COMMENTARY : If He Cleans Up His Act, Tyson II Can Be Boffo

If you looked at the early morning television pictures too quickly Saturday, if you did not recognize the man in the white skullcap right away, you could not tell whether Mike Tyson was coming out of prison or going in.

There were walk-around guys surrounding him, as there always were when he was still champion. There was another guy who looked like a power forward shielding Tyson with a raincoat, as though Tyson had just been convicted of something new between the prison gates and the limousine. And there was Don King. King and Tyson went to a mosque from prison. Even King knelt in prayer, though it is more likely he spotted some loose change on the floor.

This was the beginning of the rest of Mike Tyson’s life. Michael Jordan began one kind of second act this week, now Tyson begins another. Tyson’s second act can be more dramatic than Jordan’s, because there is a chance of growth with him if he wants it.

Jordan doesn’t need redemption. Whatever happened in Jordan’s life, he comes back to basketball as a sports hero. Tyson, despite his earning potential, is remembered as the violent bum who raped Desiree Washington in an Indianapolis hotel room. People no longer remember that Tyson once was more famous than Jordan, all over the world. And made more money.

If Tyson can get back there without acting like a bum, he is the better story the rest of the way.

It probably is a safer bet to go the other way, of course. Tyson could be back behind bars within a year, and no one would be surprised. He had all the heavyweight titles once, all the money, and blew it all because he could not distinguish between a fighter in the ring and any woman with whom he was alone.

“I’m supposed to be the epitome of a man,� he said to me once, in his dressing room in Atlantic City, before a fight with Tyrell Biggs eight years ago. “I’m supposed to be macho. So I’m macho.� The whole world knows now how that turned out for him. His rap sheet does not go away just because he can still draw a crowd, or still can make as much money as Jordan, even fighting twice a year.

Tyson gets a second chance now. The law says he gets that. Tyson has been through the system and survived three years behind bars, and that was never a safe bet, either. He still is young enough to show everybody that he does not intend to go through the rest of his life acting mean and stupid.

Everybody acts as if Tyson has been some sort of fascinating character. Boxing will build up anyone this way, even criminals, as long as they can hit hard enough. But Tyson could become a great character the rest of the way, be bigger than he ever was, even reach people Jordan cannot reach, if he has it in him. Maybe he can do it even with King around. It always has been too easy to blame King for everything that happened to Tyson, anyway.

King wasn’t much help, but neither were the late Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton, once Tyson’s co-managers, even though both Jacobs and Cayton now are remembered as taking better care of Tyson than the Secret Service does the President. I remember listening to Jacobs and Cayton when some British reporters wanted them to address a rumor going around at the time that Tyson might be gay.

Bill Cayton said, “Mike Tyson is the ultimate heterosexual,� and made that sound almost noble.

Jimmy Jacobs said, “If there’s a Guinness Book of World Records category for, you know, gals, I think the record is in jeopardy with Mike Tyson.�

He paused and said, “The gals lined up around the block, OK?�

It was around the time Cayton and Jacobs paid off some Los Angeles parking attendant after Tyson slapped him around. Tyson tried to force a kiss on a woman, the attendant stepped in and Tyson hit him with an open palm. O.J. Simpson had incidents of spousal abuse in his past, and now people who think he killed his wife want to know why no one recognized danger signs, why no one stopped him. There were signs all over the place with Tyson, all kinds of crack-ups, until he ended up in prison. None of the people around him cared very much, because the money was still there even after his title was gone.

But you cannot blame everything in Tyson’s life on his handlers.

Mike Tyson can have a big second act, as big as Michael Jordan’s. But only if the first act is really over.