His Slam Is Missing at Plate : Baseball: Jordan displays good speed, average fielding and little hitting during workout.

Even before the sun rose above the left field fence at Ed Smith Stadium, the running of the bull had begun, turning this quiet residential community into a different sort of Pamplona.

“If you are dumb enough to wait for one guy, that’s OK with us,” a resident yelled as reporters climbed out of TV trucks and cars and made their way up his street. “Just don’t park in our driveway.”

This city, home of the Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey, held another circus Tuesday, this one at the hands of a more celebrated ringmaster.Michael Jordan, who believes he can be a major league player by the end of spring training, staged his first official workout as a minor leaguer in the Chicago White Sox organization.

“Which one is he?” asked a fan who somehow got into the stadium.

“He’s the tall one,” was the answer in unison from reporters, pointing to Jordan standing in the outfield, where he would likely play.

The workout was a solo act, arranged by the club so that about 250 media members could see Michael hit (he never reached the warning track), see Michael run (he could be one of the fastest in baseball from first base to third base), see Michael field (he’s average), then hear Michael talk.

“I talked with a lot of my friends and my family members just to make sure that I’m not embarrassing them or myself,” Jordan said. “I bounce things off of them, and they give me opinions that are honest. My father would have done it if he were here, but he wasn’t here, so I talked with other people, and they have been very supportive of me.”

Jordan hit about 100 pitches thrown by a batting practice pitcher and a bullpen catcher, one a left-hander, the other a right-hander, with pitch speed averaging about 78 m.p.h. He hit only a few balls deep, pulled a couple of good drives down the left field line and scattered a few solid grounders. The White Sox have been increasing the pitch speed gradually, but the big jump will come on March 3, when Jordan will face first-line pitching for the first time in an intrasquad game. That might mean Jack McDowell.

“It won’t be 90 (m.p.h.), but it won’t be 75 or 80,” Manager Gene Lamont said.

This doesn’t appear to be a publicity stunt by the White Sox, who have been criticized by baseball purists since Jordan was signed to a triple-A contract last week, abetting the notion that he could actually make the team. General Manager Ron Schueler has conceded that Jordan’s chances are remote, but it hasn’t stopped him from supporting the former Chicago Bull star as he chases his dream.

“When I retired, I said I would do whatever I wanted to do that came to mind, and this suddenly came to mind,” Jordan said.

The 6-foot-6 Jordan hasn’t played baseball since two games into his senior season in high school, when he quit the team so he could concentrate on basketball. A right-handed pitcher and an outfielder, Jordan threw 42 scoreless innings his junior year while batting fifth or sixth. Edward Lewis, Jordan’s coach at Laney High in Wilmington, N.C., said Jordan was beginning to show some power at the plate when he quit to play in the McDonald’s all-star basketball game, causing him to forfeit his remaining eligibility. But by then, Jordan had grown from a skinny 5-10 sophomore into a 6-5 senior, and he already had a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina.

Now, on the verge of turning 31 Thursday, Jordan is laboring to relearn the game in five months. Working during the off-season, he has hit 600 to 1,000 baseballs a day, played in the field and studied tapes of John Olerud, Frank Thomas and Ellis Burks. He has shown improvement, but not enough to play in the majors or, according to one observer, even in the Olympics.

“He’s got a down-kind of swing, it’s a canned swing that can’t be fixed in a month, it takes years in the minor leagues,” Ron Fraser, former longtime baseball coach at the University of Miami and an ex-Olympic coach, said after watching Jordan Tuesday. “It’s mechanical, like a second baseman’s. It can be developed, but are they looking for a 6-foot-6 guy to hit low line drives? I don’t think so. I think they want him to hit it out of the park, and it’s not going to go out that way.

“He doesn’t throw the bat at the ball, and that’s how the ball explodes off the bat. His swing is too smooth, too controlled. He should take up golf. He’s a six handicap.”

If the ball doesn’t explode off Jordan’s bat, he certainly explodes on the basepaths. He has been clocked at 3.8 seconds from first base to third base, which would make him one of the fastest runners in the game. In the field, he appears to be merely adequate, with a good throwing arm. If nothing else, he might be able to snag balls headed out of the park.

“There was so much negativism about me doing this that I went to (White Sox and Bull owner) Jerry (Reinsdorf) and I asked him, ‘Is this the right thing to do?’ ” Jordan said. “The last thing I want is to be a sideshow. It’s a sense of pride when I step on the baseball field, and if I don’t have the skills, I won’t be out there.”

Jordan has said he will go to the minors if he has to, which could mean that when the season begins, he could be riding a bus to a lot of small towns. He has indicated, though, that a one-year stint in the minors would be his limit.

“I’m not so adjusted to royalty that I can’t ride a bus, as long as it’s a luxury bus,” Jordan joked.

If he doesn’t make Chicago’s 25-man roster by the time camp breaks at the end of March, Jordan could start the season playing anywhere from the White Sox’s Class A team in Hickory, N.C., to Triple-A Nashville, Tenn. Meanwhile, as a non-roster player, he will begin working out with the full squad on Feb. 22.

Lamont said he’s sure Jordan will bring some distractions, but nothing insurmountable. Tuesday’s workout attracted reporters from 100 news outlets.

“If I don’t succeed, then I don’t succeed, but nothing’s hard until you actually try,” Jordan said. “If it didn’t work out, then I don’t know. My goal right now is to be a part of baseball, and if it doesn’t happen, then I still have a long life to live and I will choose whatever I choose to do.”

And what about golf?

“I can play golf when I’m 40 years old,” he said, “after I’m done chasing my dream.”