I thought it was just fatigue talking. But the weariness Michael Jordan described in late January, 1993 was more than the dog days of another NBA season. More than the weariness of defending back-to-back titles and in Michael’s case, even more than seeing his shooting percentage dip to its lowest point in the previous six seasons and his clutch ability showing some uncharacteristic chinks.

These last few weeks have allowed me, forced me at times, to read, talk and remember what happened nearly 30 years ago. Sometimes, even the smallest details come rushing back unexpectedly, like when Teddy Greenstein, an old friend from the Tribune, asked me for my recollections of Michael’s retirement press conference for a story that ran in today.

I did not remember with the clarity of longtime Chicago sportscaster Mark Giangreco, some of the details from that day. But I did flash back to months before that day.

We were in Houston, Michael was getting ready to face the trash-talking guard Vernon Maxwell and while this would normally be fun for him, he was out of sorts.

“I may just lose my temper,” he said.

The Bulls were a ragged 28-15 going into this game and in a recent loss to Orlando, Jordan had attempted 49 shots, a career-high and seven more than the rest of the starting lineup combined (I looked that part up, obviously! But I do remember that trip and that talk with Michael).

There he goes again, the grumbling began amongst some of his teammates, flashing back to the days of “Jordan and the Jordanaires.” Michael said it was just a case of trying to maintain the  Bulls’ standard, which he had obviously played a major part in building. But his teammates didn’t understand that, he said that night, and he didn’t like what he was feeling.

I had gotten Michael alone in Houston’s visiting lockerroom and with no access to players the next couple of days, I was able to sit on the story until we got home, when it ran in that Sunday’s paper.

“It’s human nature that when success comes around, everybody’s fat and everybody’s independent, when before everyone was supportive and connected and tight,” Jordan had said. “All championship teams go that way.

“But that’s going to be the ultimate destruction of this team.”

But it was more than that. And it wasn’t until I spoke to him in the Birmingham Barons’ clubhouse a year later, that I realized the full extent of what had been happening.

Guys were tired, he said of that mid-season rut. They were getting treatment and sitting out and practice “lost the fun.” He had become bored.

“I knew halfway through the season, that was it,” he told me in the summer of ‘94. “I didn’t have anything left to prove. Even if we wouldn’t have won a third title, that was it. But I did want to finish off on a good note. I thought maybe my decision would help me focus a little harder, especially when the playoffs came. But the regular season was a drag for me. It was tough for me to motivate myself because I knew you don’t get anything until the playoffs.”

Jordan said he tried to tell his teammates at the time.

“And not just one night,” he said. “We’d have a couple of beers after the game and they’d be complaining about this or that, pointing fingers as they liked to do, and I’d say ‘Man, you don’t know how good you have it. You watch, I’m not going to be around here much longer. I think this is going to be my last year.’ And they’d say ‘Sure MJ, sure.’ And I’d say ‘I’m not kidding, man. I don’t think I’m going to play next year.’

“I told them all and they all shrugged it off. I kept saying it. Not once, not twice but three or four times. I could sense they didn’t believe me. ‘Sure MJ, you’re either pissed off or you’ve been drinking.’”

At the press conference announcing his retirement in Oct. of ’93, Michael said his father wanted him to consider retirement after the Bulls’ first title. After James Jordan was shot and killed that summer, it became that much clearer. In his heart, Michael didn’t want to play another game of basketball if his father wasn’t around to see it (it was the reason he changed to his high school No. 45 for a short time when he came back. His dad had seen his last game as No. 23, he reasoned).

Bulls coach Phil Jackson had asked him if he wanted to take a year off to find himself again. A sabbatical, like a college professor. But Michael didn’t want to move on with “loose ends,” he said. And in the months after his retirement, he found joy in unusual places. For an entire day, he told me, he rode around Chicago on a motorcycle, something his Bulls contract had forbidden him to do.

That winter, he and a group of family and friends went to Aspen on a four-day ski trip, Jordan giggling as he described starting on the “bunny hill” and then finally progressing to the blue (intermediate) runs.

“My scariest adventure was the same day I learned the hockey stop,” he recalled. “I’m coming down the hill headed straight for this tree. I couldn’t do the snowplow. The only way I could stop was to do the hockey stop. It was the greatest. I loved it. From that point on, I knew I could do it. I enjoyed it immensely. It was a lot of fun.”

Well, except for one thing.

“I fell about 10 times [off the chairlift],” he said. “I’d get off too late most of the time. And just as I got off, the next chair would come around and whooomph, push me down.”

Michael has always had a great laugh. It’s infectious and when he gets going, as he was this time, he was gasping for breath as he was telling the story. “I looked like a yard sale – skis here, poles there,” he gasped. “I’d come around and yell ‘Look out below, I’m going to wipe someone out.’

“It was beautiful and quiet, but here’s this big, tall black guy on skis. It was pretty tough to hide. Then again, it was just as tough for anyone to bother me as I was flying around.”

He loved the solitude. But he loved basketball more. The first time he started going to the Berto Center again was early in the ’93-’94 season, not long after his retirement announcement, ostensibly just to visit.  He hadn’t planned on playing as he stood and watched, but Jackson complained the team looked terrible.

“No continuity, no rhythm, no nothing,” Michael remembered Phil grumbling.

Jordan couldn’t help himself, he said.

“I said, ‘Do you mind if I come in and try to get some competition back into practice, just to get them flowing somehow?’”

“I don’t know,” Phil replied. “We’ll see.”

Already, there were rumors that this was just a break from basketball and that Jordan would be back at the end of the season. “Never say never,” he had answered when asked if he would ever consider it, and he had to convince Phil that wasn’t his intention.

It didn’t take much convincing and after a quick drive back home to get his shorts and a shirt since his locker had been cleaned out, Jordan was back on the Bulls practice court.

Jackson told the team Michael was going to practice and “Right then,” Jordan recalled, “I could sense the competition. Scottie and Horace started talking shit: ‘If you’re on the red [non-starting] team, you’re going to get treated like it.’ And I’m like OK, maybe I can help this team. These were the guys [newcomers like Toni Kukoc, Steve Kerr, Pete Myers and Bill Wennington] who didn’t know the offense, so I had to do a little more.

“I wasn’t in shape, my wind was short, but I could still do certain things.”

One of the first things was to get Kukoc involved. Pippen was guarding him tough and suddenly Michael was Toni’s protector, baiting Scottie to move over and guard him instead.

“So he’d make a basket and talk some shit and I’d make a basket and say ‘I retired myself, nobody retired me.’ So we’re going back and forth and it was great. That was the atmosphere that I remembered, and I think they kind of forgot.”

By then, almost immediately after announcing his retirement, Jordan had started frequenting Comiskey Park. He’d get there by 8:30-9 every morning and be out by noon, he said, sneaking through the empty TV entrance and parking his car out of sight, just in case.

“I wanted to be able to walk away without anybody knowing, in case I didn’t have the skills to play,” he said later in Birmingham. “But I loved it and that’s when I really developed an appetite for the game.”

Baseball had been a bond between father and son. They watched Atlanta Braves games together when Michael was growing up because that was the closest team to them, but James loved Roberto Clemente, the legendary rightfielder for the Pirates and so Michael did as well, playing rightfield for the Double-A Barons.

When I interviewed him in Birmingham in July of 1994, it was approaching the one-year anniversary of his father’s murder and what would have been James’ 58^th birthday.

The trial had not yet been scheduled but Michael knew he wouldn’t be there.

“The damage has been done,” he said. “Whatever they do to those guys is not enough. So I’ve blocked it off. My father died because of something stupid, and I won’t let that hurt me again by going through it again. Justice may prevail, but there’s no justice when there’s no life.”

While his family sought closure, “to me,” Michael said, “the end was when he was taken.”

“I keep him alive with what I’m doing,” he said, then motioned to the locker stall beside his. “I feel him standing next to me all the time. It’s hard to explain, but I just know he’s close by.”

I started and stopped this blog a bunch of times over the last week because I never knew how and when to end it. I wrote about him still wearing his Carolina blue shorts under his uniform as he always did under his Bulls uniform. And about how he played pick-up basketball on beaches and in parks, games that would start like any other and end with crowds ringing the court as people came running as soon as word got out.

I wrote about the sincere affection I felt his Barons’ teammates had for him. One player, outfielder Scott Tedder, a Division III basketball player, wore the same size baseball cleats – 13 – as Michael, and thus was the beneficiary of dozens of shoes that Jordan gave him. Several other players shared a new Mustang, which Michael had been given by a local dealer but didn’t need. Jordan would also help the Barons find a $350,000 bus and he paid the lease so he and his team could travel around the Southern League in style.

Another player, Rogelio Nunez, a back-up catcher from the Dominican Republic, had been trying to learn English when his new teammate came up with an idea. Every day, Michael would give Nunez a word related to baseball and if Nunez spelled it correctly, Michael gave him $100.

Like I said, I didn’t know how to end. So I’ll do it here, awkwardly. Maybe I’ll pick it up when he came back to basketball. Not sure yet. Waiting for those memories to come rushing back again.

Melissa Isaacson, Tribune staff reporter CHICAGO TRIBUNE

May 1, 2005  FONTANA | CALF.

His favorite time was always 10 at night until 3 in the morning, when the streets were quiet and the summer air cool and he could open it up a little.

Well, a lot.

He rode during the day, too, sometimes with his nephews but more often alone, hiding beneath his helmet and cruising through the city, enjoying the solitude and reliving his youth, when he and his brothers would jump ditches and pop wheelies and try to keep their more risky dirt-bike escapades from their mother.

One summer day two years ago he ended up downtown, at the BP station across from the Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonald’s on LaSalle and Ontario, where bikers seemed to congregate and, oddly, no one rushed him when he dismounted his Ducati and took off his helmet.

Off-duty Chicago cop and motorcycle enthusiast Noble Williams saw Michael Jordan get off his bike, but more than that he saw a guy in a nylon jogging suit and Air Jordans.

“I saw him come in and I walked over to him and said, `You’re doing this all wrong,'” Williams recalls. “He kind of looked at me like, `Who the heck are you?’ I said, `You need to wear jeans out here and you need a jacket and gloves and some boots.’ Then I gave him my card and said, `If you want to ride tomorrow, we’ll ride, but you need to get this equipment.’

“He called next day and we rode and had a good time.”

Suddenly, Michael Jordan was in his element, with guys who liked speed and control and could teach him some things. Before he knew it, he was introduced to a talented young black rider, Montez Stewart, who taught him how to ride, how to really ride, and took him to a track where he could learn how to corner and downshift and look for his points of reference.

Two years later, the young man is on the Jordan Suzuki racing team and Jordan is a player in the American Motorcycle Association. And on this day, a gorgeous Saturday in the shadow of the San Bernardino Mountains, one of the greatest players to grace a basketball court is in all his glory at the California Speedway.

Dallas and Houston have just grinded their way to an exciting finish in the NBA playoffs, but as far as Jordan is concerned, a first-round series can’t touch the AMA Superbike Championship, where reigning champion Matt Mladin blew his clutch and Ben Spies edged out Aaron Yates in the last lap.

Jordan’s rider, Steve Rapp, finished eighth, a good result considering he was the top racer among the non-factory teams.

Above the Speedway, with a cigar in one hand and a Corona in the other, Michael Jordan lets out a whoop as Rapp whizzes by.

No pep talks needed

This is not a guy who looks like he is bored or misses basketball. He talks to Bulls general manager John Paxson on a fairly regular basis, and has frequent conversations with Ben Gordon. But when the question of pep talks to his former team comes up, the man who is as closely associated with victory as any athlete in history knew he couldn’t win.

“If I’m around, I’m stealing the spotlight, and if I’m not I’m deserting them,” Jordan says. “They’re doing a great job. Why would I go and interfere now? No one gave us a pep talk. They have a different makeup, this team. The city is happy and I’m happy. But now that they’re winning, I’m not going to say, `Wait, I’ll come in and give you a pep talk.’

“Pax tells me I’m welcome and I appreciate that. But I’m so busy. Ben calls me and I tell him, `Relax, give a pump fake once in a while.’ He’s a great kid. But most fans have moved on. The kids remember me more from `Space Jam.’ And I’m as close as I want to be to the game. I’m enjoying my life, I’m enjoying my kids. I’m not bothering anybody. I go to Cubs games and Sox games. I’m not sure what else anyone wants me to do.”

He’ll show up at a second-round game, he says, confident the Bulls will prevail over Washington. If he is not scarred by his experience in Washington, where he was effectively fired before he could resume his role as the Wizards‘ president of basketball operations, he was clearly wounded.

“I’m mad at myself more than anything,” Jordan says of the experience. “At the end of the day, my biggest mistake was going down and playing again [for the Wizards for two years]. I thought it would help me evaluate talent better for when I went back upstairs, but in doing that I put trust in someone who I shouldn’t have and that’s the most disappointing thing. I’m not sure how anyone can say I failed them when they were $35 million in debt when I got there and profitable two years later.

“But I’ve gotten over it and moved on. I still talk to some of the players and I’ve learned from the whole experience.”

He is content now, he says, and it doesn’t take a hard sell to believe him. Earlier Saturday he’d gone down to Turn 1 so he could see the riders close up, where the scream of their engines is loudest and you can see their knees scrape the track. Jordan’s smile brightens as he leans against the fence and absorbs the vibration.

“Man, I’m hooked,” he says. “I wish they had 20 races a year [rather than a dozen], that’s how much I love it. It’s amazing how I missed this so long.”

Fascinated by speed

He grew up a NASCAR fan. His father James was a Richard Petty guy and he would take his children to Rockingham and Talladega and Charlotte, his youngest son transfixed by the speed and the sounds and the danger, and he’d go home and get his fix jumping dirt bikes around their home in Wilmington, N.C.

At North Carolina, coach Dean Smith would have killed him if he got near a motorcycle, and once he signed with the Bulls his contract prohibited any dangerous activities. His next time on a bike was after his first retirement from the Bulls in ’94, when he bought a BMW Cruiser. In ’98 he got on again and has rarely been off since.

The racing team began as a rather simple pursuit, supporting Montez Stewart. “I could tell it was his dream,” Jordan says, “and I said, `Let’s see what I can do for him.'”

In February 2004 they debuted Jordan’s team with Stewart as the only rider. Today, with the collaboration of Clear Channel (which bought out AFX, Jordan’s management group), Suzuki and Gemini Racing, Jordan’s team has three riders, Rapp and Jason Pridmore having joined Stewart. And with Jordan’s leverage, sponsors like Gatorade, Upper Deck and Oakley have come on board, companies not associated with the sport before.

“Nobody took us seriously at first,” said James Casmay, Jordan Suzuki’s business manager, a former amateur racer who first met Jordan at the BP. “One of the only companies who would sponsor us at first was a leather-goods company. But what people saw right away and what allows average guys like us get to know and work with him is that we’re all sharing a passion.”

After some initial skepticism, Jordan impressed people with his genuine interest and desire to learn the sport. “I wasn’t sure if his goal was to sell more clothing and shoes or to win races,” says Kenny Abbott, general manager of Jordan Suzuki. “But it’s clear he wants to be competitive, and with his exposure and his help I think we’ve already changed this industry.”

Jordan is the only African-American owner and Stewart one of a few black racers, and the team hopes it can reach a broader demographic. “If you look on the street, there are a lot of black guys riding motorcycles,” Jordan says.

Abbott believes the Jordan name has already made a difference. “I’ve been involved with this sport since 1987 and not until last year did I see people showing up at the racetrack in head-to-toe [Jordan] racing gear,” he says.

Jordan is contractually committed to racing through 2006, but he doesn’t see his association ending then, even if he accomplishes his goal of owning an NBA team.

“So far there’s nothing close, but I’m still investigating,” he says. “I have the capital, but if I’m going to pay $375 million, can I make money and can it sustain itself? Once I see a situation where it can, I’ll jump into it. But I don’t see getting out of this. I want to continue to grow this.”

One of the biggest upsides to Jordan’s investment in competitive racing–an $850,000 investment last year–is the opportunity to grow his Jordan brand of shoes and apparel, as he has done in boxing with Roy Jones Jr. and in baseball with Derek Jeter. To that end, based on Jordan’s suggestion, the team has changed its colors each year, from Carolina blue in 2004 to this year’s strange combination of black, red and yellow.

“When Nike first came to me with the black and red shoes, I said, `I’m not wearing that,'” Jordan recalls with a laugh. “And when I told these guys my idea, they said, `It looks like the bikes have been pieced together with spare parts.’ But that’s what I like about it. It’s wild. Nobody else ever changes. If you look in the paddock, we’re who everyone comes to see.”

His involvement with his team is a daily matter and it covers all areas, including the actual racing. “We have a lot of conversations,” he says of his relationship with his riders. “If they’re not confident on the track, they’re more susceptible to injury. I try to give the mental preparation for battle.”

Says Rapp: “He’s very involved. He’s pretty laid-back but he wants to know everything–how the bikes are running, how the tires are doing, what the lap times are like. He likes to know what’s going on.”

Tries to keep low profile

Down in pit road, Jordan is just another guy, but when he ventures into the paddock there are fans and sponsors and friends of sponsors and there is invariably a small mob.

He signs autographs and poses for pictures but generally tries to keep as low a profile as possible. “He really wants to keep the focus on the team,” says Abbott. “He honestly believes his time was in the NBA and this is their arena, their time to shine. He really just wants to learn the industry inside and out.”

He has become one of its biggest salesmen. “This is so much more exciting than auto racing,” he says. “Unlike NASCAR, you can see the drivers. The races are shorter. It’s not like sitting in the stands watching for three hours.”

His sons Jeffrey, 16, and Marcus, 14, both ride dirt bikes as well as excel at basketball, and their father shakes his head as he talks about what they’re doing to his lawn.

Despite the objections of his longtime friend and assistant George Koehler, who was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident while riding with a friend 10 years ago, Jordan clearly loves riding. He confines his riding to the track these days and has been clocked at 170 m.p.h.

He regularly attends Jason Pridmore’s racing school, though Pridmore, who finished third at Daytona in March, was injured in a race last weekend in Birmingham and just released from the hospital after surgery to remove his spleen and repair a lacerated kidney. Jordan himself has totaled three bikes but has never suffered anything more serious than some scrapes. “It’s still a lot safer than riding around the city,” he says.

Still a taut 228 pounds, Jordan marvels at the hand-eye coordination of the racers. “These are top athletes, make no mistake,” he says. “I live vicariously through these guys.”

His Carolina blue bike travels with the team, and Jordan goes to almost every race.

Now he climbs on, puts on his helmet, pulls on his gloves and zips up his leather jacket. He is wearing jeans. But some habits are tough to break–he is also wearing Air Jordans.

He pops a wheelie. And with a wave and a smile, he is gone.