MORE AIR GOES OUT OF BASEBALL

By Steve Wulf

QUOTH POE, "NEVERMORE."

Before Michael Jordan issued a statement announcing that he was giving up what used to be the national pastime, before President Clinton lightened a Friday press conference by claiming that the new shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls would be the 6,100,001st new job he had created, before Chicagoans began climbing atop one another's big shoulders to tear the No. 23 jersey down from the rafters of the United Center, it was a Chicago White Sox minor- league outfielder named Charles Poe who confirmed the rumor. When Jordan walked out of the White Sox camp in Sarasota, Florida, on March 2, he told Poe and a few of his minor-league buddies that he was leaving for good. "We really thought he was playing around," Poe told the Chicago Sun-Times. "But then he talked, and we saw it in his eyes. I'll tell you, it hurt."

And so the grand experiment--or long exile, depending on whom you talk to--is over. Err Jordan seemed to be turning back into Air Jordan last week, buoying basketball fans and sinking the two or three baseball fans who are actually left. Following three days of workouts with the Chicago Bulls, Jordan announced he was quitting the White Sox because the labor dispute in major league baseball has "made it increasingly difficult to continue my development at a rate that meets my standards." While he stopped short of saying he would return to the decidedly mediocre Bulls in time to lead them through the playoffs, all systems appeared to be go. And nobody seemed more delighted than basketball commissioner David Stern, who told Mike Lupica of Newsday, "My position on Michael is this: Tell him we've left a light on for him, and to come on in. We're Motel 6."

This is the same Stern who supposedly orchestrated the retirement of Jordan on Oct. 6, 1993, because of his heavy gambling debts. The given reasons at the time were that Michael was fresh out of challenges, having won his third straight N.B.A. title, and that he wanted to get his family away from the limelight after the murder of his father. But during the press conference that day at the Berto Center, the Bulls' training facility in Deerfield, Illinois, Jordan surmised that he might return "if the urge comes back, if the Bulls will have me and David Stern lets me back in the league." Sometimes a Freudian slip is just a Freudian slip, but why would the commissioner have a say as to when Jordan could come back if he didn't have a say in his retirement?

Michael dropped another bomb a few months later when he announced that he would like to be a major league baseball player. Jerry Reinsdorf, who owns the White Sox as well as the Bulls, was more than happy to help Jordan fulfill his dream, although the cynics among us kept harping on the possible ulterior motives. Jordan's pathetic swings in spring training did little to convince anyone of his sincerity. "It's called bat speed," said a scout, "and he doesn't have it."

But a funny thing happened. Jordan stayed with the game well beyond the novelty stage. He went down to play for the Birmingham (Alabama) Barons of the Class AA Southern League, and though his batting average hovered around .200 for most of the summer, his swing got better. He had big-league speed, and his outfielding wasn't shabby. He could rightfully claim to be a player, if not a particularly good or young one. His presence helped league attendance, of course, but it also helped baseball in general. Hey, if Michael Jordan likes the game enough to stick it out during a long hot summer, riding countless hours on a bus--all right, he bought the bus--then there must be something to the sport.

In the Arizona Fall League, Jordan continued to hone his skills with the Scottsdale Scorpions. Baseball may have quit on America, but Jordan wasn't quitting on baseball. On the Bulls' Michael Jordan Night at the new United Center on Nov. 1, he told the crowd, "Hopefully, that number going up will put thoughts that I'm coming back to rest. There's a new team, a new building, and I'm playing baseball." He filmed a Nike commercial with Spike Lee, featuring Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. and Bill Buckner, all of whom watch Jordan play and comment, "But he's trying."

Two days after the ad began airing last Sunday, and five days after he told Poe he was going to stop trying, Jordan sneaked into the Berto Center to restart his basketball career. "It's a reality, but it's still not a reality," said the Bulls' sometimes mystifying coach Phil Jackson. Jordan may be rusty, but within a week or two, Air will be a reality once again.

Jordan's return comes at a nice time for the N.B.A., which has its own labor worries and image problems. But pro basketball doesn't need him as much as baseball does. Having turned off millions of fans and dissed the President of the United States, baseball has lost the most famous athlete in the world. His declaration that he was through was not merely the retirement of a 32-year-old Double-A outfielder. It was one more Edgar Allan Poe story for the game. Vincent Price would be a perfect choice for the commissioner. First of all, he has had experience with this kind of horror. Second of all, he too is dead.