The Best Of 1995: SPORTS COMEBACKS

1 HERE COMES MR. JORDAN: Michael, for some reason, decided the bright lights of Greenville, Huntsville, Knoxville, Jacksonville and the other villes of minor- league baseball were not for him. In a year of many happy returns, the renewed sight of Jordan--tongue and all--in a Bulls uniform was the most welcome. He gave the team a boost, unslumped the big shoulders of Chicago and demonstrated that even when rusty, he's still His Airness. The White Sox may have lost a fifth outfielder, but the planet regained its best basketball player.

2 A GAME OF SUPER MARIO The Pittsburgh Penguins' slogan for this season is "The Three Most Feared Words in Hockey--Mario Is Back." The three most inspiring too. After a hiatus of 18 months because of treatment for Hodgkin's disease, two back operations and a bone infection, Lemieux is headed for his fifth scoring title.

3 A WIN FOR THE OLD MASTER Ben Crenshaw hadn't won a major tournament since the '84 Masters, his putting stroke had left him, and he teed off at Augusta the day after bearing mentor Harvey Penick's casket. But with Penick as spiritual caddy, the reverential Crenshaw won golf's most revered tourney.

4 BRUINS FROM THE RUINS 1975. John Wooden's final season at the helm. That's when ucla last won a national basketball title. Twenty years and six coaches later, Jim Harrick's Bruins defeated defending champion Arkansas despite the absence of star guard Tyus Edney. Making victory even sweeter was the presence at the Seattle finals of the 84-year-old Wooden.

5 SMASHING RETURN Monica Seles hadn't played competitively in more than two years after being stabbed by a lunatic Steffi Graf fan. But she won her first tournament test, then took Graf to three sets in the final of the U.S. Open before losing. At 21, her game was still intact, and so was her Valley-Girl-out-of-Yugoslavia charm.

6 ONE SPEEDY RECOVERY NASCAR driver Ernie Irvan was given a 10% chance of surviving after a '94 crash at Michigan International Speedway. But 13 months later, he was back, driving in a race in North Carolina. Though Irvan had to wear an eyepatch to eliminate double vision, he finished sixth and said, "It felt as if I'd been doing it last week."

7 THE OLD BALL GAME Thanks to the all-American virtues of Cal Ripken Jr., the all-Japanese windup of Hideo Nomo and an exciting though politically incorrect all-Indian World Series, the national pastime was back in good graces after the shame of '94. Of course, the players and owners still haven't smoked a peace pipe.

8 THE IRON AGE REVISITED Ripken was also responsible for bringing back the hallowed memory of the "Iron Horse," Lou Gehrig. By playing in 2,131--and counting--consecutive games for the Baltimore Orioles, the Iron Bird has channeled not only Gehrig's incredible work ethic but his grace and humility as well.

9 BACK UP ON THE HORSE Our toughest athlete may be a 100-lb. sprite who sits atop 1,000-lb. beasts. A year and a half after Julie Krone broke an anatomy course's worth of bones at Saratoga, she rode in the Kentucky Derby, finishing 11th.