The Joliet Slammers of the independent Frontier League have offered the 50-year-old former NBA superstar (and onetime Chicago White Sox minor leaguer) a baseball contract.
“Who knows how the book is written if there was no Major League Baseball strike in 1994?” team general manager Chris Franklin said. “It worked out pretty well for Michael and basketball fans around the world, but we would like to offer MJ the opportunity to write the final chapter by playing baseball for the Joliet Slammers or, at the very least, honor him in a way nobody else has.”
And in case you’re wondering where Joliet, Illinois is in proximity of the Windy City…it is 45 miles south of the United Center.
“There are a lot of loyal Chicago Bulls and White Sox fans who I believe would fully support his decision to come back to the game of baseball,” Franklin said. “When he started with the White Sox, hitting coach Walt Hriniak asked him if he was serious about playing baseball. Michael may ask us the same question Walt asked him and we have the same answer he did. Dead, dead serious.”
You can only assume the Slammers are just as serious.
The team is offering Jordan the league maximum contract of $1600 per month with $20 daily meal money and a host family if needed. Although that’s probably unlikely given Jordan still has a home in the area. The Slammers would also be willing to provide Jordan with a Loaded Luxury Suite for 23 people that includes all-you-can-eat and drink hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, mustard potato salad, baked beans, cookies and Pepsi products for 90 minutes every game.
Mustard potato salad AND baked beans…how can he pass this up?!?
Repoz
Posted: February 22, 2013 at 01:56 PM |
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1. John Northey Posted: February 22, 2013 at 02:33 PM (#4374096)I'd love to see an indy league team become a 'seniors league' team - all former major leaguers who want to play just once more for real. Ala the old senior league but focused on just one team. Probably would have to be owned by one of the players who'd promise the guys a special one year reunion tour type idea. It would help the gate for all teams in the league and be fun to see.
That said, I agree with John. Independent ballclubs need to do anything they can to draw attention to themselves if they want to survive and prosper, and if it involves this sort of goofy publicity stunt, well, that's a small price to pay for more baseball in the world.
Isn't this what the Newark Bears kinda were for years? In past years they've had Carl Everett, Jose Lima, Randall Simon, Jeroime Robertson, and Rob Mackowiak.
I really miss the old senior league, which started up right when I moved away from South Florida. I tried to follow it in the papers and always loved the idea of an open pool of veteran players continuing to play in hopes of getting back into the bigs. Off the top of my head, I remember Joaquin Andujar, Dave Kingman, Mickey Rivers, and Bert Camapanaris as being active there. It's a crying shame the league folded and an idea that should be revisited. Surely it would be a better use of Masters Steinbrenners' money than propping up Jeffrey Loria's luxurious lifestyle.
The Joliet Slammers is an awesome team name.
Not to mention Rickey Henderson.
Murphy Dunne plays the stadium organ
It was $3,000, and Michaels said the group could split it any way they wanted ("if you want to give Ringo less, that's OK"). Apparently John and Paul were hanging out together in NYC that night and actually considered showing up at the SNL studios! (The fact that they didn't undoubtedly altered history in unfathomable ways.)
But what if it did happen...?
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