Michael Jordan's time in the Minors

In the fall of 1993, the sports world stood still. Michael Jordan, the undisputed king of basketball, fresh off his third consecutive NBA championship with the Chicago Bulls, announced his retirement. At the zenith of his powers, he was stepping away from the game he had defined. His reason was as shocking as it was profound: a lost desire to play and a promise to his late father, who had always envisioned his son as a Major League Baseball player.

This wasn't a quiet retirement; it was the beginning of one of the most scrutinized and fascinating chapters in sports history. Jordan traded his iconic No. 23 jersey for a baseball glove and bat, signing a Minor League Baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox on February 7, 1994.

"I want to go and play baseball. It's something that I've always wanted to do, and my father had always wanted me to do. So I'm just living his dream right now."

- Michael Jordan

After a brief stint in Spring Training, Jordan was assigned to the Birmingham Barons, the Double-A affiliate of the White Sox. Suddenly, the biggest star on the planet was riding buses through the Southern League. For the 1994 season with the Barons, Jordan played in 127 games, hitting .202 with three homers, 51 RBIs and 30 steals.

• Wore No. 45 for the Barons, the number he wore for his Laney (NC) High School baseball team.
• Assigned to the Barons roster March 31, 1994, setting of a frenzy of interest never before seen in minor league history.
• Jordan joined the Barons April 8 after playing in the Windy City Classic exhibition game April 7 for the White Sox against the Cubs, where he was 2-5 with 2 RBI ... started in right field in 1st official pro game for the Barons against Chattanooga ... flew out in first at-bat vs. John Courtright and went 0-3 in front of 10,359 fans and 130 members of the national and international media.
• Collected first hit (8th at-bat) off Joe Ganote of Knoxville, a single in the 3rd inning April 10 at the Hoover Met (now known as Regions Park) ... the 2-hit day started a 13-game hit streak from April 10-26 (.378, 17-45).
• Drove in 1st run, a bases loaded single which scored Steve Sax, and stole 1st base April 11 vs. Knoxville.
• The JordanCruiser made its debut April 14 as the bus took the Barons to Chattanooga for the first road trip of the season ... contrary to popular belief, Jordan did NOT buy the bus, but his likeness did.
• Drove in first of seven game-winning runs on the season April 28 at Huntsville with a 7th-inning double ... it broke a 4-4 tie and gave the Barons a 9-4 win.
• Ended one of the wildest finishes in club history on July 6 ... Barons were no-hit by Huntsville's Steve Wojciechowski through 8 innings ... Barons rallied in the 9th and pulled within 5-3 with the bases loaded and 2 out ... Jordan hit a grounder to third, which was thrown away into right field, clearing the bases for a 6-5 win.

In baseball, everyone starts at zero.

Michael Jordan stepped into the box for his third professional game on April 10, 1994. He had three NBA MVPs and three championship rings to his name, but he also had a .000 average.

Nowadays, sports fans look upon Michael Jordan's foray into baseball as a whim, and when they look up his numbers and see that he batted .202, they conclude that his baseball career was a bust. They could not be more wrong.

In February 1994, four months after the first of his three retirements from the NBA, Michael Jordan signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox. Jordan had last played baseball as a high school senior in 1981. His father, James, who was murdered the previous summer, had always wanted Jordan to be a baseball player. "You tell me I can't do something," Jordan said, "and I'm going to do it."

I still remember many key moments from Michael Jordan’s storied Chicago Bulls basketball career, even though I sometimes have trouble remembering what I had for lunch on Thursday.

When Jordan scored 63 in a playoff loss to the Celtics, I was at school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. When the Bulls won their first title over the Lakers, I was with my two brothers and a number of friends at my place in Chicago, ready to celebrate. One of us still has the empty bottle of champagne from that night. Read more

The Myth: Michael Jordan's stint with the Birmingham Barons was an embarrassment, well-meaning but so ill-conceived that it sent him back to the NBA after a single humiliating season.

The context: On Oct. 6, 1993, Michael Jordan did the unthinkable. Still mourning the tragic murder of his father that August, the greatest basketball player of all-time announced that he'd be stepping away from the sport, right in the middle of his prime, after winning a third straight NBA championship. He no longer had a “sense of motivation," he said, "the sense to prove something as a basketball player.” Read more