THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 16, 1995 TAG: 9505160294
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
A considerable body of fans has an interest in basketball that begins and ends with Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls.
These are unsettling times for us as well as for Jordan.
After leading the Bulls to three championships and proving he is the best this side of the sun, he turned to baseball. His father's death left him restless, with a sense of time flying and things untried.
Jersey 23 was hoisted into the rafters and Jordan began playing for the Birmingham Barons.
With major league baseball deadlocked in a strike, he returned to basketball wearing Jersey 45 just before the start of the playoffs now under way. We who had deserted basketball for 17 months came back with him, worried his skills had eroded. Each time he resumed his old grace, as when he scored 55 points against New York, newspapers trumpeted: JORDAN'S BACK!
Not even the prodigal son had such an ongoing homecoming.
Yet his brilliance has been sporadic. Charlotte and now Orlando have pressured the aging Bulls.
One youngster was moved to say that 45 lacked the explosiveness of 23. Jordan wore Jersey 23 the next game. Orlando coach Brian Hill, noticing the switch midgame, exclaimed: ``Oh, no, it's 23!''
Thus do men fear signs and portents and reckon what they mean.
Jordan was reaching to early exploits, trying to retrieve strength of yore as warrior heroes, a Beowulf, indulged in vaunting before a battle, as much to arouse themselves as daunt the foe.
Much of the way Jordan's moves have been herky jerky, missing their customary flow. He scrambles, a look of bewilderment on his face at finding he is merely mortal.
And it has rattled us. Beset by cars throwing rods, Virginia Power turning off power, rain through the roof, furnaces backfiring, a dog running away, a cat up a tree, all the woes that flesh is heir to, we have found release in Jordan soaring, effortless, above it all.
That's childish? Yes, we often are. Women are born grown up, they have so much more to bear. Men can be as unmindful as dogs. Male dogs. So when Jordan is grounded, so are we.
Orlando's victory in the first game left me with a woeful sense of time misspent. During the second game, one eye on TV, I made vegetable soup, an essentially mindless peeling, slicing, and dumping of 13 kinds into a bubbling pot. I was resolved not to end the night in defeat with nothing done.
With little time left on the clock and the Bulls well ahead, I ran to the store for a can of tomatoes.
And returning, was dumbfounded to find on the TV screen Orlando players celebrating, exchanging high fives. Disgusted, on the point of hurling the soup out the back door to the raccoons, I realized the victory scene was from game one.
Orlando and Chicago play tonight, tied 2-2. I shall be watching, peeling potatoes, pulling for Jordan. ILLUSTRATION: Michael Jordan is back in the NBA playoffs - and whether he
wears jersey No. 45 or 23, he brings a lot of pro basketball fans
back with him.
by CNB