VIDEO: Throwback Clip of Michael Jordan Playing Baseball With Mic'd up Terry Francona is Excellent
The fact Michael Jordan played professional baseball for a year is still tough to believe even to this day. What is even crazier is that he was coached by future Hall of Famer Terry Francona during his one season in the minor leagues. Jordan played for the Double-A Birmingham Barons in 1994 and spent the fall with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League. A clip from that 1994 AFL season features both Jordan and Francona and almost feels like it is out of some alternate reality.
1994: Michael Jordan hitting a triple in the Arizona Fall League with coach Terry Francona mic’d up. pic.twitter.com/ettGiDxgwZ
— Stirrups Now! (@uniformcritic) May 6, 2020
Hearing Francona hype up Jordan proves why he has become such a great manager. Tito expresses genuine excitement when MJ rips the ball to the wall and even adds in a "homie" in congratulations.
Talked with some of Michael Jordan’s old Birmingham Barons teammates about what it was like to play with him during the 1994 season. They told stories about unaware cashiers, secret meetings with Terry Francona, and pickup game trash talk gone wrong: https://t.co/jwbyX75kur
— R.J. Anderson (@r_j_anderson) May 5, 2020
Jordan batted only .202 in the regular season, but did raise that to .252 in the fall. He learned under a great manager in Francona and it was clear from the old clip that the skipper was as supportive as one can be. Luckily for everyone involved, Jordan opted to return to basketball in 1995 and lead the Chicago Bulls to a second three-peat.