Jackie MacMullan is a senior writer for …

Jackie MacMullan is a senior writer for ESPN and a recipient of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award in 2010. In 1994, when Jordan took a year off from basketball and was toiling away as a minor leaguer with the Birmingham Barons, she went down to interview him for a story and knew he wouldn’t be playing baseball for long. “It just so happened I went in May of 1994, and I was there, like, three days after Scottie [Pippen] wouldn’t go into the game in the Knicks series. So I think he knew I was coming—I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think he did—and Terry Francona was the manager, and, of course, I barely knew him then. I got there and was kind of looking for [Jordan], and I was sitting in the dugout, and the minute he saw me he made like a beeline for me, and the first thing he said was, ‘Do you believe this s—?’