Michael Jordan's Comeback: From Diamond to Hardwood

On March eighteenth, nineteen ninety five, Michael Jordan called a press conference after being retired for seventeen months from basketball and attempting a professional baseball career. He had a press release that said, to all NBA and Bulls fans, I'm back. Let's dive in to everything surrounding Michael Jordan's short retirement and come back into the NBA today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. In nineteen ninety three, Michael Jordan's father passed away, who was a driving influence in his life and really helped him become the man in the great basketball player. He was. The drive he had came from his dad, and four months after he passed away, Michael lost the love of basketball and retired. After winning three straight NBA titles with the Bulls and only being thirty years old, he walked away after nine seasons. Now there's controversy that even says that maybe he actually walked away because he had a gambling issue. We're not going to dive into that because it's speculation and maybe won't do that. On another episode, because that deserves a whole breakdown itself. But he really had a dream to be a two sport athlete, to be a baseball player just like his dad always won. But just being in the major leagues wasn't all he won it. He actually had the chance to join a major league team right away. The next season. The Oakland Athletics owner offered him a guaranteed roster spot on their opening day roster without even seeing Michael play. The reason for this was Jordan would sell tickets whether he played or not, just being on the team would sell tickets in Oakland. Was desperate, but he was also an athletic freak who could really do great things. But despite this offer, Jordan chose another route. The owner of the Bulls also owned the Chicago White Sox, and he called over to his manager and told him that Michael Jordan would be calling him. And he did, and he took a few hitting lessons there, and he loved it, and he loved it and he had a drive for it, and he signed a minor league contract with them to join a double A team. Interestingly enough, future World Series champion manager Terry Francona, who led both the Boston Red Sox and the Guardians to World Series titles. Was his manager, and what Francona said about Michael was he was very raw, but the drive that he had in the basketball court translated onto the baseball diamond. He was fine in the field, as it was more athletic ability, but hitting was the challenging part. He didn't know the difference between a two seam fastball or a four seam fastball, and he would learning more and more every day. Everyone likes to point out that he had a terrible batting average when he was in DOUBLEA, with a two to zero to two batting average, which was pretty bad, but he was in a premier prospects league that winter where he hit over two seventy and Francona says that he would have definitely made a major league roster if he continued, but it wasn't in the cards, not because he didn't want to keep going. What actually happened was Major League Baseball went on strike, so he had to decide whether to wait and continue to train to maybe make the major leagues and maybe even play that year because they didn't know how long the strike would last, or go back to basketball and he chose to go back to basket In that seventeen months, the Bulls team had changed quite a bit. Now Scottie Pippen was still there, his running mate threw all of his championships. He actually finished third that whole year that Michael was gone from the NBA in MVP voting. But the following year the team was struggling as they didn't have a go to scorer as Pippen was a great facilitator, a great defender and a good shooter, but not that much of a scorer. And then came Michael Jordan and they got right back on track. Now, even though Michael came back that year, was still some growing pains. He joined mid season with only a few months left in the season with the Bulls, where they lost to Shaquille O'Neal and or they Know Magic in the second round of the playoffs. But the following year they went on another three peat, finishing out his six World championships. So it wasn't all that he did terrible in baseball. He was getting better. I could have made it in baseball if he really wanted to, But with a strike going on, he wanted to do something, and something he loved was basketball, and he went back to what he was the greatest step and we're all glad he did, unless you were a fan of any other basketball team for those next three years having to watch the Bulls win again and again and again. Thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you'd like this, please please please let us know on our social media's reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, christ wherever you like to socialize, we're there and we'd love to hear from you. Love to hear that you're enjoying the show, and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.