Michael Jordan, taking batting practice at Hi Corbett, went back to basketball and won four more NBA titles.
Nov. 28, 1994: Michael Jordan plays baseball at Hi Corbett Field
Interest in the Tucson Javelinas during the inaugural Arizona Fall League baseball seasons of 1992 and 1993 was so scant that the club averaged 294 fans per game and left town.
The AFL consolidated six teams in the greater Phoenix area at precisely the time Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan “retired” from basketball and, at 31, spent a year playing in the Chicago White Sox system.
When the White Sox announced that Jordan would be playing for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the 1994 AFL — he hit .202 that summer for the Class AA Birmingham Barons — Tucson hoped to get a piece of the action.
Tucson Toros general manager Mike Feder began negotiating with the AFL. It didn’t look promising, because Hi Corbett Field was resodded following the ’94 Pacific Coast League season and the AFL season ran from early October to late November.
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But that didn’t stop the persistent Feder, whose promotional skills enabled the Toros to draw an unprecedented 300,000 fans five times in the 1990s.
Here’s what it came down to: The AFL demanded that Feder pay the equivalent of 5,000 admissions for a typical Jordan-in-the-lineup AFL game in exchange for one late-season game at Hi Corbett Field. The league would also get revenue from souvenir and program sales. The Toros would pocket revenue from concessions and all tickets sold in excess of 5,000.
The game sold out in one day. The Toros sold 8,736 tickets. Fans began arriving at Hi Corbett Field before noon for a 5:30 p.m. start on a Monday night.
That shouldn’t have been a surprise; Scottsdale drew 82 percent of the AFL’s attendance in 1994. The average crowd at Michael Jordan games was 3,000. In games without him, the league drew about 200 fans.
Jordan got off the Scorpions bus at Hi Corbett Field two hours before the game, accompanied by the most accomplished baseball player in UA history: Terry Francona, the Scorpions manager, had also been Jordan’s manager at Birmingham.
Jordan was also accompanied by two bodyguards who never left his side.
It was like Elvis holding a concert in Tucson in 1959.
Sports Illustrated assigned a photographer to the game; reporters from Chicago and New York were in the crowded press box.
Francona held a pregame press conference in the first-base dugout and was engulfed by a crowd of media.
“My goodness,” said Jordan, walking by as the reporters talked with Francona.
“There’s a lot of writers in this town.”
The only negative part of the night was that Francona chose to use Jordan as a designated hitter, rather than play him in his customary left field. When the starting lineups were announced, Jordan received a thunderous ovation, far more than those for ex-Arizona Wildcats Alan Zinter and Tony Clark, who played for the opposing Tempe Rafters.
Jordan singled up the middle in his first at-bat, driving in a run. Zinter’s errant pickoff throw enabled Jordan to reach third base; he later scored.
Later in the game , Jordan walked. He promptly stole second base, with a Pete Rose-type head-first slide. A few pitches later, he stole third base, also head-first.
The crowd roared.
“If he can help you win, it doesn’t matter what age he is,” Francona said. “Besides, he doesn’t have a 32-year-old body. He can do just about whatever he wants.”
After seven innings, Jordan was replaced. When the game ended a half hour later, the sellout crowd at Hi Corbett Field had been reduced to no more than several hundred diehards, hoping to get a final look at Jordan.
“The crowd here was very energetic, very enthusiastic,” Jordan said in a brief news conference after the game.
“I was happy that I was able to do some good things. I struck out a couple of times, but I felt good about how I played.”
Where is he now? Jordan returned to the NBA the following season, leading the Bulls to championships in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.
How he did it: Jordan completed the AFL season hitting .258. Most of those he played against in ’94 were virtually unknown to the fans. Future Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra played in that game in Tucson. Hall of Famers Mike Piazza and Derek Jeter were in the AFL in 1992.
Photo: Michael Jordan, former NBA basketball star, taking batting practice with the Scottsdale Scorpions Fall League team at Hi Corbett Field on Nov. 28, 1994. Photo by David Sanders / Arizona Daily Star
