THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 11, 1995 TAG: 9503110261
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Michael Jordan is coming back.
And thousands of us will return to watching basketball.
Jordan is to basketball what Babe Ruth was to baseball.
He left the game - and us - a year and a half ago to try baseball, aiming for the major leagues, Ruth's arena.
Last year he batted .202 with Birmingham and was looking to land with Nashville's Triple-A team, but the baseball strike put the major leagues in limbo.
In a statement released Friday by his agent, Jordan said that baseball's continuing labor dispute has ``made it extremely difficult to continue my development at a rate that meets my standard.''
So he is ready to return to the realm where he excelled.
Rumors flew when he practiced two days this week with the Chicago Bulls, the team he led to three straight championships.
``It's a reality, but it's still not a reality,'' Bulls Coach Phil Jackson said. ``So we're not pinning any hopes and we're not trying to throw up a balloon or a kite that's not ready to fly.''
What a wondrous summation!
Could anything be more amorphous than ``a reality not a reality with a balloon or a kite not ready to fly?'' What's occurring is that in the next two weeks Jordan will try to regain his shooting touch so we can marvel anew at his arabesques around the basket.
His return will reanimate even those cool to basketball. With his grace, improbable exploits as he floats midair, his astute comments, he gives the game meaning even for the most obtuse of us.
He elucidates!
Before Jordan departed, I watched the Bulls every chance and kept tabs on their rivals. I spent more time with him than anything else on TV. Since he left, I have not seen, all told, an hour of professional basketball.
The game, without him, is dross.
He left it because, having done everything in sight in basketball, he dared challenge baseball - which let him down, along with a horde of fans, with the strike.
Have his moves rusted so he can no longer compete with the new, young giants who have honed their skills in his absence?
A fourth championship at 32 would be even sweeter now than it would have been back then in an unbroken skein. After scintillating Jordan had led the Bulls to a third crown, New York Knicks Coach Pat Riley was asked what players would dominate the 1990s.
Riley couldn't bring himself to mention air-borne Jordan even though the brawling Knicks had just collapsed at his feet.
Well, we are halfway into the '90s. What a draw it will be when the Bulls, with Jordan, take on the Knicks as impassive Riley broods on the bench.
Coach Jackson remarked that whenever Jordan was on the court, even in recent practices, he had a way of elevating the team. And, it might be added, the league. by CNB