The MJ of Essays
Posted: Tuesday January 12, 1999 12:20 PM
By Jack McCallum
Issue date: March 30, 1998
 While the NBA nervously ponders a
future without Michael
Jordan, I worry about the larger implications of His Airness's possible
departure at the end of this season. To wit: Who will replace Jordan as the
journalist's go-to guy, the shorthand metaphor for things great and
wonderful? A perusal of newspapers and magazines reveals the extent to
which the phrase "the Michael Jordan of..." has entered the
lexicon. Type the phrase "the Michael Jordan of ..." into your
LEXIS-NEXIS data base and watch that baby start smokin'.
To the American journalist, virtually everyone in a brightly colored
snowsuit is the Michael Jordan of something. During the Winter Olympics,
Austria's Hermann Maier was the Michael Jordan of downhill skiing, Canada's
Jean-Luc Brassard the Michael Jordan of freestyle skiing, Norway's Bjorn
Daehlie the Michael Jordan of cross-country skiing, Germany's Georg Hackl
the Michael Jordan of luge, Switzerland's Gustav Weder the Michael Jordan
of bobsled.
Jan-Ove Waldner of Sweden is the Michael Jordan of table tennis, unless
you're talking about women, in which case Deng Yaping of China is the
Michael Jordan of table tennis. Walter Ray Williams Jr. is the Michael
Jordan of bowling and the Michael Jordan of horseshoe pitching, putting him
at least a leaner up on Lisa Wagner, who is only the Michael Jordan of
women's bowling. The Michael Jordan of women's soccer is either Mia Hamm or
Michelle Akers, while the Michael Jordan of men's soccer is, variously,
Pele, Diego Maradona, Doctor Khumalo, Ronaldo or (sort of) Jorge Campos,
the Michael Jordan of soccer to Mexicans. I think the Michael Jordan of
soccer is Pele, though he would probably consider Michael Jordan the Pele
of basketball.
This isn't just a sports thing. Gatorade is the Michael Jordan of sports
drinks, possibly because the Michael Jordan of celebrity endorsers flogs
it. Elizabeth Gabler is the Michael Jordan of film-production executives,
Daniel Boulud the Michael Jordan of chefs, James Watson the Michael Jordan
of genetic research. The last, I read, is also a man known simply as
Watson, which raises the question, If he really were the Michael Jordan of
genetic research, wouldn't he be known as simply James? I wanna be like
James, and with cloning, maybe someday I will. The CEO of Westinghouse and
CBS has never been described as the Michael Jordan of corporate CEOs, even
though his actual name is Michael Jordan.
Some mainstream jocks (e.g., Tiger Woods) have been referred to as the
Michael Jordan of their sports, but Grant Hill and Kobe Bryant are
only auditioning to become "the next Michael Jordan." As for
Jordan himself, he is sometimes described as the Babe Ruth of basketball.
That's how big the Babe was.
|
