CYBERSPORT : THIS IS ALL JESSE VENTURA'S FAULT, YOU KNOW THAT?

Byline: Tom Hoffarth

NBA fans breathlessly await Michael Jordan's decision: Will he return to play one more year?

And then there are those who have more important issues: Will he run for president in 2000?

With a Web site that can be called both super-official looking and very superficial, the Draft Michael Jordan for President campaign (http://www.mj2000.org/) and its registration counterpart (http://www.stradigi.com/mjforum.htm) would be one the best pieces of parody going on the Internet. Except, unfortunately, it's deadly serious.

They state the site is ``paid for by MJ2000'' and ``is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.'' So Jordan doesn't know about it, probably. Which is why it's there - to get enough people to fill out survey forms so the results can be sent to Jordan to make him ``think seriously about running'' for the Oval Office.

Do you hesitate about giving out credit-card information on the Web? Giving out personal information to those organizing this site should be more frightful.

Since they won't take Political Action Committee (PAC) money, they're signing up volunteers and soliciting contributions. A $23 pledge gets you an ``Air Force 2000'' membership certificate, an ``I Like Mike'' bumper sticker, one straw-poll vote for MJ's running mate (how about Bugs Bunny?) and your contribution will be ``acknowledged'' on the MJ2000 Web site. Just so you know this is well intentioned, they only accept contributions up to $100, which, if so inclined, gets you all of the above plus a coffee mug and bumper sticker.

At the very least, the site makes itself useful by including a link to the Rock The Vote site (www.rockthevote.org) so you can get registered.

If only Bill Bradley had this kind of enthusiastic support.

No cherry-picking allowed: Online auction site eBay (http://www.ebay.com) will end bids today at noon on several historic home run balls it has to dangle out there from Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Henry Aaron.

A minimum bid of $100,000 is required for offers on McGwire's 70th home-run ball and Sosa's 66th, both hit last year, as is Aaron's 755th, the last of his career. You can't register today - that had to be done last week, with proof from a financial institution that you had the juice to back it up. Nor going to the special page (http://pages.ebay.com/aw/homerun-ball.html) can you watch the scramble since, to protect privacy, neither the bidders nor the amounts bid are displayed.

The top three bidders on each item, as well as other home run balls from McGwire and Sosa, will be notified shortly before the Guernsey auction house starts its live auction Tuesday in New York. Their bids will be used as starting prices and they can continue bidding by proxy on the Internet against those at the auction in person.