Rozner: Dave Otto remembers role in Jordan's baseball career

Dave Otto has an absurd knack for finding the camera.

It's not just that he's 6-foot-7, though that doesn't hurt. It's that he always seems to make his way onto the television coverage.

And often it makes no sense.

There was that "Biggest Loser" episode about 10 years ago when he was shown on national television in a picture with one of the contestants at his local gym - with a person he didn't even know.

There's all the times you've seen him along the ropes on the 18th fairway, whether at Medinah or Cog Hill, as Tiger Woods was finishing his day.

He's been known to appear in a suite for Stanley Cup Final games and emerge from behind some legend or another, just as the broadcast shifts to the skybox.

And this Sunday it could happen again on ESPN as "The Last Dance" covers Michael Jordan's 1993 retirement and the year he spent in baseball.

It's hard to imagine them showing Jordan's '94 baseball season without his appearance at Wrigley Field, when Jordan collected a pair of hits and 2 RBI in an exhibition game against the Cubs.

And guess what pitcher was the victim of Jordan's first knock in a big-league park?

"Wasn't the first hit I ever gave up," Otto said laughing, as we talked about it this week. "Was far from the last."

The Elk Grove High School baseball and basketball star would merit a call-up from Iowa (AAA) later in the month, but he arrived in Chicago on Thursday, April 7, just that morning for an afternoon special with the White Sox, who had been in Toronto the night before, with the Cubs headed out to Montreal immediately after the game.

It was the first week of the baseball season and the major league players on both clubs had little interest in the game until Jordan showed up. Suddenly, it had become an intriguing event.

Otto - a noted swinger of the lumber who compiled a .200 average over 21 major league at-bats - flied to Jordan in right in the fifth, and Jordan (0-for-2) came to the plate in the sixth with one out, a runner on third and the Cubs up 4-0.

"I never lose track of the count, but I guess I was geeked up because I threw a 2-2 pitch and I remember thinking I had walked him, and he was still standing there," Otto said. "I was like, 'Oh, I still have another pitch.'

"Everybody started booing like I was gonna walk him. I'm thinking, 'I can't walk Michael Jordan.' I also don't want to be the guy who gives up a hit to Michael Jordan.

"So it's 3-2 and I throw a sinker on the outside corner, but the dude is 6-foot-6 and so lanky and it's like he's standing in the third base on-deck circle and still covering the outside corner."

Jordan reached out and bashed a one-hopper to third, high off the glove of a leaping Craig Worthington as the ball took him into foul territory, giving Jordan a basehit and run batted in.

More than 30,000 at Wrigley Field roared and gave Jordan at least his third standing ovation of the day.

"It was really loud," Otto said. "When he got up to the plate everyone was on their feet, and he just kept getting ovations. It was very cool.

"My only regret looking back is I didn't look over to him at first and tip my cap, but you're competing and I still didn't have a big-league job for the season at that point.

"What the heck. It's Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time and he's in a baseball uniform at Wrigley Field. I should have acknowledged him. Maybe I would have got a wave in return.

"It's just that you're in the moment. 'How do I get this next guy out?' I don't think I got the next guy anyway. I think someone took me deep. Don't know who it was. It wasn't Bill Wennington."

No, it was Julio Vinas.

Otto, who now lives in Wheaton with his family, drove home from Wrigley to Schaumburg after the game before heading back to Des Moines, and was something of a celebrity.

"You're in the car and thinking you gave up some runs and you weren't very good and then you get home and there's some kids playing outside," Otto said. "They came running up to me right away. 'Mr. Otto, Mr. Otto, you gave up a hit to Michael Jordan! That's so cool!'

"Looking back on it, it was pretty cool."

In the seventh, Jordan batted against Cubs reliever Chuck Crim and doubled down the third baseline to drive home the tying run, bringing another ovation and much screaming from the fans and Harry Caray.

A Jordan mistake on the bases cost the White Sox a chance to win in regulation, and the game was called at 4-4 after 10 innings. The next day, Jordan made his debut with Birmingham (AA), batting .202 in 127 games in 1994 with 3 homers, 51 RBI and 30 steals.

The next spring during the baseball strike and with replacement players in camp, Jordan would return to the Bulls.

Otto, once a second-round pick by Oakland (1985) out of Missouri, pitched parts of eight years in the big leagues, and after failing to get a baseball job in 1995, he retired at the age of 30 and began working in the business world.

He has at times done radio and TV for the Cubs, but after completing his MBA from Northwestern in the summer of 1995, Otto - the son of Illinois Hall of Fame baseball coach Al Otto - has done well in civilian life.

And he has not forgotten that day at Wrigley with the GOAT.

"Before the game, it was made clear that if anyone gave up a hit to Michael it would be a $100 fine in kangaroo court," Otto said. "So I get called up a few weeks later and first I get fined some ridiculous amount for getting called up. Yes, if you don't make the team out of camp and then come up later, it's a fine for being late."

And with goofballs like Shawon Dunston and Mike Morgan as judge and jury, there was no escaping.

"And there's another $100 for the hit to Michael Jordan," Otto laughed. "I should have been fined for spinning an exhibition game into extras. I played a large role in that."

Still self-effacing about that - and everything else - more than 25 years later, Otto has no problem being a part of that Jordan highlight.

Hey, at least it's not a poster.