Today I am bringing to you a subject which I am sure will be very poorly received. I am glad Michael Jordan retired. I think he is a jerk. This has nothing to do with the time I sent him a letter asking him to give me $1 million dollars, since he had so much and I so little. He didn't even send me back an autographed photo or anything. Cheap bastard.
I think he's a jerk, but I can't really explain exactly why. It's like one of those movies where the bad guy comes out and you don't know he's the bad guy, but there's something shifty in his eyes and it makes you say, hmm, I better keep my eye on that guy. I mean, sure, aside from winning six or seven championships this decade, what else has he done? I mean, besides the movies and the commercials and the baseball (which he sucked at by the way). What else has he done? Has he ever saved anyone from a burning building? Has he ever scored a game winner for a sick little kid? Has he ever had sex with 30,000 women like Wilt Chamberlain?
When Marv Albert got arrested for biting the woman on the ass, did Mike come running to his defense? Marv has had his nose so far up Jordan's butt for so long, and Mike doesn't even get NBC to give him his job back? Something is fishy about this guy. It really is. He must have the best handlers in the world to make sure that he only does the right things.
I'm not even sure if he liked playing basketball. He was good at it, sure, but towards the end, it seemed to me like he played hoops as a front for all the other stuff he was doing; McDonalds, Nike, Rayovac (big mistake). He made more money off the other stuff than off basketball.
All this constant controversy in Chicago about whether or not he'll keep playing, whether or not Phil Jackson will stay, what about Rodman and Pippen, et cetera, was so childish. They had the best team ever and were bickering over money. If you loved the game so much and you were the best at it, you wouldn't cry about money and who your coach was and so on. Would you? Are these people that egocentric? Is our adoration of these people turning them into psychological nightmares who think that the plane they are on could never possibly crash? If it happened to Skynyrd, it can happen to you, Mr. Fruit of the Loom undergarments.
And that's another thing! Why the hell do we have to see Michael Jordan in his underwear. He's not content with the exposure he already gets so he wants us to see him lounging around in his drawers and playing with his family?
He was a fantastic basketball player, though. He was definitely good at that. But at the same time he took a lot more liberties and was given more leeway than any other player. The shot he took to win the last championship should have been called off for an offensive foul on him, it was as clear as day. He definitely had more sway with refs than anybody else in the league.
But the real reason I want to see him go is because he deserves to be a nobody for a while. He's been a somebody for far longer than anybody on this earth should be, especially for being able to put a ball through a hoop. I want to see him go the way of Joe Namath and Nolan Ryan and Mohammed Ali. I want him to do a Flexall 454 commercial just to make sure that everyone knows he's still around. I want him to understand what it's like to be on the sidelines, out of the limelight. He's going to live out his life as a very rich man who wants for nothing. But how long, honestly, how long will it be until Nike and Gatorade pull their endorsements and move on to the next big star. How long until we're old and he's dying and then everyone notices him again, like DiMaggio? How long until the kids start saying "Michael who?" How many Jordan tribute days and TV shows will they have three years from now? Will Jordan be able to deal with taking out the trash on Monday mornings and not being photographed? Will he be able to deal without autographs, fan mail, and MCI 5 Sundays commercials? Succeeding at that, after 20 years in the limelight will be the true test of a champion.
