Announcement
MICHAEL JORDAN NAMESAKE CARVING REPUTATION IN NABA
(West Palm Beach, FL)--You can hardly tell Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player in history, from Michael Jordan, the NABA Palm Beach League player. That is, not until you look beyond the name and the obvious difference in size. Michael Jordan, the NABA baseball player, is just 19 and get this now---he’s only 5’4”, 14 inches shorter than THE Michael Jordan, who led the Chicago Bulls to all of those NBA championships.
THE Michael Jordan also tried his hand at baseball, remember? While “Air Jordan” couldn’t quite hack it on the baseball field, any one who knows him also knows that if he had played the game as a kid, with his natural athletic ability, he might have become a great baseball player too.
Our Michael Jordan already has one advantage over the pro basketball great. He‘s played baseball for most of his 19 years, something the “other“ Jordan never did. Our Jordan is from Miami, Florida, and is a member of the South Florida Beach Bums, who have just completed their first season in the NABA Palm Beach, Florida league.
Jordan won’t be another Spud Webb on the basketball court, but his baseball skills have already turned some heads and earned much respect from teammates and opponents in a very fast NABA league. Many of the players in the Palm Beach League 18AAA league have pro, including major league and college experience, and it takes a lot to earn their plaudits. They’ve given Jordan very high marks for his all around performance on the baseball diamond, where he’s a terrific player despite his size.
Jordan also turned some heads on a national level at the recent RBI (Revising Baseball in the Inner Cities) World Series in Compton, California. Jordan led his Miami Seniors team in hitting with a .636 batting average, including a 3-for-3 performance in his Miami team’s 5-2 win over previously undefeated Houston. To go with his hitting skills, Jordan flashed plenty of leather as a shortstop, and amazed everyone with his range and his arm.
Alex Morin, the director of RBI in Miami, describes Jordan as the “ideal” RBI player. He is an inner-city kid whose family does not have much money, and he attended a high school with only one coach and no field on which to practice. Jordan has already turned both his RBI and NABA experiences into a college scholarship at St. Thomas University in the Miami area, where he red shirted for the baseball team last year and also ran track.
Morin describes Jordan as a “five-tool player”. Not only does he do it all as a position player, but he’s taken his turns on the mound. While pitching was not his strongest asset in the RBI World Series, he has shown some promise as a pitcher in the Palm Beach NABA league.
THE Michael Jordan always had to play taller than his size in the National Basketball Association. Six foot six inches in the NBA is regarded as pretty small. At 5’4”, the NABA’s Michael Jordan has to play even taller, but anybody who’s seen him play knows he is capable of it. Baseball might be the only major sport where size, or the lack of it, just doesn’t matter. Players like Phil Rizzuto, Freddy Patek, and Albie Pearson have proved that you don’t have to BE BIG to PLAY BIG. Michael Jordan is doing that as well, albeit on a “smaller” scale.
