My (non-literal) love affair with Michael Jordan goes a long way back, to when I was a (real) little kid.  I watched every televised Bulls game, all through elementary school, I practiced free throws when he said fundamentals were important, and I drank only Gatorade, even when it wasn’t game day.  I wanted very badly to be like Mike.  I even cajoled my grandparents into getting me the shoes.  “Popop and Grandma,” my argument went.  “It’s gotta be the shoes!”

I’ve told this story on the podcast, but it bears repeating.  When I was still in elementary school and MJ was filming Space Jam on Long Beach’s very own Blair Field, I attended happily, the bribe of free hot dogs and soda wholly unnecessary.  And when MJ came around the infield after filming to high five all the kids in attendance, I leaped over the back of a smaller, less determined, less driven child, and managed to brush his pinky with my outstretched, fourth-grade hand.  It was kind of a moment.

So it was absolutely necessary, when we were in Chicago, to go to the United Center and see the Michael Jordan Statue.  It’s like Basketball Mecca.  The statue is damned impressive, MJ in his classic pose, rising over an amorphous mass designed to represent every defender he ever bested.  Carved into the base are his stats and records and accomplishments (yes, it’s a big base) as well as the phrase: “The best there ever was.  The best there ever will be.”  In the concrete in front of the statue are MJ’s handprints, shoeprints, and a signature.

I stood and marveled at it, joined briefly by a Bulls season ticket holder (they had a game that night) who had a pre-game ritual of walking around the statue three times, staring up in admiration and murmuring softly to himself, “The man.  The man.”  I didn’t interrupt him, and he didn’t interrupt me, as I stretched my hands between the bars, checking to see, as I did when I got my copy of Rare Air for Christmas, how I measured up.  Sadly, I’m still well short of my goal of being like Mike.

It was funny on the way out to see a statue of famous Blackhawks players, sadly dedicated on the not-so-hallowed ground of a satellite parking lot.  At first I felt a little sorry for them, but then I thought, “Well, it’s MJ, what are you going to do?”  He’s as close to royalty as we have in American sports, and it was great to stand in front of him, on his home turf, and stare up at him.  Like I’ve been doing for twenty years.