Michael Jordan would be sitting in the middle of the Minor League clubhouse playing dominoes with his new teammates and looking like the happiest man in the world. He laughed loudly, trash-talked continuously and appeared to be right at home. As a reporter for the Washington Post, I spent only

Michael Jordan would be sitting in the middle of the Minor League clubhouse playing dominoes with his new teammates and looking like the happiest man in the world. He laughed loudly, trash-talked continuously and appeared to be right at home.

As a reporter for the Washington Post, I spent only a week with Jordan during his baseball summer, but this scene apparently played out pretty much every single day. Incredibly, he fit in almost overnight with these kids chasing Major League dreams.

The real story of MJs baseball career

Thanks to ESPNs 10-part documentary, The Last Dance, Jordan and the Chicago Bulls are once more a topic of conversation. He was 31 when he gave baseball a try, which was seven years older than the average Birmingham player. Nevertheless, he seamlessly transitioned from the rock-star life of the biggest star on one of the greatest dynasties to settling into a folding chair at a rickety table on a bare concrete floor and announcing: Lets go.

With that in mind, here are five things I learned about Michael Jordan during our little odyssey through Birmingham and Chattanooga:

1. The stories about Jordan's competitiveness are definitely true.Hes quoted in the documentary saying, I dont have a gambling problem; I have a competition problem. He was serious about everything. Hed begin his days with a round or two of golf, and the stakes were not casual. He would show up in the clubhouse and recount his hole-by-hole successes. He took the card games seriously. Also, bunting drills, driving in a run from second, everything.

2. Jordan was serious about baseball and would have played in the Majors.If you ask his manager, Terry Francona, and his hitting coach, Mike Barnett, about Jordans 127 games, heres what theyd say: He poured himself into the effort, cut no corners and wanted to be treated like every other player. In that way, he was a joy to be around.

He's the type of person that puts you at ease, Birmingham shortstop Glenn DiSarcina said. After a while, you just see him as another guy working on things, just like you're working on things.

Jordan took so much batting practice -- early afternoons, late nights, you name it -- that there were days his hands were a bloody mess. He absorbed everything, too, or tried to. Pitchers tested him with fastballs early, and when that didnt work, they overwhelmed him at times with breaking stuff. But Jordan was getting better. He was picking up pitch recognition.

He believed that if he willed himself to do something, hed do it. He knew no one would outwork or outthink him. To see it in that light, his 127 games with the Barons were not a success. If you look at it another way, it was a monumental success. How many 31-year-old men with exactly zero time in professional baseball slip on a uniform and play 127 games?

MJ's baseball career wasn't the failure you think

He walked in off the street and hit .202 in Double-A, and then went to the Arizona Fall League -- a finishing school usually reserved for top prospects on the cusp of MLB -- and hit .252. This is the thing that blows my mind. Only a freakishly talented athlete could do such a thing. Also, he was adjusting to breaking stuff, and if he stayed with it, I have no doubt he would have played in the Majors. Even Francona says the same in the doc, estimating that Jordan needed 1,500 Minor League plate appearances to be a Major Leaguer.

My guess is Jordan was always going to return to the NBA the following spring -- that, as the documentary points out, he was worn out by basketball and needed baseball to recharge his batteries. Conventional wisdom is that baseballs 1994-95 work stoppage sent him back to the NBA. Well never really know about that.

3. Hes comfortable in his own skin in a way few people are.I've never been silver-spooned," he told me one day. That's not me. This isn't the first time I've ridden a bus. To understand part of what made Jordan the basketball player great apart from all the physical gifts, his season in Birmingham is a pretty good tip-off. Fear of failure? Embarrassing himself? Please.

'I love the guy': Tales from MJ's White Sox days

Jordan approached Minor League baseball the same way he approached everything else in his life. He feared no one and could not comprehend that he might fail. He had the same attitude when the Washington Wizards put him in charge of their basketball operations in January 2000. He believed he would build a champion. He came to learn the challenges were different. One day, when point guard Rod Strickland showed up late, Jordan pointed at his watch and said, "Rod, you're late." To which, Strickland shot back, "Mike, I've been on time all day, but my car has been running late."

4. Jordan sprang for a bus and lots of clubhouse meals.Jordan bought the Barons a luxury bus -- equipped with a table, television and refrigerator -- for those trips across the South, and he picked up the tab on plenty of clubhouse meals. But in, say, Chattanooga, he would endure the full Minor League experience, including the cold showers and splintery benches.

People thought this was a flash in the pan for me, Jordan said that week. "They thought I'd try awhile and then quit if I didn't make the Major Leagues.

But I'm serious about coming down here and learning the fundamentals. If I had done it like people expected me to, it would have been a disgrace to the game. But I didnt.

5. He was good for baseball.Crazy crowds followed Jordan that summer. In Chattanooga one night, they packed 13,416 in and around a 7,500-seat facility. Hundreds waited for hours for Jordan to sign Air Jordan T-shirts or sneakers. For Jordan, this was same old same old.

The first time in a city you deal with it, he said. I did it in the NBA. There's a curiosity with a lot of people saying, 'What's this guy up to?' Some people just can't believe what I'm doing.

That was also the year Jordan decided to write a book. It was just 36 pages long with an appropriate title: I Can't Accept Not Trying.

Richard Justice has been a reporter for MLB.com since 2011. Listen to his podcast and follow him on Twitter at @RichardJustice.

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