Back in the late 1989, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar announced his retirement. But instead of immediately hanging up his sneakers, he played a final season, which allowed every NBA city to give him a glorious send-off.
Years later, Baltimore Orioles great Cal Ripken took a similar ?farewell tour? around the league. He announced his retirement in June 2001, then spent the next three months collecting gifts -- paintings, baseball cards and even soil from Chicago?s original Comiskey Park.
Of course, the big farewell tour doesn?t always work out so well. ?It?s a hell of a way to end a career. This whole year has been a nightmare,? baseball great Nolan Ryan announced in September 1993, when an injured right elbow ended his months-long retirement tour ahead of schedule.
This same thing might happen to Dan Rather. Even though he?s already announced his plans to step down, there?s still plenty of controversy around him.
Back in September, Rather broadcast transparently false documents that seemed to claim President Bush had shirked his National Guard duty in the 1970s. It took less than two hours for bloggers to debunk the documents, but it took Rather almost two weeks to announce that he?d been fleeced.
In the next few weeks or months, an independent panel headed up by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and Former AP Chief Executive Officer Louis Boccardi will finish investigating that story. If the results of that investigation are embarrassing enough, CBS might decide to end the Rather-era a few months early.
There?s nothing wrong with two weeks notice. Dan Rather should do himself and others a favor and just leave now. Oh, and Dan, as some readers have said to me: Don?t let the door hit you on the way out.