Point of View / Bob Oates : Why Go Out on Top? : Time to Retire Is When You’re Thrown Out, and Jordan Will Regret His Decision if He Doesn’t Come Out of Retirement Soon

A wealthy football player, Joe Montana, 37, says he wants to play forever, through any number of injuries. He has never considered retirement. Neither has Ronnie Lott, who, going on 35, is another wealthy football player on his way to the Hall of Fame.

Nolan Ryan, 46, a wealthy baseball player, appeared to be immortal until his arm almost fell off in Seattle in September, and, at last, he had to give up.

As anyone could plainly see whenever Ryan was on the field, it was his competitive fire that kept him going into his mid-40s. And it is competitiveness, combined, of course, with talent, that keeps Lott and Montana going.

So what happened to Michael Jordan?

As gifted as the others, as competitive, wealthier, and strikingly younger, Jordan, 30, made the mistake of his life when he decided last month to quit pro basketball.

He’ll regret it.

And he’ll be back.

But he’ll pay for it.

A layoff of even one season costs any athlete a year of the best living he or she will ever know--a year of more gratification than anyone can expect to get in other pursuits.

“When you’re on a winning team with congenial teammates, it’s a great life,” a former NBA star, New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, said one day in his Washington office.

Though he had long dreamed of a political career, Bradley said, “As a player, the way I looked at (premature) retirement was: Why stop doing something you love?”

Or as former Wimbledon champion Billie Jean King subsequently said, “Nothing in the world is more enjoyable (than playing competitive games for a living) if you’re one of the lucky ones who can hang in there with the other (champions).”

Jordan is going to miss that. He may not know it yet, but he will.

Nolan Ryan missed nothing.

Along with Willie Mays, Johnny Unitas and the others who played all the way to the end, Ryan tasted the last drop. He won the last game that was in him. He got the last thrill--not the next-to-last, not the 50th-from-last, but the last.

That is the way to go. The time to retire is when they throw you out.

PRIDE DESTROYS

The more popular way to retire is mentioned repeatedly on the talk shows, where most fans and commentators advise going out on top.

They are right only when they mean fighters, who, to protect their brain cells, should all retire at 28.

Unhappily, most fans mean all other athletes as well.

“I wish Willie Mays had let me remember him as he was at the (peak) of his career,” a characteristic caller said recently. “I hate remembering him as he was at the end, a broken-down old ballplayer.”

Distressed by Mays’ kind of decline, reporters as well as fans continue to reserve their applause for the aging athletes who, overvaluing image and pride, needlessly steal away early into the night.

Thus, they still applaud Ted Williams, the only .400 hitter of the last 69 years, who at 42 hit a home run in his final at-bat in 1960 and immediately retired.

“Ted would never let himself be remembered as an old ballplayer who hung around after his time,” said a close friend, Bud Leavit.

So Williams never came back. In a sense, he was anticipating Jordan, who reportedly said the other day, “My pride wouldn’t let me come back.”

Pride, in this context, means worrying about what other people think. And, sadly, it ended Williams’ career prematurely.

He hit 29 home runs that last year, when he batted .316.

As a rule of thumb, any big leaguer who can hit .316 should plan to hang around at least until the season he tails off to, say, .265.

Instead, Williams missed out on the pleasure of walloping nobody will ever know how many more home runs.

A SPECIAL LIFE

As of 1993, no one thinks 30 is old for an athlete. And so Jordan apparently hasn’t had much retirement advice.

If, at the same time, few are counseling him to come back, they probably are insufficiently informed.

They see only the athlete in the arena.

They can’t fathom the whole life of the man: his good-humored interaction every day with the guys on the team; the delight that wells up with each point or run scored or set up or denied; the inexpressible joy of simply putting on the uniform; the excitement of the major league lifestyle.

“If I could still play the game, I’d still be playing,” said former NFL star Hugh McElhenny, who retired 30 years ago at 35 when “my legs gave out.”

McElhenny and other great athletes who have stayed on to the bitter end--Ryan, Mays, Warren Spahn and Unitas, most noticeably, but also Babe Ruth, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jimmy Connors, Elgin Baylor and Steve Carlton--all discerned three simple truths about professional sports in 20th-Century America:

--For an adult with the required skill, life in the big leagues beats whatever is second best--a life of fishing or golf, gardening, travel, playing cards, playing the horses, a businessman’s lifestyle, you name it--as most former athletes discover sooner or later.

--Upon reflection, the old pros also concede that they always had plenty of time for golf, family, and a big league career.

--In their 50s or 60s, most of them, if they had a choice, would instantly return to the playing fields of their youth. The decision to choose between retirement and playing competitively can be made only at an age when both options are available. Why choose to leave?

THE BIG MYTH

No fan can know what a blow it is to break away from the supercharged life of the professional athlete.

Willie Mays knows.

Fading at 42, out of a job but still hopeful, Mays said, “All I ever wanted was to play baseball forever.”

Warren Spahn knows.

To get rid of Spahn a quarter-century ago, they had to kick him out of the majors after an extraordinary 21-year pitching career in which he had been a 20-game winner 13 times.

And even then, Spahn wouldn’t retire. He was 47 when he finally pitched his last game, after three more seasons--all in the minor leagues.

“I loved the life of a ballplayer,” he said. “The only thing I’ve ever regretted was the end of the baseball season--any season.”

It all seems different, somehow, to other people--to those watching veteran athletes from the grandstand and press box or on TV.

“Fans want stars to retire on top in part to protect their fantasies,” Bradley said.

Said Spahn: “You feel like the whole world is pressuring you to quit. My attitude was: ‘Drop dead, this is my life.’ But it’s hard to resist.”

In “Life on the Run,” his thoughtful basketball book, Bradley notes that many stars are “naively vulnerable to the quixotic tastes of strangers.”

Tennis champion King was bowing to such quixotic preferences, she acknowledges, when she retired at 31 after winning at Wimbledon in 1975.

“I could still have won Wimbledon (in 1976),” she said. “I made a mistake when I quit. I was listening to others, trying to make them happy, instead of myself.”

Recognizing her mistake in time, King came back to win competitively until she was 40--showing the way, it could be, to Michael Jordan.

“Every person should listen to herself or himself (on retirement) and nobody else,” she said. “It’s only a myth that champions have to go out on top. That’s just other people trying to make up your mind for you.”

Steve Carlton, the four-time Cy Young Award winner who hung on to the last, asked the right question:

“Who cares what other people think?”

TRANSITION TIME

As a pro athlete, Michael Jordan, in almost every sense, is a special case. His talent is spectacular. His understanding of the game is remarkable. And quickness has been his defining characteristic. At his peak, he was the quickest athlete that some of us have ever seen.

In the playoffs last spring, though, he was plainly a bit past his peak.

He was plainly adjusting to a new style.

He was going more often to his turnaround jump shot, having found, obviously, that it was no longer possible to drive to the basket any time he wanted to, in the style he preferred as a young man.

Julius Erving, Baylor and other aging drivers had previously made the same transition to jumpers, but Jordan last spring, with his superior talent, seemed to be making it more effectively, throwing more strikes.

The smoothness of Jordan’s transition did not, however, conceal the reality that the world’s greatest player was slowing down. Some predicted that in a few years, he would be only second- or third-best in the world.

But is that any reason to retire at 30?

“I don’t think so,” King said. “The fifth- or eighth- or 10th-best brain surgeon in the world wouldn’t quit.”

Bradley, the Rhodes Scholar who went to the Senate from the New York Knicks, contends that a ballplayer has a full career only when he feels how it is to go all the way up and all the way down.

In “Life on the Run,” Bradley, a starter on two NBA champions, writes, “The decline (of an athlete) is sad but human. To miss it makes a pro’s experience incomplete.”

To miss it, voluntarily, is running away.

SHOCK WAVES

Ryan’s major league career lasted 18 years longer than that of Jordan, who in time is likely to see that his retirement reasoning wasn’t at all logical:

--If Jordan retired “to get back to a normal life,” as he said, he will soon discover that he should have stayed in the NBA.

He will never have a normal life, whatever that is. He will be a celebrity the rest of his days, as Joe Namath could tell him.

“I still walk around in disguise sometimes,” Namath said, laughing about it--25 years after Super Bowl III.

Jordan’s fame, unluckily for him, will last well into the 21st Century, when, like other burning-out meteors, he will be famous simply for being famous.

Those longing for a normal life should avoid the temptation to become the world’s best basketball player.

--If Jordan retired, as he said, “to spend some time with my family,” he will discover that he could have accomplished that by staying in the NBA and cutting down somewhat on golf and other hobbies.

--If the tragic loss of his father was a factor in his retirement, as he has indicated, Jordan will have the sympathy of all well-meaning people as he takes on a serious problem: contending with grief during his sudden idleness.

“Most doctors recommend keeping busy if there is a deep well of grief,” said Bruce Ogilvie, a San Jose sports psychologist.

One danger for a rootless, aimless Jordan in the wake of two shocks--his father’s death and his abrupt departure from the thrills of pro basketball--is substituting gambling activities for the fast life of the NBA.

“I have no knowledge of Jordan’s tendencies, if any, toward compulsive gambling,” Ogilvie said. “But in his present circumstances, if the tendencies are there, they raise a whole range of worries.”

MUCH TO PROVE

If Jordan retired because, as he said, “I’ve reached the pinnacle (and) I don’t have anything else to prove,” he was simply wrong.

As a basketball player, he still has a great deal to prove.

Count the ways:

--At his age, Jordan can’t possibly have reaped his allotted quota of honors and records.

To take a football parallel, Jim Brown, who retired at 29, must fight off challenges from supporters of O.J. Simpson, Gale Sayers, McElhenny and others that he was the greatest running back of all time.

Had Brown stuck it out for a few more seasons, his record yardage total, which Walter Payton ultimately surpassed, would have been beyond anyone’s reach.

In basketball, with Jordan on the sideline, his reputation as No. 1 doesn’t figure to survive the present decade in a sport that creates new stars every year.

--Jordan hasn’t yet proved, even to himself, that he loves the game of basketball--as distinct from enjoying his status as the world’s best basketball player.

Only by continuing in the NBA from year to year with diminishing skills--and by experiencing a progressive decline to pure outside shooter, then perhaps playmaker, and finally even non-starting captain--could he learn what all other basketball players, on every level, already know: It’s the most enjoyable of all team games even for those who don’t dominate it.

More enjoyable than golf, indeed--for a young man.

The transition to a different kind of player would be salutatory, helping Jordan focus not on taking pride in his greatness but on taking pleasure in the rich, everyday experiences of life in basketball.

--Jordan has yet to prove how much basketball wisdom he has.

By retiring now, before his skills have eroded far, he is missing the satisfaction of becoming at least as valuable for what he knows as what he does.

Not too long ago, an aging Wilt Chamberlain went down that road to a new life. The NBA’s leading scorer, Chamberlain became a defensive standout. And in his mid-30s, though he retired a year or two too soon, he was proudly fighting to lead the league in assists.

It is incorrect for Jordan to reason that he can do no more than repeat himself after playing on three NBA champions. He has yet to prove that as he ages and matures, he can be an important championship force as an elder statesman.

The fact is, the “pinnacle” he talks about is really no more than a steppingstone.

For, in a nurturing role in his mid-30s, letting go of his ego involvement in personal conquests, Jordan would find that it can be equally fulfilling to live in the sunshine of others’ success-- if he has played a vital part in that success.

In short, Scottie Pippen and young Toni Kukoc need him.

Best of all, while aging gracefully on an NBA team, Jordan could continue as a participant in the great drama of major league sports.

He could extend one of the world’s most desirable lifestyles two to 10 years.

Such was the intuitive understanding of Willie Mays and Nolan Ryan.

Such is the perception of Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott.

Such could be the realization of Jordan if, shortly, he sees that playing basketball beats taking pride in having played basketball.

Of what real value, it might be asked, is pride?

Who cares what other people think?

*

Times research director Cary Schneider contributed to this story.

Two Ways to Retire

“Needlessly premature” means retiring voluntarily when one is still in demand for one’s skills as an athlete. Although Williams and Mays left at the same age, Williams hit .316 his last season, Mays .211. The New York Yankees and others wanted Williams.

An arthritic elbow led Koufax to early retirement--but as friends suggested, he could have played longer. A more serious health problem, HIV, stopped Johnson. But had he continued to play NBA ball--demonstrating, before others began to worry about it, that it could be done safely--Johnson might still be with the Lakers.

Football player McElhenny was through at 35, when basketball player Russell wasn’t. Football player Walker, at 28, hadn’t reached his peak. King left at 31, caught her error in time, and came back.

Athlete & Age

NEEDLESSLY PREMATURE

Michael Jordan: 30 Jim Brown: 29 Ted Williams: 42 Sandy Koufax: 30 Bjorn Borg: 26 Billie Jean King: 31 Doak Walker: 28 Magic Johnson: 32 Wilt Chamberlain: 36 Bill Russell: 35

MUCH MORE FULFILLING

Nolan Ryan: 46 Johnny Unitas: 41 Willie Mays: 42 Warren Spahn: 47 Jimmy Connors: 40 Billie Jean King: 40 Hugh McElhenny: 35 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 42 Steve Carlton: 43 Babe Ruth: 41