JORDAN? Gretzky? Every sport gets one per millennium, so they retired in almost perfect time. Now, John Elway, one of the top five quarterbacks ever, also is leaving in the final year of the century, a coincidence spooky to more persons than just Mike Shanahan.

On Jan. 1, the computers are going to stop? Hey, what about the turnstiles? We assumed the mezzanine patrons were wearing sackcloth and ashes because that is all they could afford after season tickets. Now, it turns out these people are prepared to meet excitement’s doom.

It’s time to cue the next generation of living legends. And as soon as we find them, the shows can go on.

We’re not talking about the games now, because if owners and players haven’t killed them by now, they probably are immune to mediocrity, too. The sports aren’t necessarily going to turn rotten now that we’ve been spoiled.

Still, the competition itself may have to keep the lights on for awhile, a real concern in baseball and hockey as the gap between the haves and have-nots grows. It appears we are headed into an era where star quality will be dim. Players who form ticket lines, who prompt date circling, who compel you to a seat with the oft-delivered promise of lifting you out of it, are in short supply.

Take a look around. Quickly, too, because Mark McGwire is 35, much more a late-blooming phenomenon than a lasting icon. Injuries robbed McGwire of many at-bats in mid-career, and we’re going to need a couple of fast 60s out of him before his muscles soften.

Hopefully, fire remains in the fireballing Roger Clemens, 36, and Randy Johnson, 35, as they head into twilight. But, we have only a couple of years left to appreciate a few lingering, extraordinary performers, Rickey Henderson, Jerry Rice and Dan Marino among them. Meanwhile, we will hold any premature worship of Grant Hill, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Terrell Davis and Paul Kariya. They have to do it many more years before their grandchildren are put on notice for monument unveilings.

Until then, where are the great players in their 27-34-year-old primes? How many true superstars, not just stars, are out there? Who, over time, has proven worth the ever-growing price of admission?

Now, of course, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan set the bar up on Olympus, rendering talents that could be extraordinary in other eras to be little better than ordinary in this one. If no other generation got to see them even once, how can we complain we won’t see them twice? It’s almost as if Jordan and Gretzky created such whirlwinds, they sucked the greatness out of the potential heirs.

Baseball is best stocked. Junior Griffey is on target for 755, does everything with great skill and fluidity. Mike Piazza is average at best at his position, but people don’t come to see the catcher flash signs. Nobody has ever hit the ball consistently harder and few have been on a greater statistical pace seven years into their careers.

Barry Bonds has won as many MVPs (3) as Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Jimmy Foxx, and Stan Musial. Juan Gonzalez and Frank Thomas both have won as many (2) as Johnny Bench, Willie Mays and Ted Williams.

Greg Maddux? He is on the way to being the most dominant right-handed pitcher in history, but still is an acquired taste. You can watch surgeons operate on educational TV, but is that your choice on Saturday night? When the Dodgers were coming to town with Sandy Koufax, you counted the days in fours, figuring out what night to buy. Crowds don’t go up when Maddux pitches. Despite extraordinary production, nor do they for Albert Belle, for reasons of good taste. People do not stand in line for the opportunity to see the loathsome.

Football has two guys who would levitate the wallet from our pocket. Barry Sanders is in that class, no question, even if the Lions have never been able to make him more than just a warmup playoff act. Every game, Sanders breaks at least one. Brett Favre has verve and nerve, a gunslinger who would have cleaned up the Old West like it was the NFC West.

The NBA has become a wasteland of gamesmanship without game. Never mind the next Jordan, there is nobody even close to being the next Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Julius Erving. Shaquille O’Neal is a powerful presence, a physical freak on the level with Wilt Chamberlain, but far too flawed.

Hockey nominates Jaromir Jagr and Dominik Hasek, both talents so extraordinary they can make threadbare, low-budget teams dangerous in the playoffs every year. No team has ever thrown such a burden on a goalie as Buffalo does the Human Slinky to this much success. His Czech countryman is a consistent gamebreaker, a combination of size, strength and flair off the wing like the NHL hasn’t seen since Bobby Hull and Maurice Richard.

Maybe that’s enough superstars for any era but this one. Perhaps the supply needs a few years to regenerate while our expectations require a few years to level off.