“Is it me?” piped a random voice in a crowded room recently, “or is anyone else already sick and tired of hearing about Jordan’s comeback?”
It was a sympathetic crowd. Lucky for him. And the vote was unanimous as those present–albeit cynical, apathetic and typically whiny media cronies–chimed in with far stronger sentiments.
Not just sick, tired and generally annoyed, the chorus responded, but violently bored by a story that only becomes an actual story on Oct. 30, when Michael Jordan plays his first game for the Washington Wizards. This will be a story only in occasional “big games” after that, such as the first time he lights up the Bulls, the first time he hugs Phil Jackson and the first time he hangs a 50 on Golden State while limping and feverish.
Is this really the biggest sports story going, or can we just not help ourselves? And, more importantly, will we all have the good sense to recognize when it just starts being the NBA again?
Wasn’t it just, oh, I don’t know, days ago that we all pretty much universally determined that sports and all its sundry participants finally had found their rightful place in the big picture of, you know, life? Wasn’t that our cue to dump overkill unless we’re talking about anything other than the pursuit of national security and the painful demise of Osama bin Laden, and just get a grip, for crying out loud?
Wouldn’t even Jordan himself be just a bit embarrassed to have headline type of the size previously dedicated to the aforementioned Only Story That Counts sprayed across the front page of a newspaper in whose city he used to call his temporary residence?
Of course, that concept is cockeyed as well. Here in Chicago, where we have little else going for us other than the fact we’re a major metropolitan city of world renown with infinite other interests and pleasures, we are somehow supposed to be absolutely devastated by Jordan returning in a uniform other than that of the Bulls.
This assumes a couple of things–that six world championships is an absolute outrage and dreadful injustice for one decade, and that Jordan was ever really ours to begin with.
Jordan belonged to the NBA and anyone else in the world that cared to claim him far more than he ever belonged to Chicago, and he is North Carolina’s above and beyond that. If it doesn’t pain him to put on another uniform, why should it pain us?
Jordan allowed his competitiveness and obsessive need for the last word drive him out of Chicago as much as he allowed Jerry Reinsdorf–the man who paid him $60 million the last two years of his career–and Jerry Krause–the man to whom he never paid any attention anyway–do it. And hard as Jordan tries, the Bulls always will have his best years.
How Jordan proceeds from here, both on and off the court, will be interesting to watch. Toward the end of both previous careers, he was worn down to the point of incoherence in talking about his game, his intentions and anything else the 500 reporters following him around each night could think to ask.
And now he has the added pressure of applying a national Band-Aid to our wounds, pressure even the greatest basketball player of all time can’t manage unless he plans to don combat gear and roam the sand hills of Afghanistan on his off-time.
Jordan has told us he is moved by challenges, by people telling him he can’t do things, and throughout his career he has thrived on this pursuit, even creating these situations for the sheer joy of conquering them.
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But weren’t there any other challenges to erect and doubts to topple? Maybe at least try to build a winning team from behind a desk? Or actually drive a car pool?
OK, so he obviously has settled on playing, and battling the pain in knees that have to be worn down to the nub by now, not to mention the discomfort of having occasionally to pass out of zone defenses, are tremendous challenges indeed.
All the more power to him and his licensing rights. Good luck to him in his new uniform. Here’s hoping we can watch with the same awe at the splendor of his gifts. Let it all spew forth.
May we simply document it with appropriate discipline and perspective.
Because one more man-on-the-street interview about whether his return is welcome, feasible or beneficial for world peace, and I’m hurling myself into oncoming traffic.