There was a fellow screaming into his cell phone on the corner of 51st and Fifth Avenue early Tuesday afternoon. He got the tickets, he was explaining with some excitement to someone.

"No," he exclaimed. "Not the Yankees' tickets. The Jordan tickets!"

Michael Jordan Returns: The Second Coming wasn't, of course, the only must-see show off-Broadway on Tuesday night.

But after months of will he or won't he, rumor and hearsay, and more buzz than can be delivered by a triple espresso laced with ephedrine, it was the must-see show. Kind of like a one-evening engagement with Streisand. The Yankees would play another night.

So they crowded around the blue police barricades that circled Madison Square Garden as tip-off neared. Those who couldn't get in, just wanted to be there. Just wanted to say they were close to the show.