In the dim lights of the minor leagues, Michael Jordan had been able to practice his new trade in relative peace.
All the hoopla surrounding the start of his baseball career had dwindled to the occasional headline, like the report that had him on the verge of returning to the NBA, or his criticisms of Dream Team II and his former Chicago Bulls teammates, or his first home run for the Birmingham Barons.Most of the time, Jordan was just another Double-A outfielder - and not a very good one, at that - trying to make it to the big leagues. No longer was every at-bat, every pitch, scrutinized and analyzed and criticized.
Until the strike.
And suddenly, Jordan is the biggest star still playing baseball.
"Everybody's coming," Jordan said, noticing the growing group of reporters and photographers at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in the days leading up to the walkout by major leaguers. "The strike must be up."
Indeed, it is. And once again, the eyes of the baseball world shift back to Jordan, who had taken a back seat to Matt Williams' assault on the single-season home run record and Greg Maddux's quest for a third straight Cy Young award.
"We're trying to do our thing and they've got to do their thing," Jordan said of the major leaguers. "We're going to continue to play and not worry about what they're doing.
"The only thing I don't like is so many people are going to flutter down here now and start bothering me again."
For those who lost track of the Jordan Watch, he entered the weekend still struggling to get his batting average above .200, though he finally showed a burst of power with two homers in three days.
Defensively, he recently was shifted to left field because his arm is not strong enough for right.
On the base paths, he has demonstrated some speed but plenty of ignorance, getting thrown out trying to steal almost 40 percent of the time.