James Jordan

They could always call them the Baltimore Bricks.The inside story of the murder of James Jordan is that nobody is safe anywhere.The pope and young Catholics found a lot on which they fundamentally agree, which was pretty exciting to both sides.NAFTA is going to force Mexico into motions of cleaning up the environment, but not so that you'll be able to breathe in Mexico City in the near future.

James H. Young, a retired hospital worker and caterer, died Saturday of cancer at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 56 and lived in Northwest Baltimore.The Baltimore native worked as a security attendant at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup from 1963 to 1985, when he retired, and then as a substitute teacher in city schools.Since the mid-1960s, he had operated a catering business, J. H. Caterers.He graduated from Carver Vocational-Technical High School in 1960, served in the Army from 1960 to 1963 and graduated from the Community College of Baltimore in 1973.

Washington -- Three celebrated cases of death and alleged deceit during the last several months have driven me to a harsh judgment of my own profession.I have watched and been a part of the media frenzy over the murder of James Jordan, father of Chicago Bulls basketball star Michael; the indictments of Robert A. Altman and his law partner and former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford in the BCCI scandal, and the alleged suicide of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster. I now conclude:* The media are coming to disregard, to a shameful, disturbing degree, the basic American assumption that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty.

Her name is Deloris Jordan, but she's rarely introduced that way. It's "Michael's mom" this. Or "Mike's mom" that. As in mother of basketball superstar Michael Jordan.Being constantly identified through your child could be enough to give anyone a major inferiority complex, but "Michael's mom" is quite used to it. Her famous son, after all, just collected his fourth Most Valuable Player trophy from the NBA last week. His team, the Chicago Bulls, is off to a 3-0 lead in its playoff series against the Orlando Magic.

A white business owner came to his office and said to his secretary: "Thank goodness they caught those two guys."He was talking about the two young men who had been arrested in the murder of James Jordan, Michael's father.The secretary, who is black, scowled, shook her head and said: "You don't really believe those boys did it, do you? It's a cover-up."He was too stunned to ask her who she thought really did it, and who was arranging the "cover-up."Later, he told me: "My goodness, look at all the evidence.

A missing-persons report was filed yesterday on James Jordan, the father of NBA superstar Michael Jordan. Police officials in North Carolina said no one had seen or talked with the elder Jordan in nearly three weeks.James Jordan's luxury car was found on a rural road near Fayetteville, N.C., on Aug. 5 and it had been stripped. The car was tracked through the Lexus dealership, which then contacted the Jordan family this week. And while there was no sign of blood in the car, police have not ruled out the possibility of foul play.

James H. Young, a retired hospital worker and caterer, died Saturday of cancer at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 56 and lived in Northwest Baltimore.The Baltimore native worked as a security attendant at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup from 1963 to 1985, when he retired, and then as a substitute teacher in city schools.Since the mid-1960s, he had operated a catering business, J. H. Caterers.He graduated from Carver Vocational-Technical High School in 1960, served in the Army from 1960 to 1963 and graduated from the Community College of Baltimore in 1973.

Her name is Deloris Jordan, but she's rarely introduced that way. It's "Michael's mom" this. Or "Mike's mom" that. As in mother of basketball superstar Michael Jordan.Being constantly identified through your child could be enough to give anyone a major inferiority complex, but "Michael's mom" is quite used to it. Her famous son, after all, just collected his fourth Most Valuable Player trophy from the NBA last week. His team, the Chicago Bulls, is off to a 3-0 lead in its playoff series against the Orlando Magic.

THE youngsters on the basketball court on the Upper West Side of Manhattan were trying to figure out a way to pull a kernel of opportunity from the death of James Jordan.The afternoon was appropriately gloomy, a sullen gray, humid. The ball rattled off the backboard and into the hands of Dyam Jennings, who is 15. A moment later, standing beside the court, he and a few friends asked how Michael Jordan was doing and said they worried that he would have a hard time next season when he will have to go onto the court without his father nearby.

CHICAGO -- Buck, dunk the ball!Now they are the Repeata-Bulls, just as they had been the Unbeata-Bulls since way back at Christmas, so there is only mild notice -- outside Chicago, that is -- that the Bulls are champions of the NBA. It long has been foregone, if not preordained.Buck, hold on to the ball!"We were still tall at the end," Michael Jordan said. "It may not have looked pretty, but tonight we still are tall."So, long after it was over, Jordan led his teammates back into the madhouse that was Chicago Stadium, the old war house still full with its 20,000 Bulls maniacs, and Jordan held the title trophy over his head and danced around the court.

DEERFIELD, Ill. -- He retired, but he didn't rule out a comeback. He said his father's death wasn't the impetus, but his most moving words were about his dad. He insisted the media didn't drive him away from the game, but he didn't miss a chance to jab at reporters during yesterday's news conference.Michael Jordan is leaving in his prime, and he made it clear that he is leaving on his own terms.More than 400 reporters gathered at the Chicago Bulls' training facility in suburban Chicago to hear Jordan say that he is retiring because he has nothing left to prove on the basketball court.

Michael Jordan will be back. Next year. You wait and see.Right now, Jordan probably doesn't realize that himself.His decision to retire at the age of 30 is 100 percent sincere. It's also 100 percent understandable.The past year and a half have been a meat grinder to Michael Jordan's psyche.From leading the Bulls to their second straight NBA title in '92, he went straight to the Olympics and controversy there regarding Nike (Jordan's line) and Reebok (official equipper of the U.S. team), right back to another arduous NBA championship season, which saw Michael involved in another controversy over his late-night trip during the playoff series with the Knicks to gamble in Atlantic City.

He wasn't a multimillionaire back then, just a 19-year-old kid from a small North Carolina town who had made a jump shot that launched a legend.He wasn't a reclusive superstar back then, just a college sophomore whose life had started to change a few months before, when his 17-footer beat Georgetown for the NCAA championship."

A white business owner came to his office and said to his secretary: "Thank goodness they caught those two guys."He was talking about the two young men who had been arrested in the murder of James Jordan, Michael's father.The secretary, who is black, scowled, shook her head and said: "You don't really believe those boys did it, do you? It's a cover-up."He was too stunned to ask her who she thought really did it, and who was arranging the "cover-up."Later, he told me: "My goodness, look at all the evidence.

When the news becomes too bleak and the murders too numerous and heinous, I become an avid supporter of the death penalty. This is my visceral reaction, as I'm sure it is for many people.l We are all bombarded daily by news of the cruelest acts of violence man can commit against his fellow man. The death penalty is like grasping at straws. It's an attempt to put an end to extreme violence in a culture where fear and uncertainty stalk the innocent, violating the unexpecting with random cruelty.

THE youngsters on the basketball court on the Upper West Side of Manhattan were trying to figure out a way to pull a kernel of opportunity from the death of James Jordan.The afternoon was appropriately gloomy, a sullen gray, humid. The ball rattled off the backboard and into the hands of Dyam Jennings, who is 15. A moment later, standing beside the court, he and a few friends asked how Michael Jordan was doing and said they worried that he would have a hard time next season when he will have to go onto the court without his father nearby.

When the news becomes too bleak and the murders too numerous and heinous, I become an avid supporter of the death penalty. This is my visceral reaction, as I'm sure it is for many people.l We are all bombarded daily by news of the cruelest acts of violence man can commit against his fellow man. The death penalty is like grasping at straws. It's an attempt to put an end to extreme violence in a culture where fear and uncertainty stalk the innocent, violating the unexpecting with random cruelty.

Michael Jordan will be back. Next year. You wait and see.Right now, Jordan probably doesn't realize that himself.His decision to retire at the age of 30 is 100 percent sincere. It's also 100 percent understandable.The past year and a half have been a meat grinder to Michael Jordan's psyche.From leading the Bulls to their second straight NBA title in '92, he went straight to the Olympics and controversy there regarding Nike (Jordan's line) and Reebok (official equipper of the U.S. team), right back to another arduous NBA championship season, which saw Michael involved in another controversy over his late-night trip during the playoff series with the Knicks to gamble in Atlantic City.

We seem to have answered all the questions in the murder of Michael Jordan's father except the really important one: What are we going to do about it?I don't mean short-term what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it. That's easy. You have two kids charged with first-degree murder who, if found guilty, will get all the law allows. This will be a celebrity trial, meaning no plea bargains, no reduced sentences, no business as usual.Whoever did it killed the wrong guy. The world will be watching. And, certainly, the case has all the elements of great criminal theater.

Washington -- Three celebrated cases of death and alleged deceit during the last several months have driven me to a harsh judgment of my own profession.I have watched and been a part of the media frenzy over the murder of James Jordan, father of Chicago Bulls basketball star Michael; the indictments of Robert A. Altman and his law partner and former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford in the BCCI scandal, and the alleged suicide of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster. I now conclude:* The media are coming to disregard, to a shameful, disturbing degree, the basic American assumption that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty.