A friend from Washington was incredulous.

"Do you realize," he said, "that the [Washington] Post had seven stories on [Michael] Jordan when he decided to come back?"

"Seven stories?" I replied. "If Jordan came back to the Bulls, we'd be doing seven straight days of special sections."

Indeed, Washington has a long way to go to beat Chicago when it comes to going overboard on Jordan. When asked if it was possible for his paper to do too much on Jordan, Post sports editor George Solomon said, "Your paper once did 21 stories off a Bulls [NBA] Finals game, so let's not go there."

Make no mistake, however, the Washington media is very excited about having the use of Chicago's favorite icon.

While the town is plenty occupied with more important and critical matters, Jordan isn't going unnoticed. His full magnitude could be seen on the day of his coming-out press conference, when he became the first non-terrorist story to run on the front of Post since Sept. 11.