After all the misery, humiliation, boredom and drudgery, it appears the baseball strike may finally have done the sporting world some good:

Michael is coming back.

Or so we think.

For the past week or so, everyone who's anyone has been buzzing about rumors from Chicago that a certain shooting guard, sick of waiting for his "hobby" to resume play, might rejoin his old team in time for the playoffs.

Michael show up at practice. Michael dunks. Michael scores. Michael laughs with Scottie Pippen. Michael pulls babies out of burning buildings.

So great is the hype that even Newsweek, that Crimson favorite, gave the breaking news front-cover billing.

At this point, it may not be ridiculous to ask just what is going on here. After all, Michael Jordan, no matter how skilled, is still only one basketball player. Can he really make that much of a difference? Should he even be allowed to bounce back and forth between sports like a ping-pong ball, until he finds a level that can satisfy his competitive needs?

Understand one thing about Jordan: none of the rules apply to him. Whether it be on the court, where he soars and turns in defiance of gravity, or off it, where he trades his sneakers for a glove, Michael does things a professional athlete isn't supposed to do.

The simple fact is that Joirdan can do what he wants, when he wants. As sports fans, we can either sit around whinning about this injustice or relax and watch what happens, a course that seems a lot more enjoyable to me.

The greatest thing about Jordan's comeback, unlike so many thins in the sports would today (hint: strike), is that the people who will benefit most from it are basketball fans worldwide.

For the 18 months Jordan toiled in Birmingham, the NBA became a league without direction.

Charles Barkely and Shaquille O'Neal are great, charismatic players, Akeem Olajuwon, Anfernee Hardaway and Pippen do some amazing things on a nightly basis.

But none is Michael. None of them have that unique blend of scoring, defense power, finesse, and charisma that landed the Bulls and awesome three consecutive championships.

As well all watched the Rockets and Knicks stumble and claw through the most tedious finals in NBA history, these memories became more and more distant.

The timing is no less than perfect for Jordan's return. After all, the real reason he left basketball was not his burning passion to play minor league baseball, as romantic as that sounds. No, Jordan retired because he had simply accomplished everything that could be accomplished in basketball.

But by returning now, however, Jordan would present himself with perhaps the greatest challenge of his career: single-handedly turning around the fortunes of the Bulls, a team depleted by free agency and mired around the. 500 mark, and leading them to Yet another championship.

It's almost as if Jordan wanted to wait for the rest for the teams in the league to catch up to the Bulls, just as a one-on-one player might spot his overmatched opponent a few points to have a challenge.

There's no telling whether he can do it. Orlando, Phoenix, and even the Knicks are having fine seasons. But I wouldn't want to bet against it. Jordan may be a little rusty, but I seriously doubt that he will need many games to get back to his old ways.

It's very easy to get depressed about the sports would these days. The strike's never going to end, the NCAA tourney will be gone in a couple of weeks, football's over, and hockey's hockey. We need a light at the end of the tunnel.

Help us, Michael Jordan. You're our only hope.