He watched MJ cry on the trophy
The view from Mike Downey, RIP
“I knew the Bulls weren’t going to lose this one. I knew it because I knew he wouldn’t let them lose. You could see it in his eyes. He would not let them lose.”
“I’m glad you thought so.”
— James and Michael Jordan, June 12, 1991, after MJ’s first championship, as quoted by L.A. Times columnist Mike Downey
I couldn’t let June 14 go by without a newsletter — but a death on Wednesday had me thinking about June 12.
Today, June 14, is a double-Bulls anniversary, with two of my favorite games ever as a Chicago sports fan.
The first is more obvious: Michael Jordan’s last shot. In 2018, I wrote a real-time oral history of this game for Chicago Magazine. Two years ago I wrote a personal essay about it and performed a spoken version last year for my friends at the Barber’s Chair Network.
The second is more personal — the anniversary of the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history: Game 6, 1992.
I’ve written about that too.
But then came news yesterday that Mike Downey died.
I knew Downey’s work from his run with the Tribune, one of many high profile stops he had in the newspaper business. Yet I also unwittingly knew him from the background of one of the most iconic images in 20th century sports: Michael Jordan crying on the trophy after winning his first championship. That date: June 12, 1991, the same date on which Downey died 33 years later at age 721.
That’s him in the black shirt in the picture above. When my friend Lyletta gave me the ‘91 Bulls publication in 2021, I spotted Downey again in the upper left of the background of this celebration photo:
Except I didn’t know it was Downey. He smiled in his Tribune mug, while in the locker room shot above along with the shots behind MJ, he looked so dour. So I put the question out to Twitter, specifically Cheryl Raye-Stout2, who told me it was Downey.
This brought additional meaning to that image. I wasn’t just looking at some person in the locker room; I was looking at a reporter hard at work. That “dour” face is focus. Those are the eyes of a writer calculating his next few hours in inch count — 20 inches for a normal gamer, 30 when you have room to stretch.
So with the help of Newspapers.com, I pulled up the L.A. Times dated June 13, 1991, to see what Mike Downey filed. Sure enough, it’s a lovely piece, and shows the best of what a columnist should be: a reporter who augments what we know and a commentator who explains it.
Indeed, Downey’s column features heartfelt, even intimate Jordan conversations with his father as well as with Magic Johnson, exchanges that don’t turn up in any of the other 26,000+ newspapers in the Newspapers.com archive.
That “dour” face was actually just a journalist reporting the news while gaming out in his head how to craft it, penning the first draft of history on the fly. Rest in peace to Mike Downey. For your enjoyment, here is his 1991 Finals postgame column, with my reactions and thoughts in footnotes.
There’s Magic to Michael’s Air of Conquest
By Mike Downey — June 13, 1991 — Los Angeles Times
This… is… Mike’s kind of town… Chicago is… Mike’s kind of town… Chicago is…
And Scottie Pippen’s…
Chicago is…
And Johnny Paxson’s…
Chicago is…3
“We started at the bottom, made it to the top!” shouted Michael Jordan, wine and teardrops streaming from his bald down to the most valuable player trophy’s cold chrome. Comforted by his wife, Juanita, to his left and his father, James, to his right, Jordan broke down continuously in the Chicago Bulls’ locker room Wednesday night after they won the heavyweight basketball championship of the world — something the raging Bull never did once in any of five games against the Lakers.
When Magic Johnson embraced him afterward, Air Jordan sobbed on his shoulder.
“You got one,” Magic said.
“Oh, thank you so much, so very much,” Michael whispered, resting his face on his adversary’s arm4.
Detente between the superpowers.
“I’m happy for you,” Magic said, then made a quick and quiet exit — something he and the Lakers never did.
The golden boys made do with what they had and damn near got away with it. Elden Campbell. Tony Smith. Terry Teagle. Men who rarely did more but observe the climax of any NBA game suddenly were called upon as stuntmen for James Worthy and Byron Scott in the game of games. And they were warriors, every one of them. This was a night for their diaries.5
In the end, though, there was too much Pippen, with his 32 points and 13 rebounds; and too much Paxson, with his 20 points and Laker-breaker jump shots; and too much Jordan, whose 30 points and 10 rebounds punctuated Chicago’s season like an exclamation point. Matter of fact, that’s the way they ought to sew the man’s surname on the back of his uniform:
Jordan!6
Chicago is no longer Second City, and Jordan is no longer second-best, if indeed he ever was. At last, Michael has moved into a wing of Magic’s castle, winning a championship professionally to go with his collegiate crown and Olympic gold. He came to Chicago with the wingspan of Picasso’s statue and enough vertical jump to clear the Sears Tower in a single bound. Michael Jordan today is the cause of all the noise in Illinois.
He slept fitfully Tuesday, Juanita said, and paced the floor like a maternity-ward father. She went shopping in Beverly Hills, staying out of his way all day. James Jordan was considerably cooler than his son, or at least claimed to be.7
“This is the one game I never worried about,” Air Dad said. “Other games this season, I wasn’t sure about. But I knew the Bulls weren’t going to lose this one. I knew it because I knew he wouldn’t let them lose. You could see it in his eyes. He would not let them lose.”
At which point Michael lost it again, leaning over to his father, face against his forearm.
“I’m glad you thought so,” Michael said8.
He became ringleader of a band of Bulls who won 15 of 17 playoff games. Who began selling out Chicago Stadium the day he arrived. Who partnered at guard with the likes of Ennis Whatley, Kyle Macy and Steve Colter in the starting lineups of his first three season openers. Whose front line in his rookie season consisted of Steve Johnson, Orlando Woolridge and Caldwell Jones. Who joined a team with a record the previous season of 27-55.
What a difference it made when Air came to the City of Wind. Last week, before Game 2, George Steinbrenner gathered a couple of friends in Tampa, Fla., at 5 p.m. and hopped aboard his private jet for a game that evening in Chicago, where he joined Bulls’ owner Jerry Reinsdorf in his private box. All Steinbrenner could talk about on the flight from Florida was how much he regretted listening to the business partner who persuaded 10%-owner George to sell their shares of the team to Reinsdorf9.
“A long seven years,” said Jordan, unanimous choice as series MVP. “A long, long seven years. A lot of bad teams. A lot of improvement. Step by step, inch by inch.
“And now, well, there’s a lot of emotion I’ve been holding back. I had to. I didn’t want to show what I was feeling, because I didn’t want to give anybody the wrong impression. You know what my dad was saying about not letting us lose? Well, it wasn’t that easy. We underestimated the Lakers, if anything. Those guys were great. They wouldn’t give up. Magic, he’s just the greatest.
“But I told people if we got to the Finals, we’d win. I really believed it. We shocked a lot of people, I know. But we earned it. We deserved it. We took it. No one gave it to us. That’s what I’m proudest about. We took it, and we took it as a team. Me and my teammates.”
From Mike’s kind of town10.
Mike Downey’s death June 12 was overshadowed by a much bigger name in basketball: Jerry West. It’s been a tough few weeks in the NBA, with the passings of Bill Walton, Chet Walker and then The Logo.
Jerry West was one of the Bulls’ earliest playoff foes, and an inspiration to Michael Jordan on the court and in the front office. I’ll have more on West vs. the Bulls at some point. For now, here’s West explaining at the NBA 75 celebration in 2022 why MJ is his favorite player ever, along with photos of West defending Chet Walker in 1972 and shooting over Jerry Sloan in 1973:
Have a great weekend, everybody! Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, especially my own, who always reads this far.
Best,
Jack
Thank you Rick Morrissey for this touching and lyrical obit.
Cheryl: always the best :)
I love the use of “My Kind of Town” here. As a columnist, you have to find your way into the piece, and quickly. This intro gives the reader a mood while also being a fast-paced entry point into the story.
As I noted, this exchange between MJ and Magic only appears in Downey’s column. Keeping your eyes up and ears open in that chaos of a locker room is incredibly challenging. Bob Costas famously mistook Juanita for Jordan’s mother, showing immediate embarrassment and noting that he couldn’t see with the champagne in his eyes.
I know Downey is working for the L.A. Times here so I shouldn’t be surprised that he found a way to compliment the Lakers, but other columnists easily would have either disparaged them or ignored them, and the performance of both Magic and the young Lakers filling in for Worthy and Scott was magical and heroic. Downey finds a way here to report that they lost while still uplifting them in the hometown paper.
This is really how it felt to watch Jordan. Jordan!
Again: capturing these details in your reporting — Juanita shopping, MJ can’t sleep, and so on — is easier said than done in this setting.
This is another exchange, between James and Michael, that only appears in Downey’s column.
Per Trib reporting at the time of purchase, Reinsdorf bought out four Bulls owners, totaling 56.7%; Steinbrenner’s stake was 8%. .
Solid kicker bringing it back to Sinatra after the triple-graph MJ quote.