The Mj Of Essays

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 Bj�rn D�hlie 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, Pel�, 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 Pel�, though he would probably consider Michael Jordan the Pel� 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.