Michael Jordan a Yankee?

Could Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter have been teammates?

It's possible.

It's so hard to believe that more than a quarter century has passed since Michael Jordan reached the height of his dominance. I remember vividly the ubiquitous "Be Like Mike" posters, and that nearly every male my age wore a pair of Air Jordans. Be like Mike! They would say.

The shoes didn't help. No third grader at Charles Wright Elementary School was ever able to dunk a basketball. To be fair, no one on any basketball court anywhere could be like Mike.

I also remember the shirts. That number 23 emblazoned across their backs. How many times I thought I could strike up a conversation with a fellow fan of Dan Mattingly, only to be disappointed.

What I did not know was that no one was more uncomfortable with this level of cult-status hero worship than Michael Jordan.

"I'm not a statue," said Jordan. "I'm a human being."

But an extraordinary human being: An All-Star. A Champion. An Olympic Gold Medalist. It was hard to see him as simply human. To err is human, but to Air like Jordan is Divine.

Shocking news would change how we saw a superstar. James R. Jordan, father of Michael Jordan, killed for his car at a rest stop in North Carolina. The perpetrators turned themselves in when they discovered the victim was. A harsh, harrowing, and heartbreaking reminder of how fragile our life on this Earth can be.

"I felt I was being engulfed in the success that I'd gathered at that time, and then my father passed." Said Jordan. "That was the last straw."

A human being indeed. I was only 11 years old when a larger than life basketball superhero announced that at the height of dominance, he would walk away from the game. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who how trouble understanding why. At a press conference, Jordan explained to the world his decision.


"When you lose the sense of motivation, and the sense of to prove something as a basketball player," he said. "It's time to move away from the game of basketball."

Sad and stunned, Jordan's Chicago Bulls teammates attend his retirement conference.

And then, baseball. Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf also owned the Chicago White Sox. Reinsdorf agreed to pay Jordan his Chicago Bulls salary while he played for the White Sox AA affliate Birmingham Barons.

"I thought he would give that up after one bus ride," said Reinsdorf. 

It's not hard to argue with that logic. It's a steep drop from flying first class and checking into the posh luxury hotels to the utterly unglamourous life that is a minor league baseball player. But that's not how Jordan saw it. After dropping a routine fly ball and striking out twice in his first game as a Baron, Jordan was ecstatic. 

"It takes the pressure off," he said. 

The rest is history. A .202 batting average, 104 strikeouts, and 11 errors in centerfield. And yet . . .

And yet this was a man who hadn't played organized baseball in over ten years. A man who hadn't played baseball since Jimmy Carter was president. Someone else hit .202 in the minor leagues right after high school. That someone else? Derek Jeter!

Could Jordan's career have taken a similar trajectory? Terry Francona--Jordan's manager in Birmingham--deemed it possible.

"You've got to get 1200 at bats before you can consider someone playing in the big leagues," said Francona. "If he would've been willing to give it a couple more years, he would've found a way to the big leagues: If you tell him no, he's going to find a way to make it be yes."

Could it have been yes? Against better competition in the Arizona Fall League, Jordan's batting average jumped 50 points. He stopped dropping fly balls and started making shoestring catches. In March of 1995, he was slated to gain a promotion to the White Sox AAA affiliate in Nashville.

But with the use of replacement players and baseball mired in its never-ending player strike, MJ traded in hardball for hardwood with a simple statement: "I'm Back!"

But could Jordan and Jeter have been teammates? Consider this: In 1996, The Yankees needed a new left fielder and signed Tim Raines from the Chicago White Sox. Had the strike been resolved, and Jordan completed a full season at AAA, he could have earned a spot with the White Sox in September, when the rosters expanded to 40 players.

It's well-known that George Steinbrenner always wanted a big star, and Jordan would have been the biggest of them all.

Could Jordan have excelled in baseball, as Terry Francona predicted? Consider this: Who has better reaction time and better bodily kinesthetic skills than Michael Jordan? With MJ's blessed combination of strength and speed, he could have easily morphed into a player akin to Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle. It certainly would have helped the Yankees, who went through a revolving door of left-fielders for the first half of Jeter's career.

Jordan would have fit right in playing alongside Posada, Martinez and Jeter.

Famed law professor and statistician John Donohue considered this possibility on the 20 year anniversary of Jordan's re-entry to basketball. A lawyer first and economist second, Donohue was measured in his off-the-cuff analysis.

"Someone asked me if I wanted to see him play on his first day back," recalled Donohue, "but the prices were exorbitant, so I went the second game."

And?

"He [Jordan] was good, but he wasn't very good. The Bulls didn't win that year, then they won three consecutive championships. It's safe to assume that if he doesn't take a year off to play baseball, he wins another two championship rings."

Good point. While one can say with the certainty of a full-court shot that MJ would have succeeded in baseball, his success probability in basketball is a slam dunk!

And yes, while Jordan could have succeeded in baseball, he was simply the best of his kind in basketball.  The buzzer beating jump shots. The reverse layups. The no-look passes. And the amazing acrobatic slam dunks. His combination of speed, strength, and snap judgement made him an artist on the baseball court--an artist we may never be fortunate enough to witness again.

More than just a math teacher.

March 14, 1995


The electronic buzzer sets of its doomsday ring at 8:45 AM, and that means another elementary school day is upon us. The doors open, and I walk through the doors along with 80 other students from grades 5 and 6 at Charles Wright Elementary School.

Well, most of us. Steve Haefs wants to get as many practice football throws in as possible. As we file in, he keep throwing the ball in hopes that someone will catch it. Once we get inside our classroom,  he throws again. This time, nobody catches it.

This bunker is actually an elementary school. We sure didn't win any architecture awards!

Our teacher, Mrs. Heffernan picks the ball up from the floor. Steve extends his right arm, expecting her to hand the ball back to him. Instead, Mrs. Heff frowns slightly. With a drop of the elbow and a snap of the wrist, she throws a perfect spiral into Steve's free hand.

Our jaws drop. We didn't expect to see that coming!

"Mrs. Heff, that was pretty good," says a surprised Steve.

She shrugs. "I grew up in a neighborhood full of boys."

We settle into our desks, and Mrs. Heffernon starts the math lesson of the day.

"In 1994," she says, "there were 112 reports of people bitten by rats in New York City.

We laugh.

"Also in 1994, there were 44 reports of people bitten by people in New York City."

We laugh again.

"On the day that you go to New York City--a city of 8 million people--what is the probability that you probability that you will bitten?"

She walks us through the steps: 156 bites. 365 days a year. That's 0.43 bites per day, 0.000000059 bites per person on a given day. Now for the final question: Explain that in scientific notation.

"5.9 x 10^-8!" Shouts a jubilant Anthony Sousa. He's right, as always. Anthony Sousa isn't just the fasted person to play touch football at Charles Wright--he's got a quick mind, too. Once again, he is first to the punch.

Mrs. Heffernon then poses a question to the entire class: Do we have anything to worry about?

Gotta love math with Mrs. Heffernan! Every 6th grader at Charles Wright Elementary School has been looking forward to the New York City trip with eager anticipation. With few exceptions, we have been awaiting this trip since 1st Grade. It is a rite of passage at this school.

Not everybody is happy, though. Urban legends have taken their toll on wary parents, a toll that passes its fee onto impressionable young minds. I remember very well when one of my older sister's friends expressed her fear of traveling to New York City.

"There's a place called Harlem," says the wary friend. "If you just look at somebody, you got shot."

You're on a bus," says my sister. "You only ride through the city on the bus. Then you go straight to the museum."

That was in first grade. I didn't have any fear then. Why would I? New York is where I went to visit Momma Nonna, my great grandmother. She was the sweetest person in the world to me.

Not exactly a bedroom community!

Ah, but New York City is 150 miles away from little Wethersfield, Connecticut. This isn't Fairfield County, Connecticut's little panhandle of bedroom communities for wealthy city commuters. Wethersfield is a first ring suburb of Hartford, which, ironically, has a much higher crime rate than New York City. In perhaps further irony, Anthony Sousa, grew up in Hartford's North End, a neighborhood so veritably unsafe that it makes parts of Harlem look like Paris.

But I digress.

Something happens in the afternoon. My memory is hazy as to what started it, but I must have erupted like a firecracker on the Fourth of July, because the next thing I knew, Mrs. Heffernan just stopped the lesson, right in front of 20 other students.

"Okay, Kevin," she says. "Out."

I stand up. I know I've done something wrong, and scared senseless as what will happen next. Mrs. Heff escorts me right out of the classroom, and instructs another teacher to keep on eye on things while we are out. We walk right past the principals office, right past the foyer, and right out of the school building itself and into the courtyard.

We stop. I fully expect Mrs. Heffernan to start yelling and screaming. She says nothing. I am speechless.

"You know, Kevin, even though I know that somewhere a factory is putting chemicals into this air, as soon as I walk outside these doors and take just a few breaths, I feel better."

She turns towards me.

"Wouldn't you agree?" She asks.

I nod.

"Are you ready to go back now?"

I nod again.

"Good," she says. And with that, my only major disciplinary infraction for the entire schoolyear is over. We go back to class. 20 students resume learning, and at 3 pm, the final doomsday buzzer crackles over the intercom, sending everyone home for the day.

I've certainly been blessed to have so many great and wonderful teachers in my life. Mrs. Heffernan is surely one of them.

Broken Chairs, Broken Dreams

Spring Training, 1995.

Ah, Spring Training! That wonderful time of year when regular players warm up and get loose, while veteran players compete with hungry rookies with a ferocious intensity to grasp at whatever roster spots are available.

This year, it's a little different. 55 men are wearing the white jerseys with navy blue pinstripes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  But can anyone truly call them the Yankees?

Four years and 40 pounds before joining the "Yankees."

"Some of these players, "I've never seen," said Yankees General Manager Gene Michael. "To give you an evaluation, I wouldn't do that."

The Major League Baseball Restoration Act is dead. It officially died on February 26, 1995. The Kansas City Royals were in striking distance of making the postseason for the first time in nearly decade, but the baseball strike struck out that possibility, and newly christened Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole has no interest in making any sort of compromise with Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, or anybody else for that matter. Not with House Speaker Gingrich threatening to shut down the U.S. Government.

Two out of three branches of the Federal Government have failed to end the one of the worst work stoppages in labor history. For a combination of baseball has-beens and never-will bees, the closed door on labor negotiations is an open window.

Randy Kutcher owns a .228 lifetime batting average and hasn't played a single major league game since 1990. To his credit, he insists he's not a replacement player.

"When this opportunity came up," said Kutcher, "I jumped at it."

At least Kutcher can still realistically talk athleticism. Matt Stark hasn't played professional baseball in five years. He has gained at least 50 pounds in the time since. After batting and fielding practice, Stark sits on a chair and answers questions from the press. The chair breaks.

Dramatization: Jason Jones sits on a chair assembled by non-union labor.

"Go easy," says Dave Pavlas. "We only got 60 of them,"

Dave Pavlas has pitched for many teams over the last four seasons, but calling him a journeyman is understatement. After pitching all of 14 games for the Chicago Cubs over the course of two seasons, Pavlas has spent the last two years pitching in Italy and Mexico. At least he can boast recent organized competitive baseball on his resume. Others are not so lucky, including former construction worker Tony Brown.

"I don't owe the union anything," says Brown, who last played AAA baseball in 1989. Whether he is referring the Major League Baseball Players Union--or whichever union construction job he ditched in order to make spring training--is unclear. But Brown makes it clear that he is certain about his athletic talent.

"Now its my opportunity to get on T.V." he says. "And be a star."

Technically, the Yankees do have one Major Leaguer in their midst, but he wears a suit and tie instead of a ballplayer's uniform. The Yankees are paying Steve Howe $772 a week for "administrative" work.

"This is a condition of my probation," says Howe, who is required to be employed as a result of pleading guilty to attempted cocaine possession in 1992. "Yeah, I could have gone out and flipped burgers at Denny's. The important thing is that I needed to be somewhere where I could do what I needed to do and train."

Steve Howe reluctantly watches spring training from the sidelines.

Gene Michael is shaking his head in disbelief. It wasn't supposed to be this way. In December, he engineered a major trade with the Chicago White Sox. In exchange for 1993 Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell, the Yankees surrendered Keith Heberling and Lyle Moutan. Heberling was 1-3 with a 5.66 ERA for the Yankees AA affiliate. Moutan played for the Columbus Clippers along with Derek Jeter last year. Since he wasn't Derek Jeter, he was clearly expendable.

In essence, Gene Michael turned lead into gold: Two minor-league dead-weights for a 20 game winner. The hard-throwing right-hander McDowell was supposed to join the crafty lefty Jimmy Key at the top of the rotation. The result would have been a lethal 1-2 sucker punch that would leave the competition gasping for air while the Yankees coasted to their first World Series in nearly 20 years.

The McDowell trade was a good deal, but it raised a serious question. The White Sox were in first place at the end of the 1994 season. Why would they let go of their best pitcher in exchange for minor league prospects?

The 1994 season ended abruptly, The Stark reality is that 1995 season may not start at all.


Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/21/sports/baseball-yankees-introduce-a-cast-of-strangers.html

http://articles.courant.com/1994-12-15/sports/9412150262_1_yankee-stadium-yankees-general-manager-service-time

http://articles.courant.com/1995-02-26/sports/9502260343_1_howe-s-career-steve-howe-manager-buck-showalter


http://m.spokesman.com/stories/1995/feb/26/yankees-put-howe-to-work-front-office-duties-will/