EVEN RETIREMENT ISN'T easy. No Phone, No Boss, No Address, No Bedtime. It isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Michael Jordan thought it was going to be easier than it was. Two winters ago, getting away from it all looked very appealing. He'd be in the thick of a work night, people would be saying anything they wanted to him, he'd try to move this way or that way and couldn't, he'd look to his teammates for help and he couldn't even see them on account of all the attention he was getting, the atmosphere would be bordering on chaos.Then the interview session would finally end.
And he'd find himself thinking to himself, Man, I'm soon outta here.
Some people retire to Laughlin, Nevada, to learn how to play keno. Jordan retired to Birmingham, Alabama, to learn how to hit a breaking ball. Different pursuits, same concept. What you're doing you're doing out of choice, not because you have to. For Jordan, playing minor league baseball was the equivalent of booking a tour to see the fall colors in New England. This was his retirement and he would spend it as he darn well pleased.
But it's hard to be the retiring type when the way you performed at your previous job happened to be the best it was ever done.
People will argue about this. Some people will say Wilt Chamberlain had better numbers and Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double one entire season and Magic Johnson won more rings, but the fact of the matter is that Michael Jordan retired with the highest scoring average in history and three straight championships by the age of 30. He averaged 32.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.9 assists for his career.
He could do anything in basketball.
Except retire.
He'll have to one day of course. Baseball proved he is human. The rules apply to him too. One day he'll need bifocals. One day he'll have to turn over his job to a rookie from Temple.
But in his prime he doesn't have to, and that's no doubt been the nagging part of Michael Jordan's retirement. He walked away at the top of his game. Slowly but surely that's going to hound at you and eat away at you and if you're not as stubborn as, say, Jim Brown, you're eventually going to give in and . . . un-retire.
If you wait too long, like a Bjorn Borg or a Mark Spitz, or if you retire and un-retire too many times, like a Sugar Ray Leonard, the results can be disappointing. But even if the sequel doesn't quite measure up to the original, and even if the media circus never goes away, you still don't have to go through life wondering what if.
It's the price of genius.
Probably the greatest un-retirement story in sports history also happened in Chicago half-a-century ago when Bronko Nagurski suited up for the Chicago Bears in a 1943 NFC championship game against the Chicago Browns. Nagurski had retired well before his time in 1938 - at the age of 29 - when he and the Bears couldn't come to terms on his contract. The meanest fullback in history returned to his hometown of International Falls, Minn., and opened a gas station until the Bears, short on players and worried about losing to the crosstown Browns, called him in 1943 and talked him out of retirement.
In deference to his age they told Nagurski they just wanted him to play tackle. At 35, they thought he was too old to run the ball. But when they found themselves trailing the Browns going into the fourth quarter, they moved Nagurski to offense and with 70,000 people in Comiskey Park on their feet he carried the ball four straight times - once for each year he'd been gone - until he scored a touchdown. On the Bears' next series his runs set up the Sid Luckman touchdown that won the game.
Jordan may not trump that day, but he could match it if he takes the Bulls to another NBA championship.
If he proves this week's rumors true and does indeed return to the NBA in the near future he'll be taking a risk, no question. It's a different league than it was 18 months ago. Scoring is down, Shaquille O'Neal is getting better, and the Bulls are in disarray. Michael Jordan may never play on another championship team.
But you know that that's precisely what he's missed in retirement. The challenge of it all. If the NBA were the WWF and included guarantees the appeal wouldn't be there. But the NBA isn't the WWF and there are no guarantees. Not for anyone. It's The Quest that's been lacking for Michael Jordan. Retirement might look easy. But you can only swing at so many pitches, and after that, what is there?