Let’s begin!

OLYMPIC LEGEND: The Olympic rings date back to the Ancient Greek Olympics.

STATUS: False

As stated in an earlier edition of Olympic Legends Revealed, there is a popular misconception that the rings of the Olympic flag originally stood for the five continents of the world (with Antarctica not counted and the Americas counted as one continent).

However, there is another misconception that is a great deal more deliberate than people just forgetting what the Olympic flag originally stood for.

You see, back when Germany was hosting the Olympics, they were really into the idea of tying Nazism and Germany in with the Ancient Greek history, so they introduced the idea of the Lighting of the Torch and the Torch Relay (as related in an earlier Olympic Legends Revealed).

Well, they also decided they wanted to tie in the modern Olympics even more with the Ancient Olympics, so they actually carved the modern Olympic rings into an ancient stone at Delphi in Greece!!!

Yes, the Nazis’ great idea was to desecrate ancient ruins!

In Leni Riefenstahl’s stunning film of the Olympic Games, she filmed the torch relay from Delphi, and she made sure to note the “ancient” rings carved in the stone.

But whatever, so some Nazis decided to make up some stuff - that shouldn’t affect the rest of the world, should it?

It shouldn’t havem, except some time in the 1950s, a couple of British archaeologists “discovered” the ancient stone with the rings and made a big deal about their “discovery.”

And as a result, the “discovery” went into the news as a genuine historical find, and you know how people are, the reveal is on Page 1 of the paper (or Page 1 of the section of the paper where things like this would be) but the “Oops, this is actually a modern carving in an ancient rock” statement is always on Page 24.

So the story has carried on to this very day, but now we know, it’s baloney.

OLYMPIC LEGEND: A British athlete had to make a quick (and strange) move to find a country to compete for in the Olympics.

STATUS: True

Yamilé Aldama has a problem.

The Cuban born triple jumper had been living in London, England, for three years, but she was unable to obtain a passport.

She had competed for Cuba in the 2000 Summer Olympics in the triple jump (coming in fourth) and now she wanted to compete for England.

However, things were going quite slowly (it did not help that her Scottish-born husband had recently been arrested on drug charges), and she already had missed out on the 2003 World Championships in France because of her lack of a passport.

Despite the aide of UK Athletics, the earliest she could obtain a British passport would be November 2004, some three months after the conclusion of the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

With seemingly nowhere else to turn, Aldama turned to, of all places, the Sudan.

She traveled to the capital city of Sudan, Khartoum, and within two days, the large African nation (large in size and population but low on Olympic medals) now had one more citizen, Yamilé Aldama.

Aldama has done well for her new country at the various African championships, coming in first in her even three times since 2004, but the games that she was “hired” for, the 2004 Olympics, saw a smaller return on Sudan’s “investmant,” as Aldama came in fifth in the event.

She did not compete in 2008.

OLYMPIC LEGEND: A 17 year old took up the decathlon a few months before he won the Gold Medal in the event.

STATUS: True

Bob Mathias was a sensational high school athlete whose high school career was coming to a close at the start of 1948, his senior year. Mathias already had received over FORTY first place finishes in various track and field events and had won the California Interscholastic Federation discus and shot put champion in 1947.

In the spring of 1948, his coach figured he could use a new challenge, so he suggested that Mathias try out for the decathlon in the Southern Pacific American Amateur Union Games in Los Angeles. The games were literally three weeks away, and Mathias had to actually learn how to play some of the games that make up the decathlon, including to pole vault and throw a javelin.

After three weeks of training, he won the competition easily.

Two weeks later, he was traveling cross country to New Jersey where the Natonal tournament was held (winner would go to the Olympics). He won that also handedly.

The Summer Olympics were in London at the end of July.

Mathias ended the first day third out of 39 competitors, but by the second day he was in first and after the last day, he had easily won! He was, at 17 years of age, the youngest man to win a Gold Medal in track and field in Olympic history!

Now a Gold Medal winner, Mathias saw himself named the Amateur Athlete of the Year in 1948.

Sadly for Mathias, his academic abilities were not on the same part as his athletic abilities, so he had to go to a junior college for a year before he was finally allowed into Stanford.

In 1952, he won his SECOND Gold Medal in the decathlon, defeating the second place athlete by the largest margin in decathlon history.

Mathias did a few different things for the next decade (include get married). He starred in a film adaptation of his life (alongside his wife, also playing herself). He joined the Marines. He ran his own camp.

Finally, in 1966, he ran for Congress in California as a Republican and won. He served four terms before finally being defeated in 1974.

He stayed involved in politics for the next few years, then spent the rest of his life involved in athletics, as part of various Olympic committees and the National Fitness Foundation.

He passed away in 2006 from cancer at the age of 75.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

This installment is a re-format edition, so these legends have already been posted on this site, just not in this format.

Let’s begin!

OLYMPIC LEGEND: The idea of running a four minute mile was considered impossible before Roger Bannister did it in 1954.

STATUS: False

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister amazed and delighted the world when he became the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes, with a time of 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds.

The former Olympic competitor (1952 Olympics, where he failed to medal) Bannister instantly became one of the most famous athletes in the world, and even today, his name is one of the more recognizable ones in sports history.

One of the most standout aspects of his success was the idea that was being passed around at the time that what he did was “impossible.”

If you do a quick search for the 4 minute mile and “impossible,” you get quotes like:

“Before 1954, it seemed to be a physical barrier that humans could not cross. It was impossible.”

“Runners were told by scientists that it was physically impossible to run a mile under 4 minutes.”

“It was believed that the 4 minute mile was physically impossible. And it was commonly accepted. It was a fact.”

“Many philosophers and physiologists supposed that it was impossible for anybody to run that fast.”

“Before the 1950’s, running the mile in under four minutes was considered impossible.”

I think you get the gist of it.

This particular brand of thought is being brought about a lot lately due to the fact that it works well for a certain brand of philosophy, or, more specifically, a certain brand of “self-help” - to wit, everyone thought it was impossible, but then Bannister did it, and within FIFTY DAYS (forty-six, to be precise), Bannister’s record was broken, and THAT record was broken and so on and so forth (the current record in the mile is a shocking 3 minutes and 43.13 seconds, set by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999). So the theory is that if you BELIEVE something is impossible, it is, so you only need to believe in yourself and your ability to achieve a goal, and you will be able to. Yadda yadda yadda.

So, at the heart of the matter, WAS the Four Minute Mile considered impossible?

There are really two answers to this one.

Yes, it WAS considered impossible - by the general public who were being fed the line constantly by sportswriters. And yes, there were scientists who proclaimed that it was impossible. But there were scientists who said that it WAS possible.

In the sport itself, though, it was deemed a sheer inevitability.

What people tend to gloss over is the fact that sports, as a whole, took a big hit from World War II, by way of athletes being involved in you know, World War II, rather than training to set new world records.

If you look at the progress of runners BEFORE the War, it was pretty evident that the four minute mile WAS going to be broken, it was just a matter of who did it. Heck, in 1942-1945, the record in the mile had already been shaved off by FIVE seconds down to just barely over four minutes. It just so happened that that 1945 record was held for longer than usual due to the War. The War through off the time tables, but by the early 1950s, Bannister and his peers all knew ONE of them would eventually run the four minute mile - it was just a matter of who would do it first.

So while yeah, sportswriters definitely did harp on the whole “it’s impossible!” thing frequently, and even some scientists got in on the act, ultimately, everyone involved knew it was possible.

NOTE: Yes, I did sort of stretch things to include Bannister here with the Olympic legends. He WAS an Olympian, though!

OLYMPIC LEGEND: Tara Lipinski stood on Tupperware as a 2-year-old to imitate the Gold Medal winners at the Olympic Games.

STATUS: True

First off, note that it is Tupperware with a capital “T.” I love that my spell-check is looking out for Tupperware’s trademark.

In any event, Tara Lipinski burst on to the world scene in 1997 when she won both the World AND the US Figure Skating Championships at the tender age of 14.

The International Skating Union actually ruled, in 1996, to make 15 the minimum age a skater had to be to compete. However, luckily for Lipinski, they grandfathered her in, so she was able to compete in 1997 at 14.

The next year, Lipinski once again shocked the world by winning the Olympic Gold Medal for Figure Skating at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Lipinski soon went pro.

After a few injuries, her pro career finished and nowadays, she’s pursuing a career in acting and personality work in Los Angeles.

Okay, the legend about Lipinski is a difficult one to pin down, because it involves conflicting reports from her parents, Jack and Pat Lipinksi.

As the story goes, when Tara was 2 years old and the 1984 Summer Olympics were on, she was enthralled by the award ceremonies, so when they went to step on the podium, she wanted to stand on one of her own, so her mother supplied her with a Tupperware podium.

The story changed a lot over the years, with one very popular variation being that it happened when she was 6 years old in 1988, and that it was the WINTER Olympics watching Katarina Witt.

However, the biggest problem the story has is that Tara’s father was quoted in 1997 about the story (which was a popular one even before she won Olympic Gold, although at the time, the story went that she made a podium out of boxes) saying:

It was actually two years ago. And it was Tupperware not boxes. It was the Summer Games. Every time some anthem would be playing, she would stand on a Tupperware bowl.

He continued:

It makes me look bad, the story about the boxes. It was like I was already at that age pushing her to be champion.

In Lipinski’s biography, she repeats the 2-year-old claim.

A couple of years ago, a fan asked her pretty point blank about the confusion between 12 years old (which would be her age if it had happened, like her father said, “two years ago”) and 2 (the fan actually says 3, but I think that’s just confusion) in an online Q&A, and Lipinski answered:

I was actually 2 years old when this happened and this story has been misinterpreted over the years. My mom was watching the 1984 Summer Olympics. When the athletes were on the podium and the anthems were playing, I wanted to copy them. That’s when my mom gave me some Tupperware to stand on.

This is a tough one, but I think I’m going to side with Tara (her mother has also repeated the 2-year-old part) against her father. In fact, I think that there’s a decent chance that he was misquoted and instead of saying “2 years ago” (which wouldn’t even work, as there was no Olympic Games in 1995) he actually said “she was 2 years old.”

A 12-year-old competitive skater sitting on Tupperware pretending to win a medal in 1995 (when there were no Olympics)?

That doesn’t make nearly as much sense as a 2 year old standing on Tupperware mimicking the people she saw on TV in 1984 (when there were Olympics).

So, I’m going with true!

OLYMPIC LEGEND: A German man was ordered to pretend to a woman to win a medal for Germany in the 1936 Summer Olympics.

STATUS: True

As we’ve discussed in the past, Adolf Hitler was really into the idea of Germany hosting the Olympics in 1936. He looked at the Olympics as a perfect way to show the world that Germany was made of the finest stock in the world.

A problem for Hitler was that in the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, the United States took home 102 medals (41 gold) while Germany only won 20 medals (3 gold).

Hitler began a grand undertaking to ensure that Germany would be the leading medal winners when Germany hosted the Games in 1936, and Hitler was successful, as Germany took home 89 medals to the United States’ second place finish of 56 (33 golds to 24 in favor of Germany).

However, one such attempt to bring home a medal was a bit…peculiar, to say the least.

An eighteen year old German male named Hermann Ratjen was asked by the Nazi Youth movement to compete in the 1936 Summer Olympics in the Women’s High Jump.

He did so, and competed in the Games as Dora Ratjen.

According to fellow German high jumper Gretel Bergmann:

I never suspected anything. I just said, ‘She’s kind of weird’ but she was a nice kid. We got along very well.

I never looked when she undressed or most likely she never got undressed in front of me completely. We had this huge shower room and we all took showers in there and she never came in, always went into this little room which had a bath. That was supposed to be off-limits, but she went in there.

All the girls thought she was a little unusual – pretty deep voice – and they made fun of her.

Amazingly enough, the ploy did not even work, as Ratjen came in fourth in the competition!

Ratjen continued to compete as a woman, but coming back from the European Championships in 1938 (where he set a new World’s Record in the Women’s High Jump) he was discovered, due to two women noticing he had five o’clock shadow.

He was barred from the sport (naturally).

Crazy stuff.

Thanks to Christopher Hilton’s piece in The Independent for the Bergmann quotes!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL LEGEND: Cornelius McGillicuddy changed his name to Connie Mack because he was tired of writing his name on the scorecard each day.

STATUS: False

As the story goes, Cornelius McGillicuddy shortened his name to Connie Mack when he was managing the Philadelphia Athletics because he was tired of squeezing the C. McGillicuddy on the scorecard.

However, there are a few things wrong with that one…

Cornelius McGillicuddy began a ten year run as a catcher in the National League in 1886.

His first team was the Washington Senators.

And as you might notice from this old school baseball card from 1887, he was called Connie Mack back then when he was just breaking into the big leagues!

He was known as Connie (or Corner) Mack in a variety of newspapers (announcing his marriage) in the late 1900s, decades before he became a manager.

Mack was ALWAYS called Connie Mack - he did not change it for the sake of being a manager (a role he held for the Athletics, by the way, for a remarkable FIFTY YEARS from 1901-1950).

However, while he NEVER went by McGillicuddy when it came to baseball, it’s interesting to note that he also never officially dropped the name McGillicuddy from his life. To wit, in his legal documents and business dealings, he always went by McGillicuddy (which would also go against the aforementioned story, because he had to write McGillicuddy on all of the Philadelphia Athletics business documents, including accounting forms, so wouldn’t writing Mack save him a lot of time there?). When he was married for a second time at the age of 48 (well after his managerial career had begun), he signed his marriage license Cornelius McGillicuddy.

So no, he did not change his name because he was tired of squeezing it into the scorecard every day.

BASEBALL LEGEND: An ejected manager sneaked back into the dugout during the game using a fake mustache and glasses.

STATUS: Oddly enough, True

Bobby Valentine took over as the manager of the New York Mets in 1996. He would remain the manager until 2002, leading the Mets to two playoff berths in 1999 and 2000, and a National League pennant in 2000 (they would lose to their crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees), with an overall record of 536-467 (and only one full season under .500 - his last).

On June 9, 1999, Valentine was ejected from a game in the 12th inning for arguing with the umpires on a catcher’s interference call.

Valentine went to the clubhouse and proceeded to put on sunglasses, a different cap and drew a mustache on his face with grease paint. He then sat down in the dugout (or at least it certainly appeared to be the dugout) then watched the rest of the game.

Nothing happened that night, but TV cameras caught Valentine in the act, and two days later, the National League suspended Valentine for two games and fined him $5,000.

The rule he violated was:

5.1, which says: “When a manager, player, coach or trainer is put out of a game by an umpire, he shall leave the field immediately” and if ejected you “shall remain in the clubhouse until the game is ended or change to street clothes and either leave the park or take a seat in the grandstand well removed from the vicinity of his club’s bullpen.”

Valentine clearly did not do that.

Ah well, he at least gave everyone a chuckle!

I don’t know if that’s worth $5,000, though…

BASEBALL LEGEND: A baseball player stole first base.

STATUS: True.

The year was 1911. The runner was Germany Schaefer, acquired by the Washington Senators from the Detroit Tigers in 1910…

There was another runner on third base while Schaefer was on first.

A popular play in the deadball era (where fielding equipment was very poor so even routine plays might not be made all the time) in that situation was to try a double steal. The runner on first will try to steal second and if the catcher throws to second, the runner at third will try to come home and hope that he makes it in the ensuing confusion (before the second baseman or shortstop gets the ball back to the plate).

Well, Schaefer tried that play…only the runner on third didn’t budge!!

So Schaefer was now on second base.

Well, he figured, the play was still a good idea (and Schaefr was also known for being a bit of a goofy guy), so he proceeded to, on the next pitch, steal FIRST base! He just ran back to first base! He then attempted the double steal again on the next pitch, and at that point, the opposing manager came out to argue (at this time, the runner on third decided to dash for home and was thrown out at the plate).

Baseball was a lot less strict back then when it came to the rules of the game.

The game got one little piece stricter, though, in 1920 (a year after Schaefer died an untimely death from tuberculosis at the age of 42), when they added a new rule banning the practice of a runner trying to steal a base in reverse.

After he has acquired legal possession of a base, he runs the bases in reverse order for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game. The umpire shall immediately call “Time” and declare the runner out.

The rule almost certainly was aimed at Schaefer (who was rumored to have tried the play more than once), and while it really IS a good rule, it’s almost a shame to see baseball get that much more rigid.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

This installment is a re-format edition, so these legends have already been posted on this site, just not in this format.

Let’s begin!

FOOTBALL LEGEND: U2 effectively saved Canadian Football in Montreal.

STATUS: True

Montreal has a long history associating with the Canadian Football League, but it was not always a successful one.

Montreal has had some form of a football team all the way back to the 19th Century. The team in Montreal was officially named the Alouettes in 1946 (which I believe translates to Skylarks in English), and was one of the founding members of the Canadian Football League in 1958.

The team played in the CFL for the next twenty-five years or so, and had some success, especially when owned by Sam Berger.

However, after Berger’s retirement, the team ultimately folded in 1981.

In 1982, a new Montreal team called the Montreal Concordes started up.

They only lasted a few seasons.

For the rest of the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Montreal was without a CFL team. It appeared as though Montreal just was not a huge fan of foobtall.

However, in 1996, due to the NFL Baltimore Ravens coming into existence, the CFL’s Baltimore Colts moved to Montreal, and became the NEW Montreal Alouettes (I discussed the CFL’s U.S. expansion in an earlier Sports Legend here).

The 1996 and 1997 seasons were not particularly popular ones for the Alouettes, and in particular, their home stadium, Olympic Stadium, was just not working out at all. The gigantic stadium had too many seats, the whole endeavor was kind of depressing, seeing so many empty seats. It looked like the team might have to fold, yet AGAIN.

Then a funny thing happened.

The Alouettes were scheduled to play a home playoff game in November 1997. They had not expected to be in the playoffs, so they had booked Olympic Stadium for a U2 concert.

Here is a bootleg CD cover of that concert, just for the hell of it….

Anyhow, with the Stadium booked up, the Alouettes were forced to move to Molson Stadium, the much-smaller stadium on McGill University’s campus that the Alouettes had played on during the 1950s and early 60s.

Well, the 20,000 seat stadium sold out (it WAS a playoff game) and all of a sudden, instead of being a little fish in a big pond, the Alouettes were now a big fish in a little pond, and that began to get them a lot of media coverage and increased fan interest.

The next season they decided to play in Molson Stadium, and every game sold out! And every game HAS sold out ever since!

In honor of the role U2 played in their renewed success, before every home game on Sunday, the team plays U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

So while it is a BIT of a stretch to really credit U2, the Alouettes do, so that’s good enough for me to say it’s true!

FOOTBALL LEGEND: Pat Summerall got the name “Pat” from, of all things, his position as a kicker.

STATUS: True

Pat Summerall is one of the all-time great broadcasters in National Football League history. After already being one of the best-known television personalities for CBS’ football coverage (first as an analyst and then, beginning in 1974, as a play-by-play man) for almost twenty years, most notably with Tom Brookshier, Summerrall was paired up with former Oakland Raider head coach John Madden. The pair soon became one of the most famous television broadcasting duos of all-time, working together from 1981 until 2001, when Summerrall retired from broadcasting (he has since been lured out of retirement a number of times). They stayed together even when CBS lost their coverage to Fox in 1991.

Here they are together (Summerall is one the right)…

Anyhow, Pat Summerall is one of the most recognizable names (and certainly he has one of the most recognizable voices) in sports, and yet, Pat is not his real name. In fact, PATRICK is not even his real name. No, Pat Summerall was born George Allen Summerall in Florida in 1930.

He played two seasons for the University of Arkansas and was drafted by the Detroit Lions in the 1953 NFL draft.

After stints with the Lions and the Chicago Cardinals, Summerall came to the team where he would be most known for, the New York Giants, where he served as the placekicker for the 1958-1961 seasons. While with the Giants, he took part in the “Greatest Game Ever Played,” the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts. The game was the first NFL game ever to go to a sudden death overtime. Think about that! The very first NFL game ever to go to sudden death overtime was also the CHAMPIONSHIP game of the NFL!!

That remains the only NFL Championship Game (including the Super Bowl) to ever go into sudden death overtime.

Here he is as a Giant…

That game is credited with helping to create the boom in popularity in the United States regarding the NFL, which continues today. In 1959, the season following “the Greatest Game Ever Played,” Summerall had his best season as a pro, and that’s where he got his nickname/name.

You see, people were just beginning to follow the Giants carefully, and in the box scores, when you write down the extra point kick that follows a touchdown, the notation is P.A.T. (Point After Touchdown). Well, Summerall would be listed as P.A.T. - Summerall. And the rest, as they say, is history!

FOOTBALL LEGEND: Boise State’s blue turf causes duck to think it is water, leading ducks to dive into the turf and die.

STATUS: Tentively False

Bronco Stadium, the current home of the Boise State Broncos, was built in 1970.

It was a typical large college stadium. A nice facility, but nothing really distinctive. That changed in 1986, when the school adopted a new sort of astroturf for the stadium - the turf was colored blue, the only stadium in Divison I in the NCAA to have a turf that color (heck, the only stadium with turf a color other than green).

Since it opened in 1986, a persistent story has sprung up - ducks, thinking that the blue turf is water, dive into the turf and are killed.

It’s not an all together ridiculous idea, as ducks and other birds ARE pretty dumb, and they’re certainly known to fly into glass windows not knowing that they are, you know, windows and not just air.

However, there has never been a recorded incident of a duck crashing into the turf.

That said, in 2007, Head Coach Chris Petersen said he discovered a dead duck at the stadium, but he does not know when or how the duck died.

So, it’s a tough one. I think the fact that no one in 23 years has been able to confirm it happened (and you would think that if it happened, SOMEone would have come out about it in over two decades!) is JUST enough to overcome the fact that Peterson DID find a dead duck at the stadium.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Let’s begin!

FOOTBALL LEGEND: An NFL team coming off of an NFL championship ceded its city to a competing pro football league that was a year away from even playing games.

STATUS: True

When it was formed in 1945, the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a lot different than most upstart professional leagues, particularly in the field of professional football. There were three major factors that caused the AAFC to be a much larger concern for the National Football League than any of the multitude of small professional leagues in the years leading up the AAFC.

1. Just as a general matter, professional football was not a sport where people made a lot of money, so owners of teams were constantly in a state of financial crisis

2. The owners of the AAFC teams had a good deal more money than the NFL owners. Most of the AAFC owners were owners like you see generally today, rich men who wanted their own sports team, too. The NFL owners tended to be, well, still rich men, but rich men whose biggest asset was their football team. This allowed the AAFC to outspend the NFL, something no other upstart league could.

2A. As a sub-set of this point, the money advantage also allowed the AAFC owners to expand their league cross-country, because they could afford travel expenses - the NFL at the time did not think they could do the same. This allowed the AAFC to go to states without football teams.

3. With the end of World War II, an onslaught of young, unsigned talent were available, allowing the AAFC to populate their league fairly easily.

So all of those things were in favor of the AAFC when they announced that they were coming to America.

So when Dan Reeves of the Cleveland Rams learned that super-rich owner Arthur ‘Mickey’ McBride was going to be starting up a new team in Cleveland, and he was going to have it be coached by Paul Brown (already a legend in Ohio from his three years coaching Ohio State), he was worried.

So worried that even though the Browns did not play their first game until 1946, Reeves wanted out NOW.

But the weirdest thing was, Reeves’ Rams were JUST coming off an NFL title!! They had won the 1945 NFL Championship!

But Reeves still saw the writing on the wall, and he wanted out.

However, his fellow owners did not want him going to where he wanted to go, which was Los Angeles.

They might have been able to keep him in Cleveland were it not for the fact that the NFL’s Brooklyn Tigers left the NFL when it was turned down its request to be able to play in Yankee Stadium. It instead went to the AAFC (under the name New York Yankees), leaving the NFL to 10 teams total. They could not afford to lose another, so they agreed to let Reeves take his team to Los Angeles.

The Browns DID go on to dominate the AAFC, and then later, the NFL (when they merged a few years later), so Reeves likely made the right move!

Still, it’s pretty hilarious to see a team win a championship than leave its city because it is afraid of an expansion team starting the NEXT season!!

FOOTBALL LEGEND: Edgar Allan Poe played an early form of football.

STATUS: False (plus a bit of technical truth)

Reader David wrote in to ask:

I know this sounds weird but I heard that Edgar Allen Poe played some early version of football. Is that true?

That’s not true, I’m afraid, David, but it’s interesting to note just how much truth is involved in it! You see, Edgar Allan Poe was a member of the very first All-American football team!

It just wasn’t the world-famous author and poet, but rather, his grand-nephew, NAMED after his grand-uncle!

American football just was not around when Poe was living.

Heck, it was still in its nascent stages by the time his grand-nephew took the field as quarterback for Princeton University’s football team!

There’s a good joke about Poe’s playing days that one time, after he led Princeton to a rousing defeat of Harvard, a Harvard supporter remarks, “Is he related to the great Edgar Allan Poe?” to which a Princeton supporter retorts, “He IS the great Edgar Allan Poe!”

In any event, Poe was named to the first ever All-American Team for Football in 1899.

Poe went on to become the Attorney General for Maryland.

Thanks for the question, David!

FOOTBALL LEGEND: Two Detroit Lions players received a Gold Record while they were still playing pro ball!

STATUS: True

If the saying “every actor wants to be an athlete and every athlete wants to be an actor” is true, then I suppose that must be true for singers and athletes, as well.

As pointed out in last week’s Music Legends Revealed, for a time in 1970, it was certainly true for Marvin Gaye, as Gaye really wanted to pursue a career in professional football.

He never got as far as being allowed to try out (so we’ll never know if he ever really had any chance of doing so, although we do know that he got in very good shape), but he was allowed to train with the players during the offseason (it being Detroit and he being one of Motown’s biggest artists).

While there, Gaye befriended a lot of the other guys training during the offseason.

Two players he particularly became close with were young Detroit standouts Mel Farr (running back) and Lem Barney (cornerback)…

Farr and Barney came in together in the 1967 NFL season, and they made headlines by winning the Rookie of the Year Award and the Defensive Rookie of the Year Award, respectively (Barney is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame).

As mentioned before, the two became friends with Marvin Gaye. That spring of 1970, while he still had hopes of being able to try out for the Lions, Gaye was also working on the song “What’s Going On.” Gaye initially planned on producing it for the Motown group, The Originals, to sing, but he was cajoled by other Motown producers that HE should do the song.

Part of the conceit for the song is that Gaye’s “character” in the song is at a party. So Gaye had various Lions players and their friends, wives, etc. do the ambient crowd noise for the party. Meanwhile, both Farr and Barney had actual lines in the song - they’re the guys who “greet” Gaye at the beginning of the song.

The song was a gigantic smash hit, and Gaye gave gold records to both Farr and Barney for their role with the song!

Pretty neat, huh?

Sure beats “The Super Bowl Shuffle”!!!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Let’s begin!

BASKETBALL LEGEND: Larry Bird played a game where he shot all of his shots left-handed.

STATUS: False

On Valentine’s Day, 1986, Larry Bird gave a love letter, of sorts, to his fans when he thrilled them with a striking example of Bird’s ability to shoot from both hands, his normal right hand as well as his left hand (Bird used his left hand to eat when he was not playing basketball).

The first few baskets Bird scored against the Portland Trailblazers (on a West Coast Trip the Celtics were on at the time) were done with his left hand…

But the story over the year has grown to the point where it is said that Bird played the game ENTIRELY left-handed.

That is not so, although even late in the game, Bird continued to use his left-hand (but really just on close to the basket shots).

I believe his game-winning shot was right-handed, but it’s hard to tell exactly…

But yeah, in any event, Bird had an amazing game, with 22 of his 47 points that day coming from his left hand.

That’s really impressive.

It just isn’t nearly a game where Bird “shot the ball with his left-hand the whole game” or even the alternative, “Bird shot the ball with his left hand when it was close to the basket the whole game,” although the latter is closer to being correct.

What’s interesting is that the previous season, also against the Trailblazers (although at home), Bird made a tremendous shot late in the game to give the Celtics a two-point lead and THAT was with his left hand…

Clyde Drexler actually answered right back with a last-second three pointer to give the Blazers a one-point lead, but Bird answered back to THAT with a buzzer-beating two pointer for the Celtic victory, 128-127.

In any event, the moral of this lesson, I believe, is just that Larry Bird was really, really good.

Just not “score every basket with his left hand” good.

BASKETBALL LEGEND: Del Harris once set a pick on Michael Adams during a game!

STATUS: True

Michael Adams probably had the best year of his career in the 1990-91 season, while with the Denver Nuggets.

And he was having a particularly good game against the Milwaukee Bucks on January 29, 1991, as the guard went for 41 points in the game!

Well, Bucks coach Del Harris was none too pleased with this.

So somewhat late in the game, when he was particularly angry that no one seemed to be getting in front of Adams to block his path to the basket, Harris HIMSELF stepped on to the court!

And there, he unbelievably stayed in front of Adams…

Who promptly ran in to him…

And was “knocked over,” which was a good plan by Adams, because he wanted to make sure he would get the foul shots and the ejection of Harris that undoubtedly would happen if the opposing coach interacts with the other team’s players…

Hopefully Adams didn’t actually think he was convincing anyone that Harris honestly knocked him down - as if Harris was like a brick wall (Harris was 51 years old at the time).

My favorite bit is this shot, where Adams is shown pointing to Harris, as if the referees would have missed the opposing coach checking a player on the other team.

Gee, thanks for the heads up, Michael!

Naturally, Harris was ejected (and the Nuggets got two free throws) and the Nuggets pulled out the victory, 126-122.

BASKETBALL LEGEND: Dave Cowens once took a break from the Celtics during the season to drive a cab.

STATUS: True

Dave Cowens was the fourth overall pick in the 1970 NBA Draft and was named Co-Rookie of the Year at the end of that season.

By his third season in the NBA, Cowens was one of the best centers in the game, and in that 1972-73 season, Cowens averaged 20.5 points per game and 16.2 rebounds on the way to being named the NBA Most Valuable Player (although, amusingly enough, he did not make the First Team All-NBA, something he never managed to crack during his career).

After the Celtics won the NBA title in 1974, Cowens actually wandered around Boston celebrating with the “regular folks.” He famously ended up sleeping on a park bench that night. That was likely a sign of things to come for Cowens (think Pulp’s “Common People” - actually, instead, think William Shatner’s cover of Pulp’s “Common People”).

The Celtics won another title in 1976.

The following year, though, Cowens was feeling “burned out,” so he actually took a 65-day leave of absence from the Celtics to, I guess, find himself or whatever.

And, true to “common people” form, Cowens drove a cab during this time off (early in 1977).

He returned to the Celtics and played 50 games that season, but still, wow, that’s some weird stuff right there.

Cowens took a crack at being the coach of the Celtics in 1978-79 (a player-coach), but did not enjoy it, so he quit as coach. He did not like his replacement, though, Bill Fitch, so after playing for him for one season, Cowens decided to retire.

In one last bizarre move, Cowens decided to “un-retire” two years later and put his services on the open market. His former teammate, Don Nelson, was now the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, so they signed Cowens, but had to trade Quinn Buckner to the Celtics because the Celtics still owned the rights to Cowens.

After one mediocre half season in Milwaukee, Cowens retired - this time for good.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

This installment is a re-format edition, so these legends have already been posted on this site, just not in this format.

Let’s begin!

HOCKEY LEGEND: Fired Chicago Blackhawks coach Pete Muldoon put a curse on the Blackhawks that lasted almost forty years.

STATUS: False (on top of the whole “there’s no such thing as curses” part of it)

Pete Muldoon was the coach of the Chicago Blackhawks in their first season in the 1926-27 hockey season.

The Hawks played well, but lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Blackhawks owner then fired Muldoon after just the one season, as the owner (Frederic McLaughlin) felt that the team was talented enough to finish first instead of third.

Years later, in 1943, hockey reporter Jim Coleman of TheToronto Globe and Mail wrote that when McLaughlin told Muldoon that the team should have finished first, Muldoon replied that the team was not good enough to finish first, upon which McLaughlin fired him on the spot. In retaliation, Muldoon placed a curse upon the Blackhawks - “Fire me, Major, and you’ll never finish first. I’ll put a curse on this team that will hoodoo it until the end of time.”

And sure enough, even though at the time the Blackhawks had already won two Stanley Cups since Muldoon’s firing (1934 and 1938), neither time did they finish first.

And they did not finish first in either their division or the NHL period (when there was just one division) until 1967!!

Now, first off, of course it is false because, you know, there’s no such thing AS a curse!

But secondly, once the Blackhawks finished first, Coleman then admitted to making the whole thing up.

How could such a story make it that long with Muldoon or McLaughlin debunking it?

Well, Muldoon died in 1929.

McLaughlin died less than a year after Coleman’s story (and heck, for McLaughlin, the story was probably better than the Blackhawks just not being good enough to finish first!).

So Coleman followed one of the first rules of making up stories - make them up about people who can’t call you a liar!!

HOCKEY LEGEND: A National Hockey League franchise never actually came up with a team name during its fifteen years of existence.

STATUS: True

Professional hockey was, and IS, very popular in Montreal.

It was so popular that in 1924, the National Hockey League (NHL) decided to expand and a second Montreal franchise to go along with the Montreal Canadiens, who were one of the original teams in the NHL.

The theory was that this new team would appeal more to the English-speaking people of Montreal while the French-speakers would remain fans of the Canadiens (note that the nickname for the Canadiens is the Habs, which is a shortening of the term Les Habitants, which is what the French settlers of Quebec called themselves).

The new team paid a $15,000 entrance fee ($11,000 of it went to the Montreal Canadiens, presumably to assuage them over the new competition) and had an arena built, the Montreal Forum (which would become much more famous for its usage by the Canadiens for decades).

The team had everything it needed to get started - except a name!

And shockingly, they never actually officially PICKED one!!

The team just referred to itself officially as the Montreal Professional Hockey Club.

Eventually, the media began referring to them as the Montreal Maroons, due to their jersey color.

When the team won the Stanley Cup in 1926 (just two years into their existence!), the league engraved the name Maroons into the Cup.

“Won / By Montreal ‘Maroons’ 1925-26″

However, when they won again in 1935, the League this time engraved:

“Montreal Professional Hockey Club / Winners / 1934-35″

Due to the Great Depression, Montreal could no longer support two teams, and the Maroons folded.

And they never got to officially pick a team name…

HOCKEY LEGEND: The New York Rangers acquired a player in 1990 for $1.00.

STATUS: True

There’s not a lot you can get for a dollar, even in 1990. At least in 1990, comic books were about a $1.00 each, so you could buy a comic book!

But really, a dollar did not have a lot of buying power - but it was enough to buy a hockey player!

Ray Sheppard (shown below from later in career when he was with the Florida Panthers) had a great rookie debut for the Buffalo Sabres in the 1987-88 season, scoring 38 goals to go along with 27 assists.

Sheppard came in second in the Rookie of the Year balloting.

However, Sheppard’s time in Buffalo was mostly a negative experience, and by the end of the 1989-90 season, he had actually been sent down to the minors following an injury and a disappointing 4 goals for the Sabres.

The Sabres and Sheppard were at loggerheads, and figuring out a new contract was going to be difficult. Ultimately, the Sabres determined that they would just buy Sheppard out for $75,000.

Before that could happen, though, New York Rangers General Manager Neil Smith offered to basically make the problem go away - he would buy Sheppard’s contract for the sum of $1.00.

In this instance, the dollar is misleading - it exists only because teams have to give SOMEthing up if they acquire a player. In this situation, what Smith was REALLY paying the Sabres was the $75,000 that they were going to give to Sheppard as a buy-out.

However, you can’t acquire a player like that, so the Rangers had to give up SOMEthing, and that something was one dollar.

The Sabres actually threw in a conditional $50,000 if Sheppard did not play 60 of the 82 Ranger games in the 1990-91 season (likewise, Smith would throw in a draft pick if Sheppard scored 30 or more goals).

Sheppard surprised the Sabres by rebounding with the Rangers and having a strong season with 24 goals and 23 assists.

Sheppard signed with the Detroit Red Wings for the 1991-92 season and spent five seasons with the Red Wings where he really blossomed, even scoring over 50 goals one season!!

Sheppard retired after the 2000 season.

I wonder how much a 1990 dollar would have been worth in Canada?

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL LEGEND: A baseball game led to the creation of the flyswatter.

STATUS: Oddly enough, True.

Very often, people will credit an odd source for their inspiration behind various inventions. Almost always, we basically have to take these people at their word. Most of the time, that’s pretty easy to do, because, well, why would you lie about stuff like “I invented Band Aids because my wife kept getting cuts and burns while I was at work”?

However, in the case of the flyswatter, the influence is a bit more cut and dry, because we actually have the document where we see how baseball influenced the creation of the the first device to be called a “flyswatter.”

Dr. Samuel Crumbine was a member of the Kansas Board of Health in 1906 when Kansas was beseiged, it seemed, by flies, who were both an annoyance but also a bringer of disease.

While attending a baseball game (some sources over the years say it was a softball game) in Topeka, Crumbine was struck by the term “swat” in relation to the ball.

He wrote as much in a health bulletin he did for the greater Kansas area titled “Swat the Fly!” (he also may have been influenced by the term “Sacrifice Fly,” I honestly don’t know).

So right there, we have a guy specifically citing baseball as the influence for people to “swat flies.”

Well, sure enough, a schoolteacher and Scout leader named Frank H. Rose and his Boy Scouts created “fly bat” using a yardstick and a small patch of screen (similar fly killers had already been created by various other people, but they were not known to Kansas at the time), utilizing the already known idea that screens keep flies out.

He presented it to Crumbine, who renamed it the “flyswatter.”

Soon, flyswatters were being mass produced in Kansas and handed out to citizens at State Fairs and County Fairs and, of course, fly parades.

Yep, flies were such an issue that they even had fly parades in Kansas to celebrate killing flies!

In 1914, the school children of Hutchinson, Kansas killed 224 pounds, 37 bushels of flies, for an estimated 7 million dead.

Crumbine even createda film, “The Busy Fly,” as propaganda against flies.

And all due to a baseball game!

Pretty funny.

Thanks to Thomas Fox Averill for the information about Kansas’ fly history!

BASEBALL LEGEND: A dead runner once scored in a baseball game.

STATUS: I’m Going With False

Probably the best hint that a story you’re about to hear is false is if the identical story is told about people in entirely different places.

That’s one of the reasons (but surely not the only one) that the story of a game between two small Minnesota towns in 1903 is a tall tale.

The basic gist of the story is that the semi-professional baseball team from Wilmar, Minnesota was hosting their rivals from nearby Benson, Minnesota.

The score was 1-0 in favor of Benson going into the bottom of the tenth inning.

The Wilmar pitcher, Thielman, had pitched the entire game to that point and led off the tenth with a single.

The next batter, O’Toole (like any great tall tale, only last names necessary), hits a great drive to the outfield. The ball does not clear the fence but it is WAY back and O’Toole has plenty of time to run.

Thielman, though, has just pitched ten innings of baseball and is quite tired. Still, he pushes his body as fast as he can get it to go. However, rounding third, Thielman collapses. O’Toole is right on his tail and figures the only way they’re both going to score and win the game is if he basically carries Thielman across the plate.

And that’s basically what he does, pushing Thielman on to home in front of himself.

Wilmar has won!

But at what cost?

As it turns out, Thielman had had a heart attack at third base! He scored the tying run, but he was DEAD at the time!

It’s a great story, but it’s also pretty much hogwash.

There are no local newspaper accounts of the game from 1903, and the local papers DID cover local baseball games at the time. In a centennial history of Kandiyohi County (where both cities were), local historian Lefty Ranweller categorically denies the story, and really, with all that against it, I don’t know if we even need to go to the fact that…

A. It doesn’t sound believable

and

B. As mentioned before, the same exact story was told in the 1910s, only this time involving two CANADIAN baseball teams!

So yeah, I think it’s safe to say that this story is not true.

But it’s a great story!

It gives me an amusing visual…

Well, I didn’t say that YOU would find it amusing!

BASEBALL LEGEND: A New York man won over two million dollars betting the uniform numbers of his six favorite players.

STATUS: True

In 1987, 59-year-old Robert Heuer of Flushing, New York played the New York Lottery.

His six numbers were the uniform numbers of his six favorite players/managers, Joe Dimaggio (#5), Whitey Ford (#16), Willie Mays (#24), Juan Marichal (#27), Casey Stengel (#37) and Willie McCovey (#44) - three Yankees and three Giants.

The result?

Heuer won $2,250,000 in the lottery!!!

Who says die hard fandom doesn’t pay off?

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

This installment is a re-format edition, so these legends have already been posted on this site, just not in this format.

Let’s begin!

BASKETBALL LEGEND: Michael Jordan was cut by his high school basketball team.

STATUS: False

One of the greatest piece of “motivational speech” related to a pro athlete is the story about how Michael Jordan was cut by his high school basketball team. You know, “If Michael Jordan, probably the greatest basketball player of all time, could be cut by his high school team, then you shouldn’t let setbacks in your life get you down.”

It’s a good story.

Now is it true?

Well, first off - “Michael Jordan was cut by his basketball team” is false. Jordan played high school basketball. Obviously. The guy was really good, even in high school.

However many times THAT story gets repeated, admittedly the more accurate “Michael Jordan was cut by his high school VARSITY basketball team” gets repeated just as often.

And yes, Michael Jordan was, indeed, cut by his high school varsity basketball team.

HOWEVER, there is a major major major condition to that “true,” and in fact, it’s SUCH a major condition that I think it makes the answer effectively false.

Jordan was cut by his high school varsity team at Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina. However, he was cut by the team in his SOPHOMORE year, when many kids would not be playing varsity ANYways. In addition, Jordan was not cut because he was not talented enough to make the team. He was - he just was not good enough to play big minutes (do note that Jordan also grew FOUR inches from his sophomore to junior year, going from five foot eleven to six foot three), and the theory is that it makes little sense to have a talented player sitting on the bench on the varsity team when he could be starting for Junior Varsity.

Reader Rhod wanted to know the difference between Varsity and Junior Varsity. A high school main team in any sport is its “Varsity” team - its best players, usually. The Junior Varsity team is the secondary team. Generally, it is made up of first and second year players (freshmen and sophomores). Third and fourth years players (junior and senior) usually make up the Varsity team, because, as you might imagine, juniors and seniors are more physically mature. However, occasionally, a very mature freshman or sophomore can make the varsity team. It is definitely not unheard of for a sophomore player to be a major player on a Varsity team. More often than not, though, the younger players who make it to Varsity for a school with a good sports program are going to be back-ups to the older kids. That was what would have happened had Jordan not been cut by his Varsity team - he would have been a back-up to the older kids.

So yeah, Jordan was cut by his high school basketball varsity team, but not in the way that the story gets discussed, and he was definitely NOT “cut from his high school basketball team.”

BASKETBALL LEGEND: There was a quota in the NBA in the 50s and early 60s of how many black players could be on a team.

STATUS: I’m Going With True

The NBA took about three years before the league was integrated. Earl Lloyd was the first black player to play in the NBA. He suited up for the Washington Capitals in October 1950 for the 1950 NBA Opening Night (two other black players also suited up for their teams opening games in 1950 - they just played the next day, so Lloyd gets to be known as “the first”).

Black players were accepted a great deal more in the NBA than the were in baseball. There are likely a number of reasons why that is - for instance, the league was newer and it was mostly based in the northeast and college basketball was already integrated. Lloyd has said in the past about how sorry he felt for Jackie Robinson, because while both men were integrating their respective leagues, Lloyd got just a fraction of the abuse Robinson received.

Okay, now as to the idea of a quota system.

First off, as many many people over the years have noted, I do firmly believe that there never was a concrete agreement between owners (under the table, unwritten or whatever) to only have a certain amount of black players.

However, just because there was not any official unwritten agreement does not mean that the effect was not the same as if there was one.

For instance, no NBA team had more than four black players on their team until 1963!

1963!!

From 1956 to 1962, all but one of the NBA’s Rookies of the Year were black, and yet no NBA team had more than four players during that whole stretch.

The St. Louis Hawks won the title in 1958, becoming the last NBA team to win a championship with an all-white team (the Hawks had a black player on the team for a few games that year, but he did not play in the playoffs).

It cannot be a coincidence that every team in the NBA just HAPPENED to have exactly four players, right?

However, I think it is more likely that everyone just had the same basic attitude, that it was not “good for the sport” to have too many black players on a team. Along that lines, players with “bad attitudes” also did not last too long, and almost always, it was a bit of a code for “playing while black.”

Woody Sauldsberry is a great example of this.

Sauldsberry came out of Compton High School and after a couple of years at Texas Southern University, he went straight to the Harlem Globetrotters. While the NBA was not willing to play mostly black players, the Globetrotters were thrilled to take all of them, and pay them well.

However, most competitive athletes want to play with the best of the best, and not in an exhibition league like the Globetrotters.

So Sauldsberry came to the NBA and the Philadelphia Warriors and won the Rookie of the Year in 1958.

In 1959, he made the All-Star Team.

However, in 1960, Al Attles was a promising rookie trying out for the Warriors. The Warriors already had Wilt Chamberlain, Andy Johnson and Guy Rodgers on the team along with Sauldsberry, so adding Attles would give the team five black players. Soon after Attles’ tryout, Sauldsberry was dumped from the Warriors. Two years removed from the Rookie of the Year and he was gone.

In 1963, the Celtics were the first team to have five black players.

In a couple of years, the American Basketball Association started, and they took everyone, and that basically was the death knell for the quota system in the NBA as it was, as they had to fight the ABA for the better players, so teams began taking more and more black players.

Still, for a number of years, the NBA certainly did appear to have a shameful quota system.

BASKETBALL LEGEND: The Harlem Globetrotters began in Chicago!!

STATUS: True

It’s really amazing some of the marketing ideas that people can come up with, but few people could top the idea by Abe Saperstein of inventing the hometown of a team!

The Globetrotters have been around in some form or another since the early 20th Century, but the team as we know it today was formed as the “Savoy Big Five” who would play basketball before performances at Chicago’s Savoy Ballroom (which was named after the famous Harlem Jazz Club of the same name) in the late 1920s.

Members of the Savoy Big Five were organized by Abe Saperstein into becoming a traveling barnstorm team known as the Globetrotters.

However, Saperstein figured that a traveling team would be more interesting if they were out of towners.So he went to figure out a place where the team could be “from,” and he settled upon Harlem, because of the great Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. And in 1929, the New York Harlem Globe Trotters began playing!

And the rest, as they say, is history!

The Globetrotters’ first “home” game was in 1968, nearly four decades after taking the name!

As mentioned in an earlier legend, Saperstein’s only intention with the Globetrotters was to make as much money as possible, this shouldn’t be THAT much of a surprise, I suppose.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Let’s begin!

BOXING LEGEND: Duk Koo Kim hung a sign saying “kill or be killed” before his match with Boom Boom Mancini that resulted in Kim’s death.

STATUS: False Enough for a False

The death of Duk Koo Kim was one of the most tragic moments in boxing history, mostly because a lot of people saw the lightweight championship bout between Kim and defending champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini.

If a guy dies in a fight no one sees, it is a lot harder for people to get outraged.

Now, if a guy dies in a fight that EVERYone sees, it is equally hard for people to AVOID being outraged.

The November 17, 1982 title match was between challenger Duk Koo Kim, a 23-year-old whose aggressive fighting style saw him achieve eight knock outs out of the 17 victories he had coming in to the bout.

While Kim was actually two years older than Mancini at the time, the two still stood in contrast.

Mancini was a fighter who was trained to go the distance - he still had the power to put people away quickly, but he also had the experience of going the full 15 rounds (or at least 14 rounds).

So when the fight stretched on, Mancini was better prepared to handle the brutal onslaught both men produced on each other.

Even then, early in the fight, Mancini was so messed up from Kim’s attacks that he briefly considered throwing in the towel. But he stuck in there, and towards the end of the fight, he was clearly wearing Kim down.

At one point in the 13th round, Mancini hit Kim with 39 straight punches!!!

But Kim rallied a bit at the end of the round, so referee Richard Green allowed to fight to go on.

At the beginning of the 14th, it was clear Kim was reeling, and Mancini quickly charged Kim and knocked him in to the ropes and down to the floor, where Kim hit his head hard. Kim tried to get up, but Green called the fight right there in favor of Mancini.

Minutes after the bout was over, Kim collapsed into a coma that he would never recover from. Emergency brain surgery was no good - he was dead four days later.

Naturally, this sent the world of boxing into a tailspin (especially because, as I mentioned, this was all nationally televised live).

Eventually, reforms such as much more rigorous medical testing of competitors were implemented, as well as a reduction from 15 rounds down to 12 rounds per bout.

But as you might imagine, such reforms were not much solace for the family and friends of Duk Koo Kim. Mancini took the death hard, but not as hard as Kim’s mother, who came to America to see her son be taken off of the breathing machine. She would kill herself three months later. The referee who did not stop the fight, Richard Green, also took his own life seven months later.

This was a morbid, deeply depressing story.

But things got even MORE morbid when details came out about Kim’s preparation for the fight. Kim had been struggling to get his weight down to 135 to qualify for the fight, and he was involved in some pretty twisted head games.

He kept a mini-coffin in his hotel room while training for the fight.

And the main thing - he had a sign hung over his hotel lamp that was reported to have read “Kill or be Killed.”

That’s some insane stuff right there, right?

But as it turns out, that was a mistranslation of the sign.

It ACTUALLY said “Live or Die.”

That’s still on the messed up side of things, but “Kill or Be Killed” was really hammered into the ground in the weeks following the fight, to the point where I think that the mistranslation is a significant enough point to bring it up here as a “False.”

Warren Zevon actually has a great song about Mancini that references the events of this fight, although Zevon takes a few liberties with Mancini’s position on the fight…

Zevon wrote:

When they asked him who was responsible
For the death of Du Koo Kim
He said, “Someone should have stopped the fight, and told me it was him.”
They made hypocrite judgments after the fact
But the name of the game is be hit and hit back

I don’t believe Mancini was nearly that flippant with the death of Kim. It really affected him deeply.

Still, it’s a good song with a catchy chorus:

Hurry home early - hurry on home
Boom Boom Mancini’s fighting Bobby Chacon
Hurry home early - hurry on home
Boom Boom Mancini’s fighting Bobby Chacon

BOXING LEGEND: Wayne Smith took the name of an older fighter to sneak his way into competitive boxing at a too-young age.

STATUS: True

After moving to Harlem with his mother in 1933 when he was 12 years old, Walter Smith eventually got involved in boxing.

When he was 14, Smith wanted to box competitively. The only problem was that he could not do so unless he was certified by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). The only problem with THAT is that you can not be a member of the AAU until you are 16 years old.

Luckily for Smith, amateur boxing bureaucracy in the mid-1930s was not exactly a tight ship, so he was able to procure an ID from an older friend and compete under his friend’s name.

That friend’s name?

Ray Robinson.

It stuck.

A few years later, the “Sugar” was added.

A legend, as they say, was born.

BOXING LEGEND: An Olympic boxer was stripped of his Silver Medal for “not giving of his best.”

STATUS: True

Ingemar Johansson was one of the most popular foreign athletes in the United States in the late 1950s when he became the heavyweight champion of the world in a dramatic victory over Floyd Patterson where Johansson knocked Patterson down a remarkable SEVEN times in the third round before the referee ended the bout.

However, before he even got the chance to do that to Patterson, Johansson had to deal with years of being labeled soft, generally traced back to his performance in the Boxing Finals of the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.

Johansson was matched up against Ed Sanders from the United States. Sanders was bidding to become the first American boxer to win the Gold Medal since 1904, and the first African-American boxer to EVER win a Gold Medal.

Johansson spent the first two rounds of the match dancing away from Sanders.

Eventually, as the crowd booed Johansson, when the third round began and Johansson did not immediately go after Sanders, the French judge called the match, determining that Johansson was “not giving of his best.”

Johansson was escorted out by policemen and he was denied the Silver Medal!

At the time, Johansson claimed that he was just using strategy. His plan was to wear the other, bigger boxer out by dancing around the first two rounds and some of the third before he would unleash a blistering attack on him, the so-called “Toonder and Lightning” as Johansson called it (people do love people with accents).

But, naturally, no one really believed him.

That was, until 1959, when Johansson used basically that same exact technique against Floyd Patterson, dancing from him most of the first two rounds and then unleashing an assault in the third round. As Patterson would later write about the match, by the time the third round began, he honestly thought that the “Toonder” was just make believe. That was until he was on the receiving end of it repeatedly.

Johansson was a popular champion, and he actually made Patterson all the more popular when Patterson defeated him in 1960, becoming the first Heavyweight champion to regain his title.

The two had a re-match in 1961 that was close, but Patterson ended up retaining his title.

The highlight of Johansson’s post boxing career came in 1982, THIRTY YEARS after his Olympic embarrassment. He was officially awarded the Silver Medal from the match. That was nice to see.

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com