The Stadium has been stripped of banners, scoreboards and that giant organ. There wasn’t a clock to be found in the place Friday night, either, which is just as well.
Friday night, time stood still at that old house of thrills on West Madison Street, anyway.
Michael Jordan came home again, before they turn his favorite playground into a parking lot. The next ball at the Stadium will be a wrecking ball, but Friday night it was basketball, the game Jordan figured out like nobody else, then or now or maybe ever.
An hour prior to tipoff of this Scottie Pippen All-Star Classic, fans gathered in the street around Gate 3 1/2, where athletes have reported to work for decades. Across the way, blocking the evening’s last vestiges of sunshine, stood the United Center, triple the Stadium’s size, modern and colossal and likely to be appreciated in its day.
But there was no dwarfing the Stadium Friday night, not when the shiny black Porsche with “AIR 1” Illinois plates appeared. The people squealed as they parted and there went Michael, down the ramp one last time. You didn’t need a ticket to witness this, and you didn’t have to float a loan for the main event, either. Seats ranged in price from $10 to $48, petty cash to say you were there.
Alas, Chicago and Michael had not really exchanged goodbyes. He retired from the Bulls 11 months ago, between baseball games, back when there were baseball games. He’d gone off to Birmingham with glove in hand, and all his admirers have been fed since were film clips of him perspiring in the outfield. It’s his hobby and it’s his privilege, but Michael deserved a farewell tour.
He settled on a mere curtain call instead, and Friday night was terrific theater. Michael returned to his element in baggy shorts, playing for the Whites against the Reds. The place was packed, so charity won before the first whistle, and if you booed John Starks of the hated Knicks, you did that for fun, too.
The game was for the children of Chicago, and hundreds were there screeching when Michael climbed the stairs from the locker room, surrounded by yellow-jacketed security types, like bees guarding their honey. The court was so overrun by camera crews and well-wishers, Michael needed gendarmes setting picks for his first open practice shot.
He missed it, around the rim and out, from just to the left of the foul line extended, but a photo opportunity is a photo opportunity. Michael always did light up the Stadium, and every time he put the ball into the air, there was a sea of flashbulbs. Everybody got the picture Friday night. Life goes on, Horace Grant of the Reds is going to Orlando, and soon you go across the street.
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But not just yet. Nobody was hurried Friday night. Michael’s career stopped too soon, anyway, so this game was just fine. It started late, it was not cluttered by 24-second violations, and there was Michael, literally trying to roll back the clock in the closing minute. It was just a pickup game with a cause. The Bulls only wish that Michael would pick up where he left off, but don’t hold your breath.
Until Jordan says differently, Friday night wasn’t a comeback. It was a conclusion. Michael has nothing to prove in basketball, least of all that he can play for the pure joy of it. Friday night was not about the NBA race, but the human race.
That old house of thrills on West Madison Street has seen its share of charismatic athletes, none greater than Michael Jordan, who dropped in to say goodbye Friday night. At the end, 52 points later, with everybody standing and yelling “MICH-AEL, MICH-AEL!!” Jordan hugged Pippen, went to his knees and planted a big kiss on the Bulls emblem at midcourt.
Michael waved, Michael vanished.
They can turn out the lights now and bring on the trucks. There’s nothing left to see at the Stadium anymore, unless you close your eyes.