When Tom Brady announced that he was returning to football less than two months after he posted his retirement, social media was full of jokey memes of the legendary quarterback speeding back to work to cover his bills and to avoid being stuck at home with his kids.
Sports history is full of stories with star athletes coming out of retirement, but most of their stories inspired awe and wonderment rather than meme-fueled giggles.
For your consideration, here are five of the most dramatic examples of athletes who tried to pick up where they left off.
James J. Jeffries (boxing): Heavyweight champion Jeffries retired undefeated in May 1905 after six years at the top of the sport, but four years later he was the subject of intensive pressure from the media, the boxing establishment and many white Americans to return to the ring in order to stop the reign of Jack Johnson as the first black heavyweight champion.
Jeffries agreed to an extravagant financial incentive as a condition for his return, which required an intensive training regimen that resulted in a weight loss from 330 to 226 pounds. The fight took place in Reno, Nevada, on July 4, 1910, in an open-air venue in 110-degree heat. Jeffries tried gamely, but he was past this prime and Johnson won in a technical knockout.
Johnson’s victory sparked racial violence across the country, with white mobs angry over Jeffries’ loss attacking black communities in 50 cities. The newsreel footage of the fight was censored after the U.S. Congress passed a law in 1912 preventing the distribution of documentary boxing coverage. The ban ended in 1940. Jeffries never fought again and spent his remaining years as a boxing trainer and promoter before his death in 1953.
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Jim Bouton (baseball): Bouton was a well-regarded pitcher with the New York Yankees in the early 1960s until an injury derailed his career trajectory — by the end of the decade, he was relegated to bullpen duty with the Seattle Pilots. Bouton used his downtime to write the 1970 book “Ball Four,” a raw view of Major League Baseball that named names and incidents within an often-unflattering glimpse of the athletes’ lives out of public view.
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn called it “detrimental” to the sport and demanded that Bouton reclassify his work as fiction, which he refused. “Ball Four” led to an informal blacklisting of Bouton by the sport, and he switched gears to try his hand at TV sports broadcasting and acting in a short-lived sitcom based on his book.
In 1978, after a few unsuccessful attempts to rejoin baseball via the minors and a Mexican league, Bouton broke the blacklist by signing with the Atlanta Braves, coming into major league rotation in September after a season with the team’s Savannah Braves Class AA Southern League franchise. His experience resulted in another best-selling book, “The Greatest Summer,” followed by two reissues of “Ball Four.”
Björn Borg (tennis): In 1972, the tennis world was caught off-guard by the arrival of 15-year-old Borg, first as the youngest member of Sweden’s Davis Cup team and then as the winner of the Wimbledon junior singles title. He joined the professional tennis circuit in 1973 and quickly became one of the most successful players in tennis history, amassing 11 Grand Slam singles titles including six at the French Open and five consecutively at Wimbledon — only the U.S. Open eluded him.
In January 1983, the 26-year-old Borg announced his retirement from the sport. He switched his focus to the apparel industry and real estate ventures. Borg came out of retirement in 1991, reportedly because his business ventures faced financial peril and he was in need of quick funds. Oddly, he eschewed his longtime coach Lennart Bergelin and trained instead with 79-year-old Welsh fitness guru Ron Thatcher, who had no experience as a tennis coach.
But whatever power he possessed before was absent from the court and his performances on the court could charitably be described as embarrassing. Borg’s continued playing for another two years before retiring again. Last September, Borg re-emerged in Boston as the captain of Team Europe in the 2021 Laver Cup, with longtime rival John McEnroe facing him as captain of Team World. Team Europe defeated Team World 14−1.
Michael Jordan (basketball): The Chicago Bulls great walked away from the court on three separate occasions. In 1993, after nine years as the NBA’s most dominant force of energy, Jordan abruptly announced he was leaving basketball and re-emerged on the Birmingham Barons, the minor league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. But Jordan’s athletic skills did not transition to the new sport and he acknowledged that it was “embarrassing” and “frustrating” when trying to duplicate his abilities in the new surroundings.
Jordan returned to the Bulls in 1995. The team had retired his No. 23 at the end of 1994, which needed to be dusted off for a return to play. Jordan stayed with the Bulls until retiring again in January 1999. He then moved into the sport’s executive suite as part-owner and president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards.
Jordan came out of retirement again in September 2001 as a Wizards player, staying until his final game in April 2003.
Mario Lemieux (hockey): The Pittsburgh Penguins superstar retired twice during his career due to health problems. He hung up his skates in 1997 to receive treatment for lymphoma, and that year was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, which waived its mandatory three-year waiting period to accommodate his enshrinement.
Lemieux came out of retirement in 2000, and his return had an added dimension of excitement because he had acquired a majority stake in the Penguins one year earlier, making him the only player who was also his own boss. By 2006, he retired again at the age of 40 after being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.
Lemieux’s career was plagued by poor health, including chronic back pain and tendinitis, and he was never able to complete an entire season’s play. Still, no less a figure than Bobby Orr called Lemieux “the most talented player I've ever seen.”
Photo: James J. Jeffries versus Jack Johnson in their 1910 boxing match. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons
