Michael Jordan at 61

Happy 61st birthday today – not that he really needs our good wishes – to Michael Jordan, who discovers after his brief flirtation with baseball in 1994 that he is far better at dunking a basketball for the Chicago Bulls than he is hitting a curveball for the Chicago White Sox.

Jordan actually acquits himself well in baseball, considering he is playing professionally for the first time at 31 years old after not playing at all since he is in high school.

After a few spring training games in 1994 with Chicago, the White Sox send Jordan to Class AA Birmingham, where the wannabe outfielder hits .202 in 127 games with three homers, 51 runs batted in and 30 stolen bases. His 114 strikeouts, in hindsight, are not so bad when looking at today’s swing-and-miss standards.

After a summer of traveling by bus the backroads of the Class AA Southern League, Jordan returns to the NBA and wins another three titles with the Chicago Bulls, with whom he previously wins three NBA titles before his one-year baseball sabbatical.