MIKE, AND THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF SPORT

By Steve Wulf

I used to envy Grantland Rice. Part of my jealousy had to do with the desire to write phrases like "Outlined against the blue-gray October sky..." But what I really coveted was the athletes Rice covered in the 1920s and '30s, the so-called Golden Age of Sports: Ty Cobb, Jim Thorpe, Bobby Jones, Bill Tilden, Babe Ruth, Babe Didrikson, Red Grange, the Brown Bomber, the Four Horsemen and the Four Musketeers.

No longer. Whether or not we know it, and I suspect most of us don't, this is another Golden Age, a harmonic convergence of some of the greatest athletes in the history of their sports. We are watching Tiger Woods on the front side of immortality and Wayne Gretzky in the last few minutes of his game. This season Ken Griffey Jr. may hit 60 or more home runs, and Cal Ripken Jr. will play in his 2,478th straight game. Last summer Michael Johnson reminded us of Jesse Owens, Amy van Dyken of Eleanor Holm and Kerri Strug of Sergeant York. Loathe him or merely dislike him, we shake our heads in wonder over the crossover talents of Deion Sanders. Appreciate 'em if you got 'em: Evander Holyfield, Pete Sampras, Brett Favre, Jeff Gordon. Maybe Silver Charm lost by three-quarters of a length the other day because a Triple Crown would have been asking for too much in a time when almost every sport can touch gold.

Then there's the old, sickly guy with the Chicago Bulls. Gratitude for this bounty should not be an overnight realization, but the 44 minutes Michael Jordan put in the other night against the Utah Jazz crystallize the notion that we are blessed. It's not enough that he plays every game triple-teamed by the pressures of age (34), a fifth title and his own Airness. Needing a victory last Wednesday in the Delta Center, where the Jazz never lose, Jordan stayed on the floor despite a debilitating viral infection, rallied the Bulls from 16 points down and finished with 38 points, including a three-pointer with 25 seconds left that gave his team the lead for good. "I didn't even think he was going to be able to put his uniform on," said teammate Scottie Pippen, who literally had to hold Jordan up at the end of the game. "He kept everybody patient and just made big shot after big shot. He's the greatest."

Pippen is right. Jordan is the greatest athlete in the history of American sports, Muhammad Ali's nickname to the contrary. If the criterion is dominance in a sport, then Jordan's nine scoring titles is testament enough. If team success is the crucial factor, then Jordan's five championships in seven years--thanks to his 39 points in Game 6 on Friday night--trumps everyone who wasn't a Celtic or a Yankee. Jordan's only competition, really, is Ruth. Bobby Mattick, the 86-year-old scout for the Toronto Blue Jays, says, "Bill Essick, who signed Joe DiMaggio, once told me that nobody was better than Ruth. Frankly, I have an easier time imagining Jordan playing in the majors than I do Ruth running up and down the floor in the N.B.A." If an athlete is judged by charisma, then we can ponder Jordan's magnetism while wearing his sneakers and cologne or ingesting his favorite cereal and energy drink.

Forget the endorsements, though, and the swoosh and the dollar sign. They just get in the way, like some beaded curtain that keeps us from truly appreciating what we have. As recently as two years ago, the New York Times Magazine trumpeted the death of sports--games called on account of greed, stupidity and arrogance. "Sports are over," wrote Robert Lipsyte, "because they no longer have any moral resonance." What resonates from Jordan's performance in Game 5 was his utter refusal to quit, his willingness to let the team climb onto his weakened shoulders, his jumper over sickness and exhaustion. We sometimes chide Jordan for not being a better role model, for not speaking out on issues of race and exploitation. But that was a pretty good example he set the other night. The game wasn't about Nike or Wheaties or Gatorade--though the Bulls' physician did make a point of crediting the energy drink for restoring Michael afterward. It was about the team, a team that may in fact dissolve over contract hassles in the off-season. It was about sport, the essence of which Rice captured in his oft-quoted lines: "For when the one Great Scorer comes to write against your name,/He marks--not that you won or lost--but how you played the Game."

Although Rice's sentimental writing wouldn't get past a sports editor nowadays, we could still use it every once in a while. Instead of those Ail Jordan puns the other day, we might have got one of Rice's verses:

The flaming heart--cold brain and firm command Of nerve and sinew, blotting out all fears, The will to win beyond the final stand, These are the factors in each hour of need That mark the pathway of the Winning Breed.