Comeback To 1995 The Year Marked A Period Of Team And Individual Returns To Greatness

Tyson II. Jordan II. Seles II.

Everyone came back in 1995.

The 49ers. UCLA. The Beatles.

John Daly. Mario Lemieux. Ernie Irvan.

Even Northwestern, stuck in the library since 1949, is Rose Bowl bound.

It was a year of revivals and sequels, records and memories. A year when a quaint old pastime brought back something called the World Series. And right there, too, were the Cleveland Indians, of all teams, back in the Series for the first time since 1954, losing painfully once more.

The year had a pleasing familiarity, as if we’d seen it all before though not quite the same way, a Yogi year - deja vu all over again.

We’d seen Cal Ripken Jr. play and play and play, but it wasn’t until he did it for the 2,130th consecutive time to tie Lou Gehrig’s record, and then played again to set his own, that the nation stopped to applaud his professionalism.

We’d seen Jerry Rice make catches in Super Bowls when Joe Montana was throwing from the right, and last January we saw him do it again with Steve Young throwing from the left. This season, Rice even caught passes from Elvis to lead the 49ers toward another playoff.

We’d seen Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open before, only this time they did it to cap a year of emotional traumas so painful it brought tears to their eyes.

We hadn’t seen the UCLA Bruins win the Final Four since former coach John Wooden won his 10th in 1975, but there they were in April, Jim Harrick prowling the sideline and Wooden looking on happily, as they beat Arkansas in the Kingdome.

“He was always a champion in my book,” Wooden said of Harrick. “Now it’s time for others to recognize it.”

We saw Hakeem Olajuwon rule the basketball court with the dignity of a king to bring Houston a second consecutive NBA title. And we saw Greg Maddux dominate the diamond to capture a fourth straight Cy Young and lead Atlanta to the championship at last.

We came to expect greatness of them, and they delivered this year when we needed it most, when we were still mired in 1994’s Tonya & Nancy mess, O.J.’s arrest, and the baseball strike.

This year had its share of farce: The O.J. trial. The Don King trial. Most of all Mike Tyson’s re-entry to the ring, an 89-second fiasco.

But the year was more memorable for the honest, sometimes courageous comebacks of athletes we missed most.

We could all admire Mario Lemieux’s challenge for the NHL scoring title after an 18-month absence because of back pain, fatigue, anemia and a bout with Hodgkin’s disease.

“I worked hard during the off-season to become one of the best players in this league,” Lemieux said recently, “and although I’m not 100 percent healthy, I’m getting stronger.”

Ernie Irvan got behind a wheel again and started racing a year after he nearly died from head and chest injuries in a crash. First he wore an eye patch, then glasses that gave him more peripheral vision, and now he’s shooting for Daytona in February.

Ron Gant of the Cincinnati Reds worked himself back near the top after breaking both bones in his lower right leg in a dirtbike accident last year.

John Daly overcame alcoholism to capture the British Open in a playoff, acknowledging at St. Andrews, “I don’t think I would be here today if I were still drinking.”

Monica Seles won her first tournament back, the Canadian Open, and reached the final of the U.S. Open as she overcame the physical and psychological scars left from the knife attack in Germany in 1993.

Michael Jordan gave up his quixotic quest in baseball and returned home to hoops. He did himself no discredit even if he didn’t make the majors and couldn’t quite take the Chicago Bulls back to the title right away. In the new season, he’s off flying again, leading the league in scoring, the Jordan of old, not merely an old Jordan.

“It’s personal motivation,” Jordan said. “It’s a pride thing. I want to be on top.”

That “pride thing” is perhaps what linked them all and endeared them most to us. They chose to play on, to overcome injury and illness, weakness and fallibility. In cynical times, they offered a touch of class.