Michael Jordan on the diamond

In the spring of 1994 my wife and I took our new baby daughter to the ballpark in Winter Haven, Florida. The former spring training home of the Boston Red Sox, the Chain of Lakes Park became a last-minute shelter for the Cleveland Indians. Hurricane Andrew literally blew away any hopes of playing ball in Homestead that year.

Spring training puts an interesting blend of veteran players and new hopefuls on the field. When he was about 10 years old my son asked me why some players were hustling with real effort while other players were lying in the grass.

“The players hustling around the field are hoping to get contracts,” I explained. “The players lying in the grass already have contracts.”

This particular day in 1994 was auspicious, however. The game was between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox — two Midwest teams slugging it out in the Florida sunshine. Frankly, I didn’t go to all that many games. I’m not a huge baseball fan. But this game was different. There was so much buzz about a particular outfielder for the White Sox that every seat was sold out.

Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, the man who led the Chicago Bulls to multiple national titles and won two Olympic gold medals, took a hard turn and left the sport he was best known for at the top of his game to try something new. Michael Jordan was playing professional baseball.

What fascinated me was that a man so celebrated and clearly blessed with athletic talent and drive was being reviled in the press for taking up a spot that could be better used by another unnamed player. The initial excitement about MJ being in a new arena quickly soured as he was lambasted in the press and from the stands for being a less than explosive hitter.

In the outfield Michael was fast, had a sticky glove, and an arm that could throw a ball from the warning track to the catcher without making an intermediate stop at a cut-off man. At the plate, he was not as impressive.

At the game I saw two other attendees really stick out in my memory. Seriously overweight, a little drunk, and boisterously loud, these two blowhards weren’t shy about mouthing off about their opinion of Jordan’s hitting ability. Amazingly, they didn’t restrict their critique to the time MJ was at the plate. They yelled their displeasure throughout the entire game.

This caused a critique of my own to form quietly in my head. Not a criticism of MJ. My aversion to the constant racket coming from the seats behind took the form of a simple sarcastic jab. “Oh, yeah. Like you guys could hit that pitch.”

I did not go to the game expecting to witness athletic prowess from one of the most famous individuals walking the planet at that time. I was there to marvel at a man who was taking a risk. To see how he carried himself in the company of players a decade younger than himself. My fascination was in seeing a man up close as he attempted to achieve a goal that was important to him, even as he left a multi-million-dollar job opportunity behind to do it.

That’s impressive.

So often I talk to men and women who tell me how badly they’d wanted to learn to fly, but they never did. And now, they tell me, it’s too late. They’re pushing 40, or perhaps they’re even older. That ship has sailed, they moan. The opportunity is gone for good.

What a load of horse hockey.

There is an expression in the common lexicon that suggests we will not regret the things we’ve done when we get old. Rather, we will regret the things we did not do. I believe that to be true.

When I got serious and attended a big time flight school — and by “big time” I mean a Part 141 program predominantly intended for pilots headed to the airlines — I was 30 years old. I was leaving behind a career as a professional musician. A career that was exciting and thoroughly engaging but fiscally insufficient to meet the needs of a person who wants to eat on a regular basis.

Going to flight school was a risk. I’d taken out a sizable loan to pay for my training. The possibility of failure would leave me without the certificates and ratings I sought, but would leave the debt firmly in place.

The job market wasn’t all that robust just then. Eastern Airlines and Braniff had gone under. TWA and Pan Am were struggling. Adding to the professional headwinds was the fact that I don’t have a college degree. Yet I went anyway.

Thank goodness for that.

MJ left his field at the top and went to try something new. I left my field at the bottom (financially speaking) to pursue a different dream.

Thousands upon thousands of good, smart, capable people didn’t. They made the safe choice. In exchange for a sense of security that wasn’t nearly as secure as they thought, they stayed in a job that didn’t inspire them. That may have been the right choice for them. Or perhaps it wasn’t.

The question for MJ and me — and you too — isn’t really about whether we will become dominant in our new pursuit. The point of making a radical change in our lives is not that we seek a guarantee that we’ll reach the Number 1 spot. The purpose of the pursuit is simply to try. To widen our horizons. To make an effort to become the best we can be. To become a fuller, more capable, more satisfied individual.

I found that on the stage with a guitar in hand. I got it in aviation, too. Michael Jordan found it in basketball, and baseball, and motorsports.

We may not always be at the top of the heap as others see us. Maybe we never were. But we’re living the life we dreamed of and that’s worth something.

May you be as fortunate.