Michael Jordan's minor league manager Terry Francona says he could have made the majors with a 3-year commitment to baseball

• Michael Jordan could have played in the majors if he had committed to baseball for three years, according to his manager in the minors, Terry Francona.
• Francona said that Jordan's natural ability and refusal to take "no" as an answer made him a believer in Jordan's chances of making the majors.
• "I found out first hand, when you tell Michael no, he finds a way to make the answer be yes," Francona said. "And it doesn't matter what you're doing, he's really good at that."
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Michael Jordan's minor league manager says he could have made the majors if he had been willing to commit to the sport for three years.

Terry Francona, who managed Jordan with the Birmingham Barons in 1994 before jumping to the majors to manage the Phillies, Red Sox, and now Cleveland Indians, told "SportsCenter" on Tuesday night that both Jordan's ability as an athlete and his refusal to accept defeat proved he was cut out for major league baseball.

"If he had been willing to commit three years, I think he would have found his way to the major leagues, I really believe that," Francona told ESPN's Scott Van Pelt. "One, because of some of the tools he had, but the other one and maybe more important, and I found out first hand, when you tell Michael 'no,' he finds a way to make the answer be 'yes.' And it doesn't matter what you're doing, he's really good at that."

Francona said he didn't know what to expect from Jordan's ability when he first joined the team, but his respect for the game gave him faith that he'd find a way to make it work.

"One of the first things I asked him, I said, 'Hey, for this to work, you've gotta respect what we're doing and the game.' Because that was important to me," Francona said. "I had 24 other guys that had worked really hard to get to the Double-A level, they weren't making very much money, and that was important to me."

"And I'll tell you what, that's why it worked so well. His respect for the game, and the people in the game, was so refreshing. It's why we enjoyed him so much, and probably why I felt the need to be protective of him because you know a lot of people were getting on him about playing baseball. And he was so respectful about it that I just really appreciated that."

Rather than stick to baseball, Jordan wound up leaving the sport to return to the Chicago Bulls and win three more championships. All in all, things worked out alright for him.

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