He Said What?

He Said What?

 

I took the loss of Comiskey Park harder than most.  Just by being her, Clare brought me back to the White Sox, but nothing could bring me back to the Bulls for a good, long time.  Which is another way of saying I may have been the only person in and around Chicago who wasn’t rooting for Michael Jordan and the Jordanaires during their six-championship run in the ’90s.  So, no, I won’t be watching “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s documentary on that last championship season of 1997-98.

 

But I would like to know one thing, if Jordan is telling the truth about Jerry Krause.  According to His Airness, the Bulls’ GM told coach Phil Jackson that “we could go 82-0 and he would never get a chance to come back.”  Prove that, and you prove Jerry Reinsdorf backed the biggest loser of all time.  No, I take that back.  Prove it or not, Reinsdorf backed the wrong person.

 

Yes, Jordan’s Bulls were getting old.  With that sixth ring in hand, Jordan was 34, Scottie Pippen 32 and Toni Kukoc 29.  That said, Jordan was the greatest player of his era, able to elevate the play of those around him like no one else before or since.  You think he didn’t want a seventh ring, or an eighth?  You think he wouldn’t have willed himself to more if the chance were there?

 

But Reinsdorf backed his general manager over the sport’s Babe Ruth and Casey Stengel (don’t tell Jackson I compared him to Stengel, OK?).  How’d that go?  I’ll tell you how.  With Jordan retired and Pippen traded, the Bulls won 13, 17 and 15 games over their next three seasons, and they have yet to return to the NBA Finals.

Jordan taking on Father Time would’ve been one great sports’ stories of all time.  It didn’t happen, and that will forever be on Jerry Reinsdorf.