The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [41]
MY OPINION
I tend to believe Jordan, especially after reading his former coach Phil Jackson’s 1995 book Sacred Hoops, in which he wrote,
Michael always said that when basketball stopped being fun, he was going to walk away.... He’d been dropping hints all season that he might retire early, and that summer when I heard the news on the radio that his father had been murdered, my first thought was that he wouldn’t be coming back for another season.... Michael had thought it through from every angle. I tried to appeal to his spiritual side. I told him that God had given him a talent that made people happy, and I didn’t think it was right for him to walk away. He talked about impermanence. “For some reason,” he said, “God is telling me to move on, and I must move on. People have to learn that nothing lasts forever.”
According to Jackson, Jordan then asked him if there was a way he could only play in the playoffs. “Until we can come up with a solution for that one,” he told Jackson, “I must retire.”
I also think about what Bob Greene wrote in his 1995 book, Rebound: The Odyssey of Michael Jordan: “More than anything, it has been the story of a man who had all that a person could ever want—or so it seemed—and then, having lost something that was so important to him that his pain was unfathomable, had to decide what to do. In plain sight, Jordan faltered, and then, in his mourning, abandoned one of the parts of his life that he cherished the most while the world wondered what he might be doing.”
Jordan went into baseball’s Minor Leagues and didn’t perform very well. He didn’t pick the best time to begin a baseball career, either. After playing the 1994 season for Birmingham, Jordan left the White Sox organization feeling betrayed and used, thinking the organization wanted him to serve as a “replacement player” during the baseball owners’ lockout. Baseball’s loss was basketball’s game, though, and in March of 1995 Jordan considered coming back to the NBA. In the ten days of rumors prior to his comeback announcement, there was something like a $2 billion increase in the stock prices of the five companies that he endorsed.
Jordan spoke with Commissioner Stern about his return. “I had to see if he wanted me back in the league,” Jordan said. Again, Jordan used odd terminology that begged follow-up questions. Finally, after seventeen months and 157 regular and postseason Bulls game, Jordan returned. And there was nothing written or said publicly about the dropped investigation into Jordan’s gambling during 1993.
All athletes die two deaths. One at the end of their playing days, and one at the end of their life. Jordan has already died three times, resurrecting himself twice on the basketball court. All three times, he left on his terms. He did it his way.
CONCLUSION:
#9
Alan Eagleson colludes with NHL owners to keep hockey salaries down
As I mentioned in chapter two, Major League Baseball encountered a situation in the late 1980s where the team owners conspired to keep players’ salaries down. In that same time period, the head of the National Hockey League Players Association was conspiring with League owners to serve the same purpose.
Alan “The Eagle” Eagleson was the most powerful man in hockey for so many years that it defies logic. He was one of the first player-agents. He was also the first Executive Director of the NHL Player’s Association. He wore so many hats, it seemed the only one he didn’t wear in the 1970s was that of the Prime Minister of Canada.
The question isn’t how this man