“Now batting for the White Sox, right fielder, No. 45, Michael Jordan!”
Can you hear Gene Honda’s voice echoing across the South Side, creating the same kind of iconic introduction that Ray Clay made for Jordan when he was playing for the Bulls?
We never got to find out if the greatest basketball player of all time was good enough to make the major leagues as a baseball player. After one season in the minor leagues, Jordan announced “I’m back” and returned to the NBA to win three more championships with the Bulls.
But everyone who was there when Jordan made the switch to baseball in 1994 has nothing but complimentary things to say about his work ethic and his drive to become as good a baseball player as he was a basketball player.
“We had great conversations, but it wasn’t even that,” former White Sox outfielder and current broadcaster Darrin Jackson told Our Chuck Garfien on the White Sox Talk Podcast. “It wasn’t standing out there talking to Michael about how to position (in the outfield) or do this. It was listening to him talk about how serious he was about playing the game of baseball and trying to be the best.
“I couldn’t believe the work he put in, the work ethic he had. He worked harder than anybody in camp. Of course, you’re probably going to have to if you haven’t played baseball in forever, but he wasn’t afraid to do it. He came out there with his hands ripped up from all the hitting. His feet were sore from all the running, the spikes. … It was impressive.”
Jordan was offered a direct path to the majors, former Oakland Athletics general manager Sandy Alderson recently revealed with Jordan once again the No. 1 discussion topic of the sports world thanks to ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary. But he turned it down, adamant about wanting to work his way through the minor leagues and earn a trip to the big leagues as more than just a gimmick to boost ticket sales.
But could he have done it?
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Jordan’s talent on the basketball court wasn’t a question. He was the best in the world. But he hadn’t played competitive baseball for years. Would the athleticism that made him basketball’s GOAT translate to the diamond?
“I told him, ‘I’ve got a better chance of dunking and hitting 3s than you’ve got of hitting a good curveball,’” said White Sox legend Bill Melton, who worked with Jordan on a daily basis before he went to spring training in 1994. “That’s how we started our session right there.”
“I think the challenge was leg strength,” said White Sox Hall of Famer Frank Thomas, who was at spring training with Jordan. “Basketball, you can’t sit there and pump leg weights like we do to get your bottom half as strong as your top half, because hitting has a lot to do with your legs. Michael had very thin legs meant for and built for jumping, and you could see right away that his lower-leg strength wasn’t the same as the rest of the guys. That was it.”
Jordan might not have arrived at spring training built for baseball. But even in his short amount of time, he impressed the big leaguers he was playing with.
“Can he even put the ball in play?” Jackson wondered. “And I was impressed because in just our intrasquad games, he’s making contact. He had a chop swing, he beat down on the ball a little bit, which was fine. But he made contact with major league pitching, and I was actually flabbergasted.
“I was like, ‘I can’t believe he can even put the bat on the ball against these guys.’ It’s not that easy.”
Jackson also remembered that Jordan picked up some of the intricacies of outfield play pretty quickly, such as when to throw to which base and stuff like that. Jackson was most impressed by Jordan’s speed — “he could fly” — which was the attribute Jordan turned into his highest level of baseball success, stealing 30 bases playing minor league baseball with the Birmingham Barons that season.
Given Jordan’s famous drive and competitive nature, it’s not difficult to envision him improving as a player if his career had gone on.
“He worked hard. He cared,” Thomas said. “And for a while after spring training, he kept on, and we were like, ‘Wait a minute, he’s serious about this.’ The key for him, he was getting better. Every day.”
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Of course, there were some things that even the great Michael Jordan couldn’t control. Like the fact that he wasn’t getting any younger. Jordan started his minor league career at 31 years old, with no baseball experience to speak of in the years prior. Most players spend years developing in the minors before reaching the big leagues, meaning Jordan conceivably could have improved like any other player — but he might have been a major league rookie at 34.
“I don’t think (he could have reached the majors) because of his age,” former White Sox shortstop and manager Ozzie Guillen said. “His age and his size, that’s why I think it would have been harder for him. It’s not easy to play your career in one sport and then to say, ‘I want to do this,’ that will happen.
“Plus the expectations would have been higher. So many things against him, I don’t think he would have made it. I think the tools were there, but I don’t think the time was there. He didn’t have enough time to make himself a better player.”
Thomas drew a comparison to a modern athlete trying to make the transition to baseball.
“I think he could have made it. I don’t know if he would’ve stayed,” he said. “I think his work ethic was second to none. But to sit out and not play baseball that long and try to catch up on the fly — you see it now with Tim Tebow, who’s making giant strides, who played a lot of baseball in high school — it takes time.”
And so maybe it wouldn’t have been a success story. Perhaps Jordan’s career would have petered out in the minor leagues, or maybe he would have reached the majors, only to fail to stick.
Of course, we’ll never know. But even those who knew what it took to play at baseball’s highest level saw something special in their counterpart from another sporting realm.
“At 31, it’s really hard. To be 31 and try to go out and do that, it was unheard of,” Thomas said. “But if anyone could do it, it was Michael Jordan.”
For more behind-the-scenes tales from Michael Jordan's baseball career, listen to this recent edition of the White Sox Talk Podcast.
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