Hall Of Famer With No Grace Or Class

Posted: February 16th, 2010 | Author: Dr. Bill | No Comments »

Over the weekend, Michael Jordan was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame, along with C. Vivian Stringer, John Stockton, and David Robinson. Tickets sold for $1000 a piece and they were almost impossible to get. The speeches by the aforementioned Stringer, Stockton and Robinson were uplifting, gracious, and funny.

Then came the main act, the man everybody paid big money to see.

He was introduced as “the greatest basketball player ever.”

When he was finished, he was still “the greatest basketball player, ever.” But what happened in those 25 minutes he spoke was disgraceful and nobody will hold him in high esteem, ever again, although he had plenty of apologists in the media, who tried to cover up his colossal blunder. In short, he was what the British call a bore.

He was unprepared.

He was ungrateful.

He was insulting.

He was petty.

He was altogether worthy of getting the hook, if there had been one around.

He trashed a high school teammate. He trashed his high school coach. He trashed Dean Smith. He trashed Jerry Krause, the Chicago Bulls owner. He trashed several other NBA players. He trashed the philosophy of having a good organization. As far as he was concerned, it was all about him, all the time. He even trashed his own kids, saying, “I wouldn’t want to be you.”

When I was a kid, my hero was Mickey Mantle. I had a whole wall of Yankee photos, all signed by the players. But I had at least 20 of Mickey, in every pose you could think of, and that didn’t count the ones of him and Roger Maris, or him and Yogi, or him and Billy Martin and Whitey Ford. I remember vividly when he retired.

In 1981, I was eating in a restaurant in Philadelphia, and who should sit down at the next table but Mickey Mantle. The only problem was that he was drunk and extremely obnoxious. A lot of air went out of his balloon that day. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t put it into words. Some of the lustre was restored, years later, when he quit booze and apologized for how he had acted, while drinking. But he only lived a little less than a year after that pronouncement. I had to blink back the tears the day he died, too.

Jordan’s problem isn’t booze, it’s ego. Many NBA Hall of Famers were disgusted with Jordan’s speech and attitude. They felt it reflected badly on the game, and on Jordan, who was still trying to settle scores, some of them decades old. One apologist suggested that since he wasn’t getting paid, this is what you get.

That may be the truth, but if it is…it is pretty sad. In essence what he’s saying is…if you pay Jordan money, he’ll put on a happy face. If not…expect to get the A–hole he really is. Michael…I guess we hardly knew you.

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