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When I was growing up, my favorite cable channel was Sports News 99, a local ESPNEWS precursor that ran half-hour-long broadcasts throughout the entire day.  In the pre-Twitter (and mostly pre-Internet) world, it was the only place that relayed breaking NBA headlines, and I watched it religiously during the annual July free-agent bonanza.

The lead sports anchor was a Stacey Keach look-a-like who sported a cheesy ’stache to along with a stupid grin, and would’ve made Stuart Scott blush with his ridiculous catchphrases.  My favorite was the way he referred to Michael Jordan as, “Michael-Michael-motor-cycle” in sing-song fashion.  He would do this during every Jordan highlight, with no exceptions, and it never got old.  I had no idea what that meant at the time, nor do I get it now, but it continues to crack me up.

Yep, this almost never happened...

One day in early July 1997, he broadcast an “exclusive” report that Jordan was on the verge of signing a multi-year contract with the Denver Nuggets.  The initial sight of Jordan’s face next to a Nuggets logo made my jaw drop, and the corresponding “story” made it even more interesting.  According to Keach, Nike was pressuring the league’s best and most popular player to go to Denver for some kind of unexplained marketing purpose, and Jordan was contemplating leaving the then-five-time NBA champions for a team that won 21 games the previous season (and would go on to win 11 the following year).  Seriously.

Because I was naive enough to think that everything I saw on television had to be true, I called all of my friends and insisted that Jordan would soon be a Nugget.  No one believed me (with good reason, obviously), but I stuck to my “sources” despite not hearing or reading anything of the sort in any other publication.

Jordan, of course, went on to ink a historic one-year, $36-million extension with the Chicago Bulls, and coincidentally or not, Sports News 99 suddenly disappeared soon thereafter.  I called my cable provider and tried to find out why, but no one had any answers aside from informing me the channel would now show classic movies.  I never saw Keach again, and I sometimes wonder if it was all just a crazy dream.

With July 1, 2010 finally on the calendar, every reporter is trying to dig up new clues and information in a desperate attempt to be the first one to deliver breaking news.   I always think back to the absurd Jordan story whenever I hear a new, hot rumor that sounds completely made up or too good to be true, which probably applies to 98% of what’s on the internet (last I heard, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Carlos Boozer, Primoz Brezec, Brian Scalabrine,  Robert “Tractor” Traylor, D.J. Mbenga, and Dirk Nowitzki are having a top-secret meeting as they plot to end up in New York…).

Ah, we’ll always have “Michael-Michael-motor-cycle.”