It is absolutely true, I swear it, that as Michael Jordan stepped to the plate in the sixth inning of the Windy City Classic last Thursday, the sun reached my seat down the first-base line at Wrigley Field. It was sunny but cold in the shade of the grandstand, with the wind humming in over the right field bleachers. We were all shivering against the chill, and the friend next to me was keeping score while wearing those fingerless gloves I thought were unique to Bob Cratchit. The bright sunlight–and the warm spirits that seemed to accompany it–moved slowly down the grandstand and up the aisles, row by row, until it closed in first on the friend three seats to my right, then on the friend two seats over, then on the friend beside me, who flexed his fingers with satisfaction between notations on his scorecard, and then, finally, on me, just as Jordan stepped in.
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Then, just as I was beginning to notice the warmth of the sun, Jordan slapped the full-count pitch down the left field line, off the glove of third baseman Craig Worthington, and hustled down to first as Jackson hurried home and Worthington tracked the ball down in foul territory. Jordan had his first hit as a big leaguer–even if it was earned in an exhibition game–and his first run batted in. The moment–to me, but I don’t imagine to me alone–was every bit as rich as the scene in The Natural where Glenn Close stands up with the light pouring in behind her through the grandstand to inspire Robert Redford’s Roy Hobbs.
Even with the late start, Wrigley Field was slow to fill. More than half the seats appeared vacant when the game began. Yet when Jordan stepped into the on-deck circle in the top of the first–batting sixth, with two men on base–an eerie sense of trepidation went through the ballpark. There was a sound of mixed cheers and jeers, an intake of breath en masse, as if we were finally seeing, in the flesh, what we had refused to believe, no matter how many times we had read it in the paper or seen it on television. There was Michael Jordan–no mistaking that build or that familiar, purposeful, almost slouching stride–in a baseball uniform! The sound that went through the park was reminiscent of the sound that can be heard on bootleg recordings of Bob Dylan’s first appearance with a band, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan goes electric, and Michael goes baseball–defining moments for generations 30 years apart.
The Sox loaded the bases but failed to score again in the sixth, so when Jordan caught another fly to end the Cubs’ sixth he was due to bat in the seventh. The leadoff hitter fanned, but then Shawn Buchanan singled. That brought up Jordan, and this time–off Cubs pitcher Chuck Crim–he lashed a ball down the left-field line for a double, chasing home the tying run, and he stood out on second base as the possible hero of the game, Wrigley Field echoing with cheers of disbelief that, at the same time, reflected the attitude that we knew it all along: Of course he can play baseball. He can do anything.
So let’s get right down to making predictions in baseball’s new three-division format. The Cubs will finish in the middle of the surprisingly competitive National League Central, behind the Houston Astros and Saint Louis Cardinals and ahead of the Cincinnati Reds (this year’s New York Mets) and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Atlanta Braves will win the NL East, and the San Francisco Giants by default in the West, with the Cardinals the wild card. Then it’s the Braves over the Astros for the pennant.
