 48). Sure, he made 11 errors in the outfield, but an acceptable 6 assists which is, after all, only 1 less than Shane Victorino's Gold Glove season last year.

His agent and coaches say that the strike of 1994 left a bad taste in Jordan's mouth, prompting him to go back into basketball. Whether it was the inevitably that he could comfortably continue being the greatest basketball player in history or, best case scenario, stick it out in AA and AAA for a few years and become the prestigious 5th outfielder for the White Sox is anyone's guess.

I suppose there's a good fairy tale in all of this. Always dream big and you may make it half way, which is better than not shooting high at all? Eh, I'm a glass half empty kind of person. The lesson learned should be a memo to professional athletes: Don't quit your day job. It's much more likely you'll end up like The Rock doing mediocre movies rather than Deion Sanders who hit .533 in the 1992 World Series.

Since a "Today in baseball history" segment spawned this, it only makes sense I conclude today's post with a...


Today in baseball history: March 6th

1940: Future Hall of Famer Willie Stargell is born
"Throwing a knuckleball for a strike is like throwing a butterfly with hiccups across the street into your neighbor's mailbox." - Willie Stargell

1973: Larry Hisle of the Minnesota Twins becomes the first designated hitter in major league history during an exhibition game  against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Hisle hit two home runs and seven RBIs that game to the chagrin of pitchers everywhere.

2005: Suzyn Waldman becomes the first woman to be a full-time color commentator in major league history.
People call her a reactionary "homer" but I think this audio clip will prove otherwise.