In 1993, Michael Jordan shocked the world when he left the NBA at the peak of his career to pursue baseball, after winning three titles in a row. Years later, in 2007, during an interview with GQ, Jordan touched upon his brief stint with baseball and how his father James Jordan wanted him to become a dual-sport athlete. His father’s aspirations dated way back to when MJ started his college basketball journey with the North Carolina Tar Heels in 1981.
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“He’d [James Jordan] been trying ever since college. I started with baseball, and I got away from it when I went to North Carolina,” MJ revealed in the GQ interview.
His father’s belief was further cemented when a bunch of top-rated athletes started to pursue multiple sports in college. In 1982, Bo Jackson had bypassed a contract from baseball powerhouse New York Yankees. Instead, he joined Auburn University on a football scholarship. Jackson would eventually become the only athlete to be nominated an All-Star in two major American sports leagues.
Like Jackson, Deion Sanders got drafted into the MLB by the Kansas City Royals but went to Florida State University instead. During his college days, he was a triple-sport star, competing in track, baseball, and football. Both of these athletes will also later pursue baseball professionally.
This served as fuel for James Jordan’s desire to see his son become a multi-sports phenom.
“He[James Jordan] always said, when he saw the Bo Jacksons and the Deion Sanders playing two sports, “Hey, you could have done the same thing. At least try it,” MJ told GQ.
Just after his father’s death in ’93, a grief-stricken MJ pursued a baseball career perhaps as a tribute to his late father’s desires. The media narrative has painted his basketball stint as a resounding failure. However, MJ didn’t think so. He believed he could have done something significant if he had more time.
“The media was looking at stats. I started to improve in the second half of that season. And I would have never stopped if it wasn’t for the [1994 baseball] strike, which drove me away,” added MJ.
Despite the public perception of MJ’s baseball career being a whimsical failure, he learned something invaluable. He learned “camaraderie” from his passionate teammates which helped “rejuvenate” him as an athlete. He’d later return to the NBA and explode for three more championships. But his baseball career became a point of curiosity among many.
Michael Jordan’s brief baseball stint
Before he could turn to Major League Baseball, Jordan had to prove his worth as a minor league player. That is why he opted to play for the Birmingham Barons, which is the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. For the Barons, Jordan went on to play 127 games during his lone season in 1994.
He managed 46 runs in those games registering 88 hits with a batting average of 0.202. These averages may not be impressive but he did manage 3 home runs in the course of the season. Whilst this doesn’t indicate the chances of an illustrious baseball career, this was just his first year and the adjustments from a game like basketball to baseball is a huge one.
Considering that he played against seasoned players, these numbers were indeed impressive in a way. But more than the stats, those who were around him on the team were thoroughly impressed with his commitment. Terry Francona, who managed him during his Barons days, once claimed that MJ “respected the game” and managed everything professionally. He’d take every practice seriously and wanted to improve each day, carefully heeding the advice of his baseball mentors. This was MJ’s typical attitude of giving his all no matter what craft he pursued.
