Michael Jordan Makes It Official: He’s Gone

Hours before arguably the most extraordinary basketball player in history confirmed the rumors, an elderly woman stood on the sidewalk, shin-deep in the old gray snow, staring sad-eyed at the newspaper racks.

“So long, MJ,” one banner headline read. “For Jordan, it’s over and out,” said another.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t step forward to read the fine print. She just pursed her lips, pulled her scarf tighter and shuffled slowly off into the wind.

Michael Jordan announced his retirement from the NBA Wednesday, and the City of the Big Shoulders sagged.

“Mentally, I’m exhausted,” Jordan said at a morning press conference at the United Center. “Physically, I feel great. This is a perfect time for me to walk away from the game. I’m at peace with that.”

The time had to come, of course, and sooner rather than later. Everyone here knew that. But when it did come, when Jordan said he really was done, that there would be no more fade-away jumpers at the buzzer, no more dunks launched from the free-throw line, tongue curled halfway up his cheek in concentration--when he finally said it, this town needed a moment.

“I’m sad,” Michael White, 28, said quietly as he began to tidy up the inside of a rental car at a downtown Hertz lot. Then again: “I’m sad.”

Jordan retired once before, in 1993, after his father was murdered. This time, however, he said he was 99.9% sure. And everybody believed him.

Chicago, like any city, has a long list of beloveds--from poet Carl Sandburg, who wrote about its “big shoulders,” to architect Frank Lloyd Wright to Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa. But Jordan, more than any other athlete and perhaps any other single person in any other city, has reinvigorated this town, burnished its once-tarnishing image to a near shimmer, blessed it almost.

He brought in money, of course, lots of it. He lured television cameras from Micronesia, Moscow and nearly every place in between. But during his 13 seasons with the Bulls, Chicagoans came to view such benefits as the least of Jordan’s offerings.

A basketball player so impossibly gifted that no one had seen such play before, he nonetheless practiced tirelessly--not only with his team but also during Saturday morning pickup games at local gyms with local guys. And in his practice he revived pride in the city’s shoulder-to-the-wheel reputation.

The kid from North Carolina, who was cut from his high school basketball team, brought six championships to a city that had begun to feel forgotten as travelers flew over on their way to the coasts.

And he loved Chicago.

In return, Chicagoans all but beatified him.

A woman who asked to be identified simply as Stacy, who works for a company that prints Bulls programs, keeps a videotape of virtually every great game Jordan has ever played in, and watches them over and over on Friday nights.

“Friends say, ‘Come out with us,’ ” Stacy recalled after the retirement rumor became public Tuesday. “I say, ‘I’m watching a Bulls game.’ They say, ‘The Bulls aren’t playing.’ I say, ‘Yeah, Michael’s about to score on New York right now.’ ”

Locals offer newcomers a friendly bit of advice: Debate the talents of Sandburg, if you must, mock Wright’s earthy structures and even dismiss Sosa as a one-season wonder. But do not say anything bad about Jordan, not here.

“That’s one of the top rules,” White said. “Because there isn’t anything bad to say.”

And if there was, it was largely left to the tabloids and restroom graffiti artists.

So despite mounting evidence to the contrary, local sports columnists last weekend still were predicting Jordan’s return, saying he couldn’t possibly be happy not playing if he could play.

Finally, they began saying goodbye.

Others, including several regulars at a downtown sports bar called Mother Hubbards, refused to believe it right up until the moment Jordan spoke.

And as he did, the typically boisterous bar was so quiet that “it was like the president got shot,” owner Jim Rittenberg noted.

The only people not glued to the dozen television sets were the bartender, who was still trying to get things in order for lunch, and a legal assistant named Lee Hatch, who sat in the corner working a crossword puzzle.

Hatch followed the conference anyway, mostly by ear.

“How could I not?” she said gruffly afterward, nodding at the blaring televisions. “Everything must come to an end.”

She paused a bit, and then went on: “It was fun to watch his games, though. What he did, he did very well. He gave people a chance to cheer for Chicago.”

Brett Morrison had listened to every word. A city road worker, he had snow to plow--piles as high as houses have remained for two weeks since the city’s worst blizzard in 30 years. But the snow would still be there after Jordan spoke, and Morrison sat at the bar, fingering but never unwrapping a cigar.

Morrison said that he shook Jordan’s hand once, more than a decade ago at a nightclub. The basketball player’s talents were just becoming apparent then.

“But I knew I was shaking the hand of someone great. I knew,” Morrison said. “The greatest player who ever blessed this game. But I guess it’s time.”

* PARTING WORDS: Jordan’s conference had no news. It felt like a ceremony. J.A. Adande column. D1