Crowd of 250,000 Turns Out to Honor Bulls

The rainbow-haired Dancing Rodmans were just a colorful sideshow in a celebration that brought thousands of fans to Chicago’s Grant Park on Tuesday to cheer for the NBA champion Bulls.

Fans applauded as each player was introduced, but did not wait to hear the name of Michael Jordan before breaking into a roar for the city’s most beloved sports hero.

Jordan graciously acknowledged the adulation from a crowd in which barefoot people in T-shirts mingled with businessmen in buttoned-down shirts and suits.

“When I leave this city and when I leave this earth, there’s one thing that I will know,” Jordan said. “That I’ve been in a city that truly loves me and I love them.”

The weather forecast was for rain for the official celebration of the Bulls’ championship-clinching victory over the Seattle SuperSonics, but the sun shone throughout the 30-minute event.

While Jordan clearly reigned as king of the hoops, judging from fans’ jerseys, Dennis Rodman was closing in.

Attendance was estimated at 250,000 by the mayor’s office, and several fire trucks kept their hoses going to help keep the crowd cool.

The crowd kept a giant beach ball aloft, and as the park and even the fans themselves became more muddy, the event took on the look of a G-rated Woodstock.

Alcohol was consumed discretely. And with cameras rolling live, Rodman used an obscenity.

Marco Toledo, 15, ruined his $120 Air Jordans in the mud.

He said his parents, who paid for the shoes, would be annoyed but he planned to buy new ones next month anyway.

The city spent about $3.2 million in preparations for the celebration, most of it on police overtime for the three nights the Bulls had a chance to win a fourth game.

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NBC Sports’ coverage of the final game of the NBA finals between Chicago and Seattle was the most-watched Game 6 ever, NBC said.

The game received a Nielsen rating of 18.8 with a 35 share, and NBC estimated that 60 million people saw all or part of the game Sunday night. That surpassed the previous record of 58.5 million viewers for Game 6 of the 1993 finals between Chicago and Phoenix.

The 18.8 rating was second only to the 1993 Game 6 mark of 20.3.

The average rating for the series was 16.7-31, again ranking only behind the 1993 average of 17.9-33. The average was 20% better than the 13.9-25 average in 1995.

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Jalen Rose feels like his career is just beginning with the Indiana Pacers.

Reggie Williams, a nine-year NBA veteran, wouldn’t mind ending his career in Indiana.

The newest Pacers came from Denver in a trade that sent guards Mark Jackson and Ricky Pierce to the Nuggets, along with Indiana’s pick at No. 23 in the June 26 draft for Denver’s No. 10 pick.

“The situation I was in, I didn’t play with the same enthusiasm and emotion that I’m accustomed to playing with,” Rose said.

The 6-7 Williams made no secret that he wanted to leave Denver.

“I asked to be traded, plus it’s to a contending team, so I’m very happy,” Williams said.

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University of Washington sophomore Mark Sanford said he has withdrawn his name from the NBA draft and will return to school for his junior season.

“There are still some things in college that I want to do,” the 6-foot-8 forward said Tuesday. “I want to win a Pac-10 championship and play in the NCAA tournament.”

Sanford was a first-team all-Pacific-10 Conference selection last season. He averaged a team-high 16.5 points and 6.1 rebounds.

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Danny Ewing, a 13-year-old leukemia victim who had been befriended by Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone, was buried Monday in West Valley City, Utah.

Malone was a pallbearer at the funeral and the service.

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Winning the NBA title proved profitable to the Bulls. They will split $2,045,750. Seattle will divide up $1,415,750.