Sports Illustrated Writer Behind Brutal Michael Jordan Baseball Cover Story Admits He Made a Mistake

As part of Michael Jordan's brief sabbatical from the NBA, he tried his hand at baseball to fufill a promise to his late father. Unfortunately, he mustered just one season in the minors awhile his batting average waffled at the Mendoza line.

This prompted Steve Wulf, then writing for Sports Illustrated, to pen his famous "Bag It, Michael!" column in the magazine's March 14, 1994 edition. That story prompted Jordan giving SI the cold shoulder as a rule. Now, Wulf has finally apologized, claiming that he was "too harsh" in his critique of MJ's baseball interlude while also asserting that he's not responsible for the infamous headline.

"I think he was rightly insulted,” Wulf said to ESPN's Mina Kimes. “He wasn’t out to embarrass baseball. He was out to pursue a dream that we thought at the time was delusional, but we should not have come down on him that hard.”

Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sports, and Jordan managed to change sports and still steal 30 bases and smack a couple of home runs. Not too bad for minimal practice over almost two whole decades away from the game.

Jordan was by no means a superstar baseball player, but going from the hardwood to the diamond -- Double-A ball, at that -- and avoiding total embarrassment himself deserves some degree of praise.