O'Donnell: 'Secret Sox' - Sunday's 'Last Dance' episodes have it all
WITH ITS END NIGHT of May 17 approaching, ESPN's "The Last Dance" finally goes full throttle Sunday night.
In Episodes 7 and 8, the Michael Jordan imaging venture uses sharp forward-and-back editing to cover events ranging from the 1993 murder of Mr. James Jordan all the way to the threshold of the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals vs. the Indiana Pacers.
Mini-spoiler alert: There is archived video of Jordan alone on the locker room floor following the 1996 Father's Day championship-clinching victory over Seattle.
It will make any Bulls classicist mist up.
(And that's the late Joe Lee - the Bulls beloved bench manager - who finally steps over to try and comfort Jordan. It's perhaps the first real moment of emotion in the series when a past scene of the human Jordan trumps the brand-building "boss.")
FOR BASEBALL FANS, the Episode 7 segment on Jordan's 1994 fling with the Class-AA Birmingham Barons is particularly engrossing.
Terry Francona - then the Birmingham manager - updates his assessment of Jordan's diamond skill levels with a straightforward statement:
"In my opinion, with 1,500 at-bats, (Michael would) have found a way to get to the major leagues."
Not in the hero doc, the Air baseball business also recalls perhaps the greatest global "breakaway" of any single scoop du jour in the Jordan-Bulls era (1984 to 1998).
On Tuesday evening, Oct. 5, 1993, Jordan threw out the first pitch prior to Game 1 of the White Sox-Toronto ALCS.
Moments later, word began to filter down from the most connected suites at Comiskey Park that Jordan was announcing his stunning retirement from the NBA the following day.
A sharp sports editor from The Aurora Beacon-News - a Copley/Northern Illinois newspaper that then included sister afternoon dailies in Waukegan, Elgin and Joliet - called an old bearded chum from Daily Herald days with an S-O-S.
"Can you give me an 800-word essay on all of this by 2 a.m. or so?"
The insouciant replied, "We're hosting a dinner party that has nothing to do with any of this. You'll have you something by 1:45."
Under the headline, "First pitch, last hurrah," the essay topped the Copley sports fronts the following afternoon, above a column by the late, great Gene Seymour.
Since the freelancer was involved with Jordan, Mark Vancil and the upcoming publication of "Rare Air" on Nov. 2, the text included this chunk of summary reporting:
"Despite (the) announcement, Jordan might not yet be completely gone from the Chicago sports landscape as an active player. More than one confidant hinted Jordan may pursue a career in professional baseball. (David) Falk insisted if Jordan were to do so, the White Sox would be his organization of first choice.
"Why not? I've always wanted to do it," Jordan said. "When I was a teenager, everybody thought that if I became a pro in anything, it'd probably be baseball. And I still think that I could be a relief pitcher or a first baseman with some work."
The rest of an extraordinarily snoozy Chicago sports media didn't pick up on it.
NINE WEEKS LATER, Jordan had begun his "secret" workouts inside Comiskey Park with Ron Schueler and Bill Melton - still with no follow-up coverage.
Prior to a December meeting at the Near North JUMP headquarters - Jordan Universal Marketing Products - the writer asked Jordan for his OK to update what was happening.
His Airness simply said, "Go ahead. I'm going to Florida (for spring training) and everybody's gonna know by then."
To assure maximum impact, the writer enlisted both the Copley editor and keenly respected colleague Cheryl Raye - then of WMVP-AM (1000) - for a coordinated grand slam.
Through her own source, Raye was aware of what was happening at 35th and Shields.
With the Copley weekday edition of December 16 set to hit the streets at roughly 11 a.m., Raye would go on air near that moment with an audio trumpet of the breakaway.
It worked to perfection.
With one concluding oddity:
Essentially all five Chicago TV sports shops and all primary radio stations immediately jumped on the story.
Tim Weigel made certain that WLS-Channel 7 was the first to get it on TV, properly citing its two town criers.
The Sun-Times followed days later with Joe Goddard under the headline, "Jordan plays ball at Comiskey - just for fun."
But The Tribune sat on it until January 1994 before some sort of fire bell must have gone off at The Languid Tower.
As recently as Friday, a current Tribune sports principal continued to trip over the timeline of record.
But as with so much selective and revised recall involving "The Last Dance" and current media chasing it, why bother allowing facts to get in the way of convenient tale-telling?
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.