Sharing fond memories of Michael Jordan - baseball player

As the wildly popular "The Last Dance" documentary series continues Sunday night, Michael Jordan's stunning bid to become a major leaguer is going to be a major focus.

It's going to bring back a flood of memories.

After retiring from the Bulls in October of 1993, Jordan made the unlikely switch from basketball oligarch to baseball oddity at the age of 31.

His first year in White Sox spring training camp was 1994. That was also my first year as the Sox beat writer for the Daily Herald.

Meeting with erstwhile sports editors Bob Frisk and Jim Cook before heading down to Sarasota, Fla., my marching orders were a bit overwhelming.

Daily White Sox features and notebooks, and daily Jordan dispatches.

Chronicling a very good '94 Sox team was a big enough challenge, so having to also keep tabs on Jordan could have been a major hassle.

It wasn't.

While he ruled the NBA roost, Jordan knew where he stood in MLB.

During his first week at Sox camp, Jordan was always at his clubhouse locker stall bright and early, and wave after wave of media from around the world flooded him with questions.

Jordan was great with his answers - most of them to repetitive questions - but it didn't take him long to notice he was taking much of the attention away from the likes of Frank Thomas, Jack McDowell, Robin Ventura, Tim Raines and Ozzie Guillen, all standout players on that White Sox team.

As camp moved along, Jordan increasingly stayed out of sight and concentrated on making the transition to a sport he hadn't played for 13 years.

Most Jordan fans know he played for Class AA Birmingham in 1994, and with major-league players still on strike the following spring, he returned to the Bulls in '95 and went on to win three more championships.

His stint as a professional baseball player was short, but Jordan's presence is still fondly remembered by three former Sox associates - Bill Melton, Mike Huff and Herm Schneider.

Melton, a premier slugger for the White Sox from 1968-75, was tasked with getting Jordan's swing up to speed.

"(Former White Sox general manager) Ron Schueler came up to me and asked me if I'd be willing to help a guy out," Melton said. "I didn't even know who it was. And then all of a sudden he said, 'Michael Jordan.' I said, 'That's fine. He's never played baseball.' My job was just to show him setups, look at a lot of videos of some guys that I liked, that I thought had good swings, good setups, like John Olerud with Toronto.

"So my deal was just simply to get him ready for spring training and talk to him. We spent more time talking than anything, which was really good. Hitting off the machine, the fastballs, no problem. I told him, 'Your problem, the higher you go up, should you make it up to the major-league level, is going to be off-speed pitches.' I started throwing live batting practice, and sure enough I was able to throw a changeup now and then off a fastball, and that was the thing he was going to have trouble with. He was there, full-throated, interested, never missed a day, punctual, on time, and had a real interest in wanting to play major-league baseball."

Like Huff and Schneider, Melton was amazed by the reaction when Jordan was out in public.

"In Sarasota, we went out to play golf and people stopped their golf carts while we were playing and were pointing," Melton recalled. "Everybody knew who he was. I remember going into a bar one night with him and George (Koehler, Jordan's driver). They had to call ahead just to get in, to say, 'We have to sit him here because people are going to come around and surround him.' There was a rock band on the stage. We walked in, and the band stopped.

"I went, 'Oh my God, this is unbelievable.' I saw things, I was stunned. Everywhere he went, somebody knew him. And he dealt with it really good."

Huff, an outfielder who played for the Sox from 1991-93, was tasked with helping Jordan with his defense.

The New Trier High School and Northwestern product also jumped in on the hitting side at times, and Huff remembers a day before spring training in 1994 when he was helping Jordan at Comiskey Park and the Illinois Institute of Technology, located a long flyball across the Dan Ryan Expressway from the Sox's home stadium.

Jordan had former Bears great Richard Dent with him that day, and the two were heading to Phoenix to play weekend golf with Charles Barkley after working out with Huff.

It was a Friday, and a concerned Huff continually checked with Jordan about his departure time. He didn't want Jordan getting stuck in traffic and missing his flight.

Jordan finally put Huff's worry to rest.

"After like the third time I asked, he stopped and looked at me and said, 'Mike, I've got my own plane. When we decide to fly out, we'll get there and whenever we get there, the flight will leave. And after Sunday the flight will be back Sunday night and I will be here Monday morning,'" Huff remembered. "But here was a guy that could have very easily on the first time I asked said, 'Just my private jet, no big deal.' But he didn't boast about that stuff and was just eager to learn, humble himself, work as hard as he could to get as good as he could in baseball."

Schneider, the White Sox's renowned trainer for 40 years, helped Jordan get into baseball shape and was a constant presence from November of 1993 through spring training in '94.

Schneider was on Jordan's plane to Sarasota and he accompanied Jordan on a late grocery run after arriving in Flordia.

"He asked 'Can we go to a grocery store and get some food because I need some food in the fridge,'" Schneider said. "I said, 'Sure, there's a Publix not far away from where you're staying.' So we got in the car, we drove over to Publix and this was at about 12:30 a.m. There was basically not even a handful of people in the store at that time. But it's unbelievable. Within 30 minutes, the word got out that he was at the store and it was a zoo in that store at about 1:15 a.m.

"It was crazy. He said 'Let's get these groceries paid for and let's get out of here.' So we did that and it was pretty crazy. Two or three guys who were working there saw him and recognized him and they got on their phones or whatever they did and it was incredible."