But starting at 31, without more than batting cage swings, he was just so far behind the players he was competing against.įrom another Kindred column in TSN, shortly after Jordan returned to the Bulls. And if that was his only goal, there’s no doubt he would have put in the work necessary. He was ticketed for Triple-A Nashville for the 1995 season. Maybe he would have eventually made the big leagues. We made him want to play basketball again.” I truly believe that he rediscovered himself, his joy for competition. Baseball wasn't the only thing he picked up. “But there's something else that people miss about that season.
"I do think with another 1,000 at-bats, he would've made it,” Francona said, as quoted in this ESPN article. In the year of 1992, Olympic Games in Barcelona, Jordan was the part of USA Basketball team. He was defeated in the 1st round and 3rd round in 1984. The what-if of baseball would never be answered. Michael Jordan was drafted by the Chicago Bulls. He departed when the official spring training games with replacement players were set to begin, as neither Jordan nor the White Sox had any intention of getting him involved with that ugly element of the game. It’s a good building block for next year.”Įven though the MLB strike continued into the 1995 season, minor league players were not affected, so Jordan showed up at spring training. He said, as quoted in TSN, “He just needs to play. Terry Francona, who went on to a fair bit (OK, a TON) of success as a MLB manager, was his manager in Birmingham and in the AFL. 317 in his first 41 at-bats and finishing with a. Jordan played in the Arizona Fall League that year, batting. He has a total of 57 Badges in which 18 of them are Hall of Fame Level. Here’s something you might have forgotten: Jordan didn’t quit on his baseball dream immediately after the 1994 season, even though that major-league season ended in August with the players strike. On NBA 2K22, this All-Time Version of Michael Jordan has an Overall 2K Rating of 99 with a Build of an All-Around 2-Way. He struggled at times, but by all reports seemed to get better as the season progressed. Jordan played right field for the Barons. Know what the average MLB strikeout percentage was in 2019? Exactly 23.0 percent. The league average in the Southern League that year was 16.4 percent, pretty significantly below Jordan’s rate. Jordan struck out 114 times in 497 plate appearances. 265 in his first month with Birmingham).įound this gem of a quote from Joe Torre, on Michael Jordan's baseball hopes, in The Sporting News archives. Jordan did hit all three of his homers in the second half of the Barons’ season, even though his average took a bit of a tumble after a decent start (he hit. Jacksonville, then a Seattle affiliate, led the league with 131, and every other team other than the Barons hit at least 63. They popped 40 as a team, last in the Double-A Southern League. Here’s a bit of context: Yes, he only hit three home runs, but nobody really hit homers for the Barons that year. The 30 stolen bases are nice, but the 18 times he was caught stealing negated that value. None of those regular-season numbers are particularly good, as you can see.
“I don’t think I’ve proven I can make the team,” Jordan told writers that spring, as reported in TSN’s Chicago White Sox team notes. MORE: Photos from Michael Jordan's baseball career In typical Jordan fashion, though, he did have this unforgettable spring training moment on April 7, when he went 2-for-5 in the Windy City Classic exhibition game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. No amount of swings in the cages - against a pitching machine or batting-practice pitcher - could have possibly prepared him for live, major league caliber pitchers. Jordan started slowly in spring training games, which was to be expected. “So I said, ‘Let’s go to Comiskey, and you get in there against a batting practice pitcher. “Michael was always talking about himself as a baseball hitter,” Krause said. Whenever Jordan went off on one of his I-can-do-anything speeches - Jerry Reinsdorf says that Jordan once bowled two strikes by throwing the ball backward between his legs - Krause would be there to challenge Jordan’s claims.
Krause built the Bulls into a three-time NBA champion after a decade as a baseball executive. All of this hot stove talk reminded Jerry Krause of a story.
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