On This Date in Sports October 6, 1993: Jordan Retires
With the retirement of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls became the face of the NBA. The Bulls had become the dominant team in the sport, winning three straight NBA Championships. As a result, Jordan cashed in on numerous endorsement opportunities to become the highest-paid athlete in the history of sports, doing ads for Gatorade, Nike, Hanes, and McDonald’s. Everywhere Jordan went, a crowd followed, and this began to become a problem. When the Bulls were playing the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, the paparazzi followed Michael Jordan to Atlantic City during an off day and reported he lost $57,000. On the same day, there were reports he lost over a million dollars betting on golf, leading to reports that he was a compulsive gambler.
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Michael Jordan’s personal world was rocked a month after the season ended. His father, James Jordan, was reported as missing after going out for a drive. Jordan and his family looked for his father for nearly two weeks as the story made national news. On August 3rd, the family’s worst fears were realized when James Jordan’s body was discovered in a South Carolina swamp. It turned out that Jordan had been killed by two teenagers, Daniel Green and Martin Demery, during a carjacking gone wrong on July 23rd. Police were able to track the killers down when they used Jordan’s cell phone, and both were sentenced to life in prison.
His father's death dug up a hornet’s nest of rumors as some speculated that he had been killed as payback to Michael Jordan’s gambling debts. After his father’s funeral, Jordan went into seclusion. It tried to stay as far from the spotlight as possible, but as the NBA season was set to begin, he emerged and threw out the first pitch for Game 1 of the ALCS at Comiskey Park with the Chicago White Sox taking on the Toronto Blue Jays. During the game, rumors of a press conference began to leak out, causing Jordan to leave the game early. By the time the game was over, with the Blue Jays winning 7-3, the big story was Michel Jordan’s retirement. Once again, the gambling rumors clouded the retirement, as some suggested. Jordan had taken a double-secret Pete Rose-style banishment, but the NBA, not wanting to ruin his reputation, allowed him to retire.
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In February, Michael Jordan further stunned the sports world, announcing his intention to attempt a baseball career, joining the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox were owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, who also owned the Chicago Bulls. Hoping his star would reconsider retirement, Reinsdorf allowed Jordan to participate in Spring Training, knowing it would boost ticket sales. Michael Jordan would spend the season with AA Birmingham Barons and then went on to play in the Arizona Fall League while the Bulls played their final games at Chicago Stadium.
Before opening the United Center, the Bulls retired Michael Jordan’s #23 and unveiled a statue. After being a member of the NBA Players’ Association, Jordan refused to cross the picket line and play with the replacement players in Spring Training of 1995 as baseball was embroiled in a bitter work stoppage that canceled the 1994 postseason and World Series. With no baseball, Michael Jordan began working out and returned to the NBA on March 18, 1995, saying, “I’m Back.”