My magical moment with Michael Jordan

“During a rain delay in a [1997] game against the Phillies, a security guard approached me on the bench. ‘There is someone here to see you,’ he said….

“I took one step toward the locker room, and there was Michael Jordan. Yes, that Michael Jordan.

“Three years earlier, during the one season Jordan played professional baseball, he played for the Birmingham Barons and I played for the Orlando Cubs, both in the Double-A Southern League. As opponents we came to know each other. My mother’s family hailed from [Rocky Mount] North Carolina, so we had plenty to talk about….

“Michael had been in a skybox at Wrigley until the rain delay. Remarkably, he said he had been following my career….  Then he said I should call him to link up.

“When I returned to the dugout, you could hear a pin drop. Glanville knows Jordan? How can that be? He just got to the big leagues.

“A few days later, [Cubs star Sammy Sosa] approached me in the locker room. This time he didn’t ask me to fetch him a cup of water. Instead he asked if I’d like him to bring me to the ballpark in his luxury SUV [and] to hang out with him from time to time.

“Sammy began to ask me all the time for his fellow superstar’s phone number…. I never gave it to him.

“Maybe if he’d brought me some water.”

— From “The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View” by Doug Glanville (2010)