On the morning of Oct. 6, 1993, in Deerfield, Ill., I was hurrying up a sidewalk outside the Berto Center, the training facility of the Chicago Bulls, to attend a hastily announced morning news conference.
When I approached the door, a man who was entering looked back and held it for me, and as I reached him, it turned out to be Tom Brokaw.
"Well, this is pretty big," I thought.
That Michael Jordan was a big deal wasn't news. The man had led the NBA in scoring the previous seven seasons, and led the Bulls to three straight championships, and that didn't even begin to define why he was a big deal.
He was Michael Jordan. Across the landscape of the years that have passed, some of that sizzle has diminished. Kobe Bryant came along. LeBron James came along. The generations that are 30 years of age or younger now have little or no recollection of Jordan as a champion or a figure of massive celebrity.
As ESPN airs "The Last Dance," the documentary chronicling the sixth and final championship for Jordan and the Bulls in 1997-98 _ the 10-part series continues Sunday night with Parts 3 and 4 _ I am also drawn to memories of the first three titles. That run ended with the 1993 news conference announcing Jordan's "retirement" from the game, and the next championship run didn't begin until two seasons later, after a season of playing minor league baseball and a late, attenuated comeback the following year.
I happened to be in Chicago for the news conference because it coincided with the American League Championship Series between the White Sox and Blue Jays, which I was covering while the Phillies were working their way past the Braves and toward the World Series.
Sometime during that afternoon's game in Comiskey Park, just before the White Sox fell into a 2-0 series hole that pointed the Blue Jays toward their date with the Phillies, I filed this lead to The Inquirer:
