It was sometime after midnight, and Michael Jordan was thirsty. He grabbed a Gatorade and headed to the checkout counter at a convenience store located in some unremarkable town. As he handed the drink to the cashier, he asked, "Is this your best-selling product?" No, the clerk said without looking up, Pepsis or Cokes were. Jordan seemed surprised, but paid his bill and returned to the team bus without the employee noticing that the curious customer resembled the basketball player on the promotional Gatorade cutout stationed a few feet away.Jordan wasn't accustomed to going unnoticed in public. Then again, he wasn't used to many aspects of his life. It was 1994. He had walked away from the National Basketball A sociation, the league he had revolutionized on and off the court, to chase his baseball dreams.He wasn't a Chicago Bull anymore; he was a Birmingham Baron, a member of the Double-A affiliate Onyeka Okongwu Jersey . His new teammates, mostly in their mid-20s, were thrilled. "It's hard to picture a better scenario for a Chicago kid," said Barry Johnson, a reliever for the Barons, "to be playing in the White Sox organization and teammates with Michael Jordan."It's hard to picture a better scenario for revisiting Jordan's exodus to baseball than the present. Some 26 years later, ESPN has made it again chic to examine Jordan by airing . How much the program touches on Jordan's Birmingham detour is to be seen, but we took the opportunity to ask a couple former Barons: what was it like to play profe sional baseball with Michael Jordan?Airspace with His Airne sMike Bertotti, a left-hander who later pitched in parts of three seasons with the White Sox, remembers his first meeting with Jordan. The encounter came hours after a brush with the law.The day prior, Bertotti had been promoted from High-A Prince William. Rather than leave his car in Virginia he opted Jaylen Adams Jersey to make the overnight drive. He was somewhere in North Carolina when his lead foot caught Johnny Law's attention. "I said, 'listen, sir, I apologize that I'm going a little fast. I gotta report to the Birmingham Barons baseball team, I just got promoted,'" he said. "I even showed him my White Sox equipment bag in my backseat. I said, 'I'm going to play with Michael Jordan. Obviously you know Michael Jordan.' "I don't know if he believed me or not. Either way, he wrote me a ticket."A lifelong New York Knicks fan, Bertotti knew plenty about Jordan. His team had been tormented by Jordan time and again. The 1993 Eastern Conference finals against the Knicks served as the penultimate series before Jordan announced his first retirement from the . Jordan averaged 32 points, six rebounds, seven a sists, and more than two steals over the six games. Although the Knicks won the first two games of the series, the Bulls took the final four to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals. Once there, Jordan and crew triumphed over the Phoenix Suns.Most minor-league games begin at 7 p.m., give or take a few minutes, meaning players are required to be at the park by 3 p.m. Bertotti De'Andre Hunter Jersey had arrived closer to midday. After meeting with manager Terry Francona, he had been guided to his locker by a clubhouse attendant. He was soaking in Double-A life when he noticed the nameplate on his neighboring locker: "JORDAN."Bertotti, who admitted he developed butterflies after his discovery, figured his anxiousne s would be eased by the arrival of other players. He did not expect that Jordan would be the first to arrive in the clubhouse, clocking in more than 90 minutes before check-in time. Jordan strolled up to Bertotti and introduced himself. "I was in awe, I'm like, 'Hi, Mr. Jordan, my name is Mike Bertotti. He's like, 'yeah, Michael Jordan,' I go, , I know who you are.'" Everyone knew who Jordan was, but that didn't prevent him from fitting in. Both Johnson and Bertotti contend Jordan proved to be "one of the guys," or, at least, as much as he could be given his status as the world's foremost basketball player. He rode buses. He carried his own bags. He parked his own Solomon Hill Jersey car. He was the first one in the dugout to offer a high-five.Jordan, already renowned for his monomaniacal work ethic, endeared himself to his new teammates by accumulating sweat equity. "I prided myself on my work ethic and getting to the field and putting in work, and you could not beat him to the field," Johnson said. "He was there, taking extra batting practice before batting practice. We'd play our games, and he was the last one there, finishing up with Mike Barnett, our hitting coach. I'm sitting here thinking, from a dollars and cents standpoint, this guy does not need to work this hard."Added Bertotti: "When I tell you he was there early every day, he was there early every day." Between the linesA cruel reality, of life and sport, is that hard work does not always precipitate good results.Jordan's efforts to improve at baseball were appreciated, but they did not nece sarily translate to his Baseball Reference page. In nearly 500 trips to the plate, he hit .202/.289/.266 with three homers and 30 steals. He walked a fair amount, more than 10 percent of the time, and that helped offset a strikeout rate nearing 23 percent. Jordan, to his credit, did fare better during his stint in the Arizona Fall League: he hit .252 with five extra-base hits and six steals.Jordan's struggles were predictable. He was a 31-year-old who was more comfortable running a 2-on-1 than working a 2-and-1. The White Sox couldn't afford to put Jordan on a slow development path given his age, but they did him few favors by shipping him to Double-A. After all, Double-A is the ballplayer equivalent of : like what you see there, Danilo Gallinari Jersey and you'll probably continue to like what you see. For as athletic and ambitious as Jordan was, he couldn't make up the deficit against his more experienced peers. "You could see that some of the instinctive things were not quite there," Johnson said. Those i sues carried over on defense. The Barons pitching staff even held meetings with Francona during which they lobbied for Jordan to move from right to left field. His elongated arm action sapped his arm strength and allowed baserunners to go first- Khyri Thomas Jersey to-third on routine balls hit his way. "We said, 'Tito, listen, you're killing us. Can you please put him in left field,'" Bertotti said. "He's like, 'well, it's really not my decision, it's coming from upstairs.'"Growing pains notwithstanding, Jordan stuck with baseball. Johnson and Bertotti each praised his improvement during the season, an obvious byproduct of his natural athleticism and relentle s drive to get better. Early on, Jordan was incapable of hitting mid-90s fastballs due to a long swing. Through his work with Barnett, he was able to make his swing more compact.There were other adjustments Jordan had to make, too. He was used to having a hundred opportunities to impact a basketball game. In baseball, he would be the catalyst a handful of times, at most. After a multi-error game, Fra