Thomas Wolfe had it all wrong when he said "You can't go home again."
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What he should have said was, "You can go home again. Although you may have to compete with some 24-year-old punk from Cal who has thrown for less NFL yards than you have touchdowns."
Or something like that.
Unretirement is a tricky proposition and there is evidence to prove it: Roger Clemens' Yankee-issued retirement SUV, awkward looking basketball cards featuring Michael Jordan in Wizards' blue and Favre's teary goodbye press conference captured on YouTube.
We, as fans, can forgive just about anything. Drug use? Okay. Infidelity? We'll overlook it. Legal problems? The Bengals still exist, don't they? But don't you dare tell us you're going to retire and then change your mind.
That kind of behavior toys with our emotions and ruins our fantasy keeper leagues.
Favre's return to the NFL will take the crisp and glowing synopsis of his career and allow history to add a semicolon.
Favre was one of the most accomplished passers and entertaining quarterbacks in NFL history; however, in his 2008 return ... How will that sentence finish? Maybe we can learn something by looking back at the varied unretirement history of some of the world's greatest athletes.
Good Unretirements
George Foreman, 1994
Two decades after his loss to Muhammad Ali in the "Rumble in the Jungle" and after stepping away from the ring for a decade, Foreman stunned everyone. The 45-year-old dropped Michael Moorer with a right that opened up Moorer's lower lip and sent him to the canvas. The knockout earned him both the IBF and WBA titles and put the world's most famous grill salesman atop the list of greatest unretirees.
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| Seeing Jordan sporting No. 45 is like seeing Superman in capri pants. (Getty Images) |
Pele, 1975
For God's sake, the man made soccer popular in America. That's not just success, that's Nobel Prize-worthy. The world's greatest footballer graced our homeland when he unretired to play for the New York Cosmos in 1975. His 107 goals in three years didn't approach his Brazilian net-finding prowless, but that was secondary to what his legend brought stateside.
Sugar Ray Leonard, 1986
Boxers are the kings of unretirement and Leonard is the undisputed heavyweight champion. On several occasions, he announce he was done with the sport. But his first and best reemergence came in 1986 when he announced a long-awaited bout with Marvin Hagler for the middleweight championship. The result was a thrilling and controversial bout in which the heavy underdog, Leonard, won a 12-round decision and went back into reretirement (for awhile).
Decent Unretirements
Mario Lemieux, 2000
Super Mario made his presence felt immediately with an assist just 33 seconds into the first shift of his return and he finished the 2000-2001 season 26th in the league in scoring, despite missing nearly half the season. Lemieux led the Penguins to the Eastern Conference Finals and continued to be one of the NHL's top scoring threats. However, his comeback was bittersweet. While his ownership and starpower almost certainly kept Pittsburgh from losing the franchise, his back injuries kept him from being the star he was and Pittsburgh plummeted to the bottom of the standings.
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| Despite early exits and less-than-perfect returns, Magic and MJ sit atop NBA's Mount Olympus. (Getty Images) |
Okay, watching the former point guard as an overweight, lumbering forward in 1996 wasn't pretty. But his initial unretirement at the 1992 NBA All-Star Game included a 25-point performance and MVP honors. Johnson also competed and won gold with the Dream Team after telling the world that he had contracted the HIV virus. All in all, Johnson's courageous efforts outweigh his mediocre impact on the court.
Roger Clemens, 2004
When Roger Clemens came out of retirement and won the Cy Young Award with Houston, we all wondered how a guy over 40 could pitch like that. Unfortunately for The Rocket, Brian McNamee had an answer for that question. Would the allegation have become public if he stayed retired? Probably. Either way, one of the greatest unretirement stories of all time has been lost in the controversy.
Bad Unretirements
Michael Jordan, Part II, 2001
It takes a true all-time great to come through bad unretirements unscathed and Favre better hope he's in this category. M.J.'s comeback with the Wizards was an exercise in ego. It was a failed bet that he could restore a franchise and enhance his investment by sheer force of his will. Either that, or it was penance for that Kwame Brown pick. In either case, seeing Jordan in a Wizards jersey was a shock to any fan's system and despite leading the team in scoring, his time in Washington played out more like a traveling No. 23 honorarium than a comeback.
Muhammad Ali, 1980 Just like Jordan's Game 6 shot against Utah, Ali had a chance to walk off into the sunset when retired after beating Leon Spinks to win the heavyweight title in 1978. The three-time champ couldn't bring himself to call it quits, though, and was soundly defeated by Larry Holmes despite his claim that he would be "mine in nine." Ali was injured and wasn't allowed to come out for the 11th round -- his first career loss by anything other than a decision. A unanimous loss to up-and-coming Trevor Berbick in 1981 was Ali's final fight.
Sonny Amato is a SPiN Columnist and regular contributor to The Meaningful Collateral.
