She e-mailed me to mention that she cited an old installment of Soccer/Football Urban Legends Revealed about the myths about women trafficking at the World Cup (you can read that installment here).

You can read Julie’s guide here. It’s an interesting read.

Click here to view an archive of all the previous baseball urban legends.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: In Back to the Future II, a bat “autographed” by “Ken Griffey III” is used in a scene set in 2015.

STATUS: False

Few films seem to spawn as many rumors, myths and legends as the Back to the Future franchise, particularly the scenes in the second film set in the future.

Whether it be the famed “hoverboards are for real” joke by director Robert Zemeckis (that way too many people took seriously) or the requests sent to Nike for self-tying sneakers like the ones Marty McFly wears in the film, people really took the scenes set in 2015 quite seriously. The world of sports also has a great many legends spinning out of those 2015 scenes in Back to the Future II, which makes sense, seeing as how the plot of the second film involved a Sports Almanac being used to travel back to the past to amass a fortune through gambling.

The most prolific sports legend about the film involves the (falsely) assumed notion that the film predicted that the Florida Marlins would win the 1997 World Series and/or the 2003 World Series. In reality, the film simply states that the Chicago Cubs defeated the “Miami Gators” in the 2015 World Series. As Major League Baseball did not yet have a team in Florida at the time of the making (or release) of Back to the Future II, the filmmakers likely deserve some credit for predicting Florida baseball, but I think it is safe to say that Florida baseball was seen by many of the time as an inevitability more than a possibility (and indeed, it was just four years later that the Florida Marlins joined the National League as an expansion team).

However, another sports legend about the film is about the bat that young Griff Tannen (grandson of the main antagonist of the trilogy, Biff Tannen) uses in Back to the Future II. Did they really think to have it autographed by Ken Griffey III before Ken Griffey Jr. ever became a superstar?

As you might expect, with the added development necessary before entering the Major Leagues, #1 draft picks in Baseball do not have nearly the same success rate as their contemporaries in Football, Basketball and Hockey. When a basketball #1 pick does not become a great player, it is seen as bad luck. If a baseball #1 pick does not become a great player, it is seen as almost typical. I featured this topic in an old Baseball Legends Revealed about the only player to be drafted #1 in the MLB draft twice (you can read that story here)! Amazingly enough, George Kenneth Griffey Junior, when he is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in three years, will be the first #1 draft pick to be elected to the Hall of Fame (the draft began in 1965) (things look a lot brighter for the future, though, with Chipper Jones a cinch for the Hall and Joe Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez and Alex Rodriguez all having decent odds for enshrinement). So with those odds, when Griffey was selected first in 1987, he was certainly not a sure thing. He did get a goodly amount of hype, though, especially as he was the son of three-time Major League All-Star (as well as a two-time World Champion and the winner of the 1980 All-Star Most Valuable Player award), Ken Griffey (who played most of his career for the Cincinnati Reds). When Griffey made the Majors in 1989 at the age of 19, he gained quite a good deal of media attention (he ended up finishing third in the American League Rookie of the Year voting, behind closer Gregg Olson and starter Tom Gordon). So it would certainly make some sense for the filmmakers of Back to the Future II (which was released in November of 1989) to make a little nod to Griffey (and his parentage) by having a teenager in 2015 wielding a bat autographed by Ken Griffey III.

But did they?

The scene in question happens when Marty McFly is impersonating his own future son. He is tasked with keeping his son from going along with a robbery with “Griff” Tannen and his gang of hoods. Griff attacks him with a futuristic baseball bat. Later, after a chase involving “hoverboards” (skateboards that, you know, hover) Marty appears to be in trouble when his hoverboard gets stuck over a small pond (hoverboards don’t work over water unless you have an independent power source). Griff’s hoverboard DOES have an independent power source, so Griff prepares to zoom after Marty and smash his head in with his baseball bat. As he prepares to do so, we quickly see the baseball bat. You can definitely make out that there is a name on the bat, and it appears as though it is a K___ G______ and then either “Jr.” or “III.” Ken Griffey III certainly would fit the scene.

However, it is not Ken Griffey III.

Bob Gale, screenwriter of the film, actually specifically debunked this legend back at the end of last year. Here is Gale on the subject (from this following nifty Back to the Future website):

Griff’s bat is signed by “Kirk Gibson Jr.” The gag was inspired by Kirk Gibson’s stellar year in 1988 and clutch walk off home run in that year’s world series, which took place just a month before we started shooting Back to the Future Part II. The gag was concocted by production designer Rick Carter and me, in a discussion regarding what signature the bat should have on it. Neil Canton [producer of the film - BC], being a die-hard Giants fan, went along with it, seeing the humor in it, despite his total disdain for the Dodgers.

So there you go!

Amusingly enough, in 1994, Griffey Jr. did, indeed, have a son. And he was, in fact, named George Kenneth Griffey III, although they decided to call him “Trey” as his nickname, which is what he goes by today. He is a well-regarded wide receiver prospect currently deciding what college to attend following his standout play at Dr. Phillips High School in Florida. Perhaps some day Trey Griffey will play professional sports, but it most likely will not be baseball!

Thanks to Bob Gale for the great information!

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: Babe Ruth played a part in the institution of Major League Baseball’s first trade deadline.

STATUS: True

Every year, as the baseball season gets closer to the July 31st Major League Baseball (MLB) Trade Deadline, fans’ thoughts generally turn to where players will end up being dealt (if they get traded at all). However, did you ever think about why there is a deadline? It has been July 31st since the players and owners collectively bargained for it to be changed in 1986. For the previous sixty-three years it was June 15th. How did it get to be June 15th? And how did it come into existence in the first place? The answer lies with a few deals involving Boston and New York, both the Red Sox and Yankees of the American League and the Braves and the Giants of the National League. It also does somehow involve Babe Ruth.

Read on to find out how!

I have written before about the environment surrounding Red Sox owner Harry Frazee’s 1920 sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees (you can read an extensive piece on it here), but I’ll quickly set the scene for you. At the time, the American League and the National League were very much run as their own independent leagues. It would not be until later in 1920 (with the Black Sox Scandal making headlines) that Major League Baseball would appoint Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the very first Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

In the American League, among the eight teams, there was a split between those five teams loyal to Ban Johnson, President of the American League (Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Washington Senators, Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns) and the three teams that were at odds with Johnson (New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox). It was a very strange situation to be in, as an all out civil war in the American League seemed to be a constant threat, so teams like the Yankees and Red Sox would actually go out of their way to make deals with the other teams for purely political reasons (you know, like “you can’t say that we don’t deal with you – we just sold you Player X!”).

So when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees for a little over $100,000 (plus some other financial interests, including help on the mortgage to Fenway Park), the rest of the league was outraged at the idea of the Yankees using their great financial strength to take advantage of the Red Sox to the detriment of the rest of the American League.

Meanwhile, the new owner of the Washington Senators, Clark Griffith, also tried to get Ruth from the Red Sox, but he did not have much luck. Moreover, when he saw how much Ruth was signed for, he became a bit worried. The fact that the Yankees were willing to spend so much was a sign to the players in the American League that, hey, the owners had money to spend – we should be getting a piece of that money. This might have been true for the other owners, but Griffith, who was in his first year as the owner of the Senators after managing the team since 1912 (he and a partner, grain broker William Richardson, purchased a controlling interest in the team in 1919 and Richardson allowed Griffith to represent both of their interests), had no other income than from the Senators and their stadium (which was re-named Griffith Stadium). So he took a hard line with his players in that first 1920 season. In addition, Griffith decided to try to get involved in American League leadership (as he was one of those owners who was friendly with Ban Johnson) and Griffith proposed a new rule that required that no player could be sold to another team for more than the waiver price. This was a direct response to the Babe Ruth sale (of course, if money was included in a trade of players, that was all right, which is obviously exactly what ended up happening). This rule of Griffith was strengthened by the other owners into a new rule – that no trades or sales could take place between August 1st and the end of the World Series. This was the first trading deadline in Major League Baseball history (the National League, in 1917, had instituted a rule saying that after August 1st, players would have to clear waivers to be dealt, but that was not a strict deadline like the American League’s new rule).

After the Babe Ruth sale, any deals between the Yankees and Red Sox began to be viewed with disdain by the other owners (and there were a lot of them, as the Red Sox sent the Yankees the following players- Ernie Shore, Duffy Lewis, and Dutch Leonard in 1918; Carl Mays in 1919; Babe Ruth in early 1920; Waite Hoyt, Harry Harper, Wally Schang, and Mike McNally in late 1920 and Everett Scott, Joe Bush, and Sam Jones late 1921). The problem was that after the 1920 season, the Black Sox scandal broke out and suddenly Charles Comiskey was no longer available as a friend to Frazee. So the Yankees owners were Frazee’s only friends in the American League, which was likely why he did so many deals with them. Still, after the Yankees won the American League pennant in 1921, Frazee tried to quell the complaints (especially Ban Johnson’s brutal comment that Frazee was a “champion wrecker of the baseball age”) by pointedly dealing with the other teams. Most notably he worked out a three-way deal with the Athletics and the Senators where he sent star shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh (who he had just acquired from the New York Yankees) to Washington for shortstop Frank O’Rourke and third baseman Joe Dugan (who came from the Athletics, with the Senators sending pitcher Jose Acosta and outfielder Bing Miller to the Athletics to complete the trade). As soon as the deal happened, though, the other teams all grumbled that it would only be a matter of time before Dugan would end up a Yankee, as they felt Frazee only acquired Dugan because he could later sell him to the Yankees for $50,000.

Frazee held off on such a deal, but late in the season, with the surprising St. Louis Browns in first place (two and a half games ahead of the Yankees) and the Red Sox mired in last place, Frazee could not hold on to Dugan any longer. So on July 23, 1922, Frazee traded Dugan and right fielder Elmer Smith to the Yankees for outfielder Elmer Miller, shortstop Johnny Mitchell, utility man Chick Fewster, pitcher Lefty O’Doul (initially a Player to be named Later) and, of course, $50,000. The Yankees then went on to surpass the Browns and win the American League pennant (although they were swept by the New York Giants in the World Series, their second straight defeat to the Giants in the Series).

The other teams were apoplectic, President Ban Johnson included. Johnson wanted to ban mid-season trades all together.

However, what is often overlooked in the hullabaloo over the Dugan trade is the fact that it was really ANOTHER deal with Boston and New York that put the collective outrage in the baseball community over the edge. You see, while the Yankees had been using their financial advantages to, well, their advantage, so, too, had the New York Giants in the National League.

Only twice did Frazee deal a player to the Yankees late in the season. Mays in 1919 and now Dugan in 1922. The Giants, however, repeatedly made deals in July.

In both 1917 and 1919 they made deals, with the August 1, 1919 acquisition of star pitcher Art Nehf from the Boston Braves for pitchers Joe Oeschger, Red Causey, and Johnny Jones, catcher Mickey O’Neil, and $55,000 being the most notable.

In June 1920, the Giants acquired star shortstop Dave Bancroft from the Philadelphia Phillies for shortstop Art Fletcher, pitcher Bill Hubbell and $100,000.

In June and July of 1921, the Giants made a number of deals, with the most notable one being the late July acquisition of outfielder Irish Meusel (then hitting .353 with 12 home runs) from the Philadelphia Phillies for outfielder Curt Walker, catcher Butch Henline, and $30,000. The deals helped the Giants come from four games back of the first place Pirates and win the National League pennant and then the 1921 World Series.

In late July 1922, the Giants had a small one and a half game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals when the Giants acquired pitcher Hugh McQuillan from the Boston Braves for pitchers Larry Benton, Fred Toney, and Harry Hulihan and $100,000.

Now, finally, after years of little media attention to the Giants and their mid-season acquisitions, THIS deal suddenly drew the rage of sportswriters across the country, as the Giants were being accused of “buying” the championship once again.

It helped that the two teams most affected by the New York teams and their trades were both from St. Louis. Cardinals General Manager Branch Rickey tried to drum up moral outrage over the deals, getting the City Council, the Rotary Club and other local St. Louis organizations to send letters of protest to Commissioner Landis. After the season, with complaints from all sides, Landis agreed to make changes (it helped that the owners had recently agreed to new rules allowing Landis considerably more power as Commissioner) and while he did not take Ban Johnson’s “no mid-season trades” rule seriously (especially since Landis strongly disliked Johnson), he did agree to make a trade deadline for the Major Leagues, choosing June 15th based on a suggestion by the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Barney Dreyfuss.

So that’s how we got the June 15th trade deadline. First the Babe Ruth sale, and then later Boston/New York deals.

Thanks to Mike Lynch and his brilliant book, Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson, and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League and Ted Leavengood’s nifty biography, Clark Griffith: The Old Fox of Washington Baseball , as they were filled with information about this topic (particularly Lynch’s book).

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: A “farce game” ended up robbing Walter Johnson of an impressive pitching record (although the robbery was not recorded for over half a century!).

STATUS: True

In 1912, Clark Griffith became the manager of the Washington Senators. He would manage the team for nine seasons and eventually buy the team himself.

A tradition he started early on was that at the end of the season, he would treat the fans to a “farce game,” a game intentionally played for laughs (only if the game did not affect the standings – the Senators were in second place in the American League in 1912 and 1913 and third places in 1914). For instance, Griffith himself (a former star pitcher then in his 40s) would come out of retirement on the last game of the season to pitch in relief in 1912-1914 (he got an at-bat in each of the three games and actually hit a double in 1913 and 1914!). When the game was actually held in D.C. in 1913, they went even MORE overboard!

The Senators and the Red Sox played a wild game on Saturday, October 4th 1913 that included a then-record EIGHT pitchers used for Washington!

The Senators’ star pitcher Walter Johnson was the center fielder that day! He stole two based that day. With the Senators up 10-3 going into the 9th inning, Johnson moved from center to pitcher Senators coach Jack Ryan (like Griffith, in his mid-40s at the time) came in to catch. Johnson intentionally throw two lob pitches to the Boston hitters. They both got hits. Johnson then moved back to center field (while pretending to be disgusted at his performance) and the Senators back-up catcher, Eddie Ainsmith, came in to make the only pitching appearance of his career. Ainsmith promptly gave up back-to-back triples, scoring both runs. Griffith came in to pitch, forming an octogenarian battery with Ryan. The Senators used a then-record five pitchers in the inning, including rookie second baseman Joe Geldeon, before they managed to hold on to a wild 10-9 victory that seemed to entertain everyone (including the umpires, who let both teams have additional outs during the game).

Here is the twist, though. Since the game was a joke game and Johnson intentionally threw what amounted to batting practice pitches, the official scorer did not charge Johnson with the earned runs. This left Johnson with a 1.09 ERA for the season, a remarkable year in which Johnson went 36-7 with 243 strikeouts in 346 innings pitched.

That 1.09 ERA was one of the best ERAs of all-time and it was THE best ERA for a pitcher who threw over 300 innings.

Well, in 1968, Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA in over 304 2/3 innings pitched. At the time, while it was a tremendous feat, it was thought to be the second-best ERA of a pitcher who threw at least 300 innings.

Sometime in early 1980s, though, a researcher was going over Johnson’s box scores and discovered the scoring decision. Naturally, it was overruled (as the game WAS an official game, even if it was intended as a joke) and so Johnson’s ERA for 1913 ended up as 1.14, making him second to Gibson among pitchers who threw at least 300 innings (and from fourth to sixth in best single-season ERA by a pitcher qualifying for the ERA title).

So the joke, as it turned out, was on Johnson! Then again, he died thinking he had the record (and he also died a first ballot Hall of Famer – and when I say “first ballot,” I mean FIRST BALLOT, as he was one of only five men to get elected in the Baseball Hall of Fame’s inaugural induction in 1935), so I don’t think he minded too much.

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

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of all the previous soccer/football legends.

Let’s begin!

SOCCER/FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: A Senegalese player was signed by a British Premier League team through a hoax played on the club’s manager.

STATUS: True

Association football history is littered with players who were given a chance to play in the Premier League in England (the top football league in the country) or in Serie A in Italy (the Italian equivalent to the Premier League) and not only failed, but flamed out quickly and spectacularly. There have been many legends told about these flame-outs. Heck, in a previous Sports Urban Legend installment, I examined the legend of Luther Blissett and how exactly he came to be signed by AC Milan for a disastrous season in Serie A (you can read that story here). One of the craziest stories, though, involves a Senegalese football player named Ali Dia who actually managed to con himself on to a British Premier League team (and even saw an action in a Premier League game!)!

Read on to see how he managed to pull it off…

Born in 1965 in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, Ali Dia spent the late 1980s and early 1990s playing for a variety of small non-league football clubs in France, Germany and, by the mid 1990s, England. Dia had failed try-outs for a number of smaller league football clubs in England. In 1996, he appeared in one game for the semi-professional Blyth Spartans in Blyth, Northumberland, England. Where he ended up playing next would astound everyone. You see, Dia and another person (some reports say it was his agent, but I don’t know if we’ll ever have a definitive answer on it, so I think it is better to stick with referring to him as a friend of Dia’s) had come up with a scam that would involve the friend calling teams in the Premier League and presenting himself as George Weah, the Liberian football player who was the reigning Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Player of the Year in 1995 (and who would later be named the African Player of the Century soon after)!

Dia’s friend had already tried West Ham United before convincing Southampton manager Graeme Souness that the actual George Weah was calling him and recommending his cousin Ali Dia, who had played with Weah at Paris Saint-Germain and had represented his native Senegal in international play.

Souness agreed to give Dia a try-out, and despite not exactly impressing his fellow Southampton players at his try-out, Souness still figured that Weah must know what he is talking about, so he gave Dia a trial contract with the team (I have seen conflicting reports as to the length of the contract – some say a month and some say a week. It doesn’t really matter) and he was listed as one of the possible substitutes for Southampton’s next game against Leeds on November 23, 1996. Southampton star player Matthew Le Tissier later recalled that after seeing Dia’s weak try-out that they would never hear from the player again, only to see the next day, “Then when we turned up for the game against Leeds the following day, I was amazed to hear that he’d been named on the subs’ bench. I think the picture of the faces of the boys must have been remarkable. Our jaws all dropped to the floor.” Souness had told the media about what he thought was Dia’s story, so the crowd knew about “Weah’s cousin” being a member of the team the next day.

Amusingly enough, it was an injury to Le Tissier that led to Dia entering the game!

Dia entered at the 32 minute mark in the game. Peter Harrison, Manager of the Blyth Spartans, was particularly floored, “Next thing I knew I was watching him on Match of the Day playing for Southampton which was pretty unbelievable.” What is really interesting is that Dia actually nearly scored a goal soon after entering the game!! However, soon it became quite apparent that Dia had no place playing in a Premier League match. Le Tissier later recalled, “He ran around the pitch like Bambi on ice; it was very embarrassing to watch.” So after just fifty-three minutes on the pitch, Souness actually had to put in a substitute for his substitute!! Ken Monkou entered for Dia and Dia never played another game for Southampton.

Dia actually played eight games for a small non-league team in Gateshead, England (no doubt using his experience on Southampton as his pitch for being signed) before retiring from football period to go back to school. He graduated from Northumbria University in Newcastle in 2001 with a degree in business.

Souness later stated, “I don’t feel I have been duped in the slightest. That’s just the way the world is these days.” Souness resigned as Southampton manager after the 1996-97 season, his only season in Southampton.

Thanks to David Hills of the Observer, Thom Gibbs of the Telegraph and Paul Bradbury for the great quotes for the piece!

SOCCER/FOOTBALL LEGEND: A player’s debut for a Premier League club was put off by a number of months because he injured himself celebrating a pre-season goal.

STATUS: True

Celestine Babayaro is a retired football player from Nigeria. Babayaro spent parts of eight seasons for Chelsea’s Football Club in the Premier League. He had some success in Chelsea, being part of the team when they won the FA Cup in 2000. He was let go right before Chelsea went on their REALLY successful run in the mid-2000′s, though. Still, Babayaro had a fine career for Chelsea.

However, his start was not so good.

Babayaro moved to Chelsea as a teenager for £2.25 million pounds. Then the most Chelsea ever spent on a teen player.

Babayaro was popular with the fans for his acrobatic celebrations when Chelsea scored a goal. However, said acrobatics got him into trouble in his first pre-season for Chelsea.

In a pre-season match against Stevenage Borough, Babayaro actually BROKE HIS LEG doing a post-goal backward somersault!

Because of that injury, he did not make first-team debut for many months (finally debuting against Slovan Bratislava in the European Cup Winners’ Cup).

Not the way to start your career! Luckily, things worked out well for him as a player anyways. He has allegedly had some post-career financial problems, although Babayaro has downplayed the severity of his money problems.

Thanks to Mike Baker of the Guardian for the information about Babayaro!

SOCCER/FOOTBALL LEGEND: The sport apparel company Adidas got its name from the acronym “All Day I Dream About Soccer” (or, in the alternative, “All Day I Dream About Sport”).

STATUS: Both False

In the world of product names, quite often the names behind the companies are plainly evident. To wit, Rawlings Sporting Goods was named after its founders, brothers Alfred and George Rawlings. Another sporting goods giant, Spalding, was named after its founder, Albert Spalding. Pretty simple, eh? Even when things get a bit more confusing, many companies do a good enough job advertising their history so that while you might not know much about Greek goddesses, you might know that Nike is the Greek goddess of victory.

But when names are not obvious and the origin of the name is not widely promoted, that’s when things get tricky. That’s when you start getting into somewhat “conspiratorial” waters, where people start to think up elaborate acronyms and the like to explain odd company names. Muddying these waters are companies like Fubu, which actually ARE named after an interesting acronym for “Five Urban Brothers United,” testifying to the original goal of the company (as was their later slogan/acronym “For Us, By Us”), which was to create a market for shoes and apparel designed and produced by African-Americans.

So it is not surprising that the somewhat odd name of the European shoe and sports apparel company Adidas has given rise to legends about the origin of its name.

The first acronym bandied about as the basis of the company’s name was “All Day I Dream About Soccer,” although more recently the more generic “All Day I Dream About Sport” has become a popular guess for the origin of the company’s name.

Both are incorrect.

The actual origin is tied to an acrimonious split between two German brothers in the wake of World War II.

After returning from World War I, Adolf Dassler began producing sport shoes in his mother’s laundry (using debris from the war as his starting point). Adolf’s father worked at a shoe factory, and in the early 1920s, his father and some family friends helped Adolf start up his own shoe company. In 1924, Adolf’s older brother, Rudolf, joined Adolf in the business, with Adolf as the main designer and Rudolf as the salesman. The pair ran a very low budget organization (at one point, they were actually using pedal-generated electricity for the production of their shoes) but by the 1930s had begun to make a name for themselves. Their company, Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory) really broke through in 1936 when the American star athlete, Jesse Owens, wore their shoes as he won four gold medals in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. In the years leading up to World War II, the brothers were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes a year!

By this time, the brothers had already joined the Nazi Party in Germany (in fact, it was their Nazi connections that made it possible for them to get access to Owens in the first place) and during World War II they produced shoes for German soldiers (and by the end of the war they had transformed their factory into an armament production factory for the war effort). For a rising company in Germany in the 1930s, becoming a member of the Nazi party was practically a necessity, so I would not be so quick to judge the Dassler brothers on their actual political viewpoints. That said, while it was practically a necessity, it was not actually a necessity, so they certainly have to take at least some heat for their political alliances.

The brothers had quite different personalities, with Rudolf the bombastic salesman and Adolf the quiet shoe designer. They lived together in the same house with their wives during World War II and their relationship got more and more strained. When Rudolf was drafted into the German army, he believed that Adolf had pulled strings to get Rudolf out of his hair. Later, when Rudolf was captured by American soldiers and accused of being a member of SS (the armed force of the Nazi Party), he believed that Adolf had tipped the Americans off (Rudolf was cleared of the charges).

Either one of those incidents could have led to estrangement between the brothers, but another possibility is something that happened in 1943 during the Allied bombings of Berlin. The brothers were forced to share Adolf’s bomb shelter with their families, and Adolf remarked “The dirty bastards are back again,” which Rudolf took as a reference to him and his family, while Adolf maintained that he was referring to the Allies.

Whatever the reason for the estrangement (the “dirty bastards” misunderstanding is the most popular one, but I don’t see how that would be worse than thinking your brother turned you in to the opposition and said you were a member of the SS), after the war, in 1948, the brothers split their business in half.

In 1949, Adolf named his new company adidas AG (originally it was lowercase like that) after his nickname Adi and his last name Dassler. So Adi Dassler became adidas.

Rudolf did the same thing with his company name, calling his new company Ruda. Soon after forming Ruda, though, he changed the name of the company to Puma, which remains its name today.

The brothers were highly competitive in the athletic endorsement market, as they each competed to be the shoe of choice for Olympic and World Cup star athletes. They also pushed each other in the realm of shoe innovations, with each company trying to add new bells and whistles to their respective shoes (like bolt-on cleats or screw-in studs). Rudolf got off to a great start by scoring key endorsements in the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics, but Adolf would make the biggest score when his adidas shoes were worn by the West German national team as they won the 1954 FIFA World Cup, which was a really big deal at the time.

Adidas went on to become the largest shoe company in Europe and second only to Nike in the world.

Puma is a successful worldwide company, as well.

“All Day I Dream About Soccer” and the more recent “All Day I Dream About Sport (sometimes Sports)” are just acronyms created BASED on the success of adidas (these sort of acronyms are sometimes called backronyms, because they work backwards off of an established name). A German artist named Barbara Gauss claims to own a trademark on both phrases dating back to 1981.

Thanks to reader Jonathan B. for suggesting I feature this one!

Okay, that’s it for this edition!

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

-Brian Cronin

Let’s begin!

GOLF URBAN LEGEND: A golfer lost the Masters because of an error on his score card.

STATUS: Truw

Roberto De Vicenzo celebrated his 45th birthday on April 14th, 1968, which also happened to be the final day of The Masters Tournament. On the first hole of the day, De Vicenzo sank a 130 foot approach shot for an eagle. As he celebrated, the packed crowd serenaded him with “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Roberto, Happy Birthday to you.” It seemed like a dream come true for De Vicenzo, the Argentinian one-time caddy who had just won his first major tournament (the British Open) the previous year. He was aiming to be the oldest man to ever wear the famous Augusta National green jacket that is given to Master’s winners (not only would he be the oldest man to win it, but it would not even be close – the oldest winner at the time was 41-year-old Sam Snead in 1954, in Snead’s final Masters victory) and after entering the day two strokes behind the leader, his impressive seven under par performance on that final day looked like it had secured him a spot in a one-day playoff to be played the next day. However, De Vicenzo’s dream birthdday quickly turned nightmarish. And it all came down to a tiny little erroneous four.

The first rules of golf were written down in 1744 for the Company of Gentlemen Golfers in Edinburgh, Scotland. For more than a century afterwards, golf rules would be determined on a region-by-region basis. The first universally accepted rules for golf were determined by a committee at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland. Their rulings were unveiled in 1899 and while obviously a number of changes have been made over the years to these rules, these are the same basic rules that players play under to this day. Under the section for rules for competitions based on golf strokes, the fourth rules reads:

4. The scores shall be kept by a special marker or by the competitors noting each other’s scores. The scores marked shall be checked after each hole. On completion of the round, the score of the competitor shall be signed by the marker, counter-signed by the competitor, and handed to the Secretary or his deputy, after which, unless it be found that a card returned shows a score below that actually played (in which case the competitor shall be disqualified), no correction or alteration can be made.

This rule came into play on the back nine at Augusta when De Vicenzo, who had surged to the top of the leader board with a flurry of early birdies after his opening eagle, began to field off an equally impressive surge by American Bob Goalby, no spring chicken himself at the age of 39. Goalby birdied the 13th and 14th holes and shot an eagle on the 15th. The drama got to De Vicenzo’s playing partner, Tommy Aaron. The two competitors were keeping score for each other (as allowed in the rules above). On the 17th hole, De Vicenzo birdied it for a score of a 3 on the par 4 hole. Aaron, though, wrote down 4.

On the 18th and last hole, clinging to a lead, De Vicenzo bogied the hole. His second shot hit the gallery and he missed a 10-foot putt that would have (he thought) sealed the tournament victory for him. As you might imagine, De Vicenzo was quite distracted after the 17th hole and certainly after the 18th hole, so when it came time to sign the scorecard to affirm the score (as the rules state above), he did so, not noticing Aaron’s error.

Preparations began for the one day playoff the next day between De Vicenzo and Goalby. That’s when the error was discovered. As the rules state, if you put down a lower score than you actually shot, you are disqualified. However, if you put down a higher score (as was the case here), you are just stuck with the higher score. Thus, instead of the 65 he (and everyone else around him) thought that he had shot, De Vicenzo was actually credited with a 66.

Here is the infamous scorecard in question…

De Vicenzo was incredibly gracious in defeat. He told reporters (in his not-so-perfect English), “It was my fault. I play golf maybe 30 years all over the world and never be wrong on my card. What a stupid I am to sign score card wrong in this wonderful tournament. I congratulate Bob Goalby. He give me so much pressure I loose my brains – I forget everything.” The specific quote “What a stupid I am” was picked up by news wires all over the world (which, honestly, I think is a bit on the mean side of things, in a sort of “Yes we have no bananas” sort of way). Aaron, as well, blamed the general state of confusion for the error.

Golf officials felt horrible about the ruling (as you would expect) and Masters’ chairman Clifford Roberts later sent De Vicenzo a sterling silver cigarette box engraved with the signatures of the previous winners (the only time during Roberts’ time as chairman that it was sent to anyone other than the winner of the Masters). Goalby was suitably rueful, as well, stating at the time, “I deeply regret Roberto’s misfortune. I wish we could have played Monday, and I could have won it outright.”

De Vicenzo and Goalby stayed friendly after the tournament. Neither of the two men ever won another Major (although De Vicenzo had a strong career in the newly formed Senior golf circuit, winning the first-ever Senior Open in 1980). De Vicenzo is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, though, so I think that mollifies the monumental error somewhat!

GOLF LEGEND: The course at Ko’olau Golf Club has a slope rating of 162 (where the maximum slope rating is 155).

STATUS: False, but Once Basically True

In what is likely the most famous scene in the classic 1984 comedy, This is Spinal Tap, the director of the “mockumentary” about a fictional rock band, Marty DiBergi (played by Rob Reiner, who did, indeed, direct the film), is given a tour of the stage equipment of Spinal Tap lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (played by Christopher Guest). Tufnel is especially proud of his Marshall guitar amplifiers, whose volume level have eleven as the highest setting instead of ten (typically, amplifier sound levels are set as zero to ten), believing that his amplifiers having eleven as the highest level means that his amplifiers are louder than all others (“it’s one louder”). When DiBergi asks him, “Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?” Tufnel has no idea what he is trying to get at, repeating again that these amps go up to eleven.

I am reminded of this famous scene when the course at Hawaii’s famed (or perhaps infamous?) Ko’olau Golf Club is discussed. If you consult almost any guide to golf courses of the world, you will find a consistent description of this dramatic course.

You see, the golf course, which was carved out of rain forest on the windward side of the Ko’olau Ridge mountain ridge on the eastern side of the island of Oahu, and contains winding ravines as the target for holes, incredible and dramatic elevation changes and huge sand bunkers is: “[c]onsidered the toughest course in the nation from the back tees with a slope rating of 162.”

This is especially remarkable since the highest slope rating theoretically possible is 155.

So what’s the true story behind Ko’olau Golf Course’s amazing slope rating? And what, exactly, is a “slope rating?”

When it comes to determining the difficulty of golf courses, there are two notable rating systems used, both developed (and measured) by the United States Golf Association (USGA). One is called course rating and the other is called slope rating.

Before determining course rating, let us define two terms – a “scratch golfer” and a “bogey golfer.” A scratch golfer is defined by the USGA as a male golfer who hits his drive 250 yards and can reach a 470-yard hole in two; or a female golfer who hits her drives 210 yards and can reach a 400-yard hole in two. A bogey golfer is defined by the USGA as a male golfer with a handicap index of 17.5 to 22.4 (that is, he will be estimated to shoot 17.5 to 22.4 shots over par on any given golf course), who hits his drives 200 yards and can reach a 370-yard hole in two; and a female golfer with a handicap index of 21.5 to 26.4, who hits her drives 150 yards and can reach a 280-yard hole in two.

The USGA’s rating agents then examine the golf course based on both groups of players. Let us say that a particular hole is 450 yards away from the tee. So the rating agents will travel 250 yards from the tee and examine the situation (and, similarly, for bogey golfers, they’ll travel 200 yards). What does it look like? What is the distance to the green? Are there obstacles in the way? What angle is there to the green? Where are the trees around the area? How tall are the trees? As you might imagine, there are a whole lot of different things to consider when making a rating. Then the course as a whole is taken into consideration. Are there downslopes? Upslopes? Lots of bunkers? Not a lot of bunkers? Crazy difficult bunkers? Ultimately, though, they will assign a course rating for both a scratch golfer and a bogey golfer, which will be represented in how many shots each particular golfer would be estimated to require to complete the course (one number for male scratch golfers, one for male bogey golfers, one for female scratch golfers and one for female bogey golfers).

There is no set average course rating for scratch golfers, although 72 or 73 seems to be about right. Do note that this, of course, depends on which tee you use – the standard tee or the “back tee,” where you hit from a tee further back (which naturally makes the course, and the course rating, much harder).

So if that’s the course rating, what is a “slope rating?”

The term is a bit misleading, since golf courses often have slopes (and some have particularly difficult ones), it suggests that that is what the “slope” in the name measures. In actuality, slope rating measures the relative difficulty of a golf course for bogey golfers. As I mentioned before, the rating agents will test how many shots they estimate a scratch golfer will need to complete a course and they will also test how many shots a bogey golfer will need to complete the same course. The “course rating” is based on the scratch golfer’s score. The “slope rating” is based on a comparison between the bogey golfer’s score and the scratch golfer’s score.

The term arises because an interesting thing was discovered when the USGA began rating golf courses – the more difficult the course, the greater the discrepancy was between scratch and bogey golfers. Logically, you would think that if a golfer typically needed five more shots to finish a course than another golfer, then if they played a difficult course, that would be the same. The better golfer would finish it in X shots and the worse golfer would finish it in X plus five shots. However, the USGA discovered that on really difficult courses, the shots needed by bogey golfers were NOT proportional to the shots needed by scratch golfers. Instead, they would need a good deal more shots than expected. If you plotted the expected number of shots needed, it would look like a straight line. If you plotted the actual number of shots needed, it would look like a steep incline, or a “slope,” hence the term “slope rating.”

Slope rating is determined by subtracting the scratch course rating from the bogey course rating and multiplying it by 5.381 for men and 4.24 for women. The theoretical minimum Slope Rating would be a 55 (the easiest course for bogey players) and the maximum would be 155 (for the hardest). The average slope rating is 113. Again, though, this was all theoretical, based on the data collected by the USGA over the years. It was not theoretically possible for a bogey golfer to exceed 1.55 strokes from a scratch golfer, and this certainly appeared accurate in the years after Dean Knuth introduced the Slope Rating for USGA in 1982.

However, in 1992, when the Ko’olau Golf Club opened up its course, legends began to spring up about the difficulty of the course. The first time that former U.S. Open champion Scott Simpson played the course, he shot 80. Chi Chi Rodriguez shot an 88 on his first attempt at the course! And neither Simpson nor Rodriguez was playing from the back tees!

Initially, the USGA gave the course a 152 slope rating from the back tees. This amazed Knuth (the inventor of the Slope Rating) so he went to investigate, and he determined that 152 did not seem high enough!!

A few years later, a rating team from the USGA came by and made basic estimates that established an astonishing 162 slope rating for the course from the back tees, which matched what Knuth estimated himself during his visit.

However, for whatever reason (perhaps sheer incredulity?), this 162 was never made the official rating by the USGA and since then, the course has made some changes to clear up the areas around the fairway, and 152 is the official Slope Rating for the back tees at Ko’olau. You can find as much at the official website of the course, which describes it as such (emphasis added):

Carved out of a magnificent tropical rain forest on the windward side of the 2,000-foot Ko’olau Ridge mountain range, Ko’olau encompasses three distinct climate zones and features winding ravines, extreme elevation changes, and breathtaking views of cascading waterfalls. Situated on eastern Oahu, the rugged landscape of this tropical jungle course uses ravines as the target for holes and boasts lush vegetation and huge sand bunkers. Considered the toughest course in the nation from the back tees with a slope rating of 152, Ko’olau’s spectacular setting will inspire you from beginning to end.

Whether it ever actually reached an eleven out of ten, Ko’olau still sounds like an amazing course!

Thanks to Dean Knuth and his wonderful website, The Pope of Slope, for much of the information about Slope Rating over the years, and thanks to the Ko’olau Golf Club for their official stance on the Slope Rating.

GOLF URBAN LEGEND: J.C. Snead was penalized two strokes during a tournament because of his hat.

STATUS: True

J.C. Snead, nephew of the legendary golfer Sam Snead, has had an excellent golf career of his own. A former professional baseball player in the Washington Senators minor league system, Snead joined the PGA Tour in the late 1960s. He won eight PGA tournaments, and had two second place finishes in two PGA Major tournaments – the 1973 Masters and the 1978 US Open.

However, his craziest day on the courses came in 1977 when he was playing the in the 1977 Tournament Players Championship in Florida. The wind was blustery that day, and when Snead was on the fourth hole, having just hit a shot on to the green, he walked toward the hole and when he was roughly 40 yards away from the hole, the wind took the panama hat he was wearing right off of his head! The wind sent the hat tumbling along the green and, amazingly enough, it hit Snead’s ball!! The ball moved forward a couple of inches.

Everyone laughed, but as it turned out, it was no laughing matter when it came to Snead’s place in the tournament. You see, the judges determined that Snead’s hat was considered part of his equipment (which is reasonable) and the rules state that if your equipment dislodges a ball, you get a two-stroke penalty.

So Snead suffered a two-stroke penalty and ended up tied for 13th in the tournament, while he would have been 8th if the penalty had never occurred.

Snead took it in stride, and he kept wearing that hat!

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

Click here to view an archive of all the previous football urban legends.

Let’s begin!

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The coach of Harvard once strangled a live bulldog to death to motivate his team to defeat the Yale Bulldogs.

STATUS: False

Percy Haughton was, without a doubt, the most successful football coach in the history of Harvard Crimson football.

One of the first professional head coaches (initially the job was either done by seniors or volunteers), Haughton (a former Harvard football player himself) led the team to a 72-7 record (with 5 ties) in his nine seasons as head coach of the Crimson. The team also claimed three national championships during his tenure. A major factor by Harvard (and perhaps more importantly, the boosters of the team) in deciding to bring in Haughton was Harvard’s record against Yale in the end of the year game (which eventually became referred to as simply “The Game”) the two rival schools had played since 1875 (with some gaps, like when The Game has become so violent that it was canceled for two years. Check out this old Football Urban Legend for a similar situation in the Army-Navy game of the same era). In the 28 games that they had played prior to the 1908 season, Yale had won 21 of them, including the last six (all shutouts!). So Haughton had a strong desire to defeat the Yale Bulldogs in the 1908 match, not just because of the pressure from his new position but because he, himself (as a Harvard alum) hated the Elis as much as anyone. The legend goes that Haughton actually strangled a live bulldog before the game in front of his players to motivate them to victory. They did, in fact, win the game 4-0 (field goals counted for 4 points back then) and the Harvard/Yale rivalry would no longer be a one-sided one from then on (they have basically split the series since 1908). It is one of the most famous pieces of motivation in college football history (right up there with “Win one for the Gipper!”). But is it true?

First off, just in terms of common sense, it makes no sense for a Harvard football coach to actually strange a live bulldog to death in 1908. It’s not like there wasn’t the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) back then = there was. Views of acceptable treatment of animals have certainly changed in the last century, but not to the point where anyone would not have found such behavior highly deranged at the time. Especially a strict disciplinarian like Percy Haughton. The man certainly worked his players hard and expected a lot from them, but he was not an actively cruel man. So such an act would be grossly out of character.

More importantly, while researching newspaper accounts of the game (and the Harvard season) that year, I found nothing mentioned of the act. Furthermore, in examining literature about Harvard from the 1910s and the 1920s (including alumni magazines), while Haughton was written about often back then (he was, after all, a tremendously successful coach), nothing of the act is mentioned in any of the pieces. Back in the early 1990s, Tim Bonang, who worked for Harvard’s sports information department at the time, also researched this matter. I trust Bonang had access to a considerably larger amount of press clippings and literature about Harvard that I could get my hands on (or rather, my cursor on), and Bonang, too, discovered no mention of the incident.

While I found nothing confirming the incident, I did come across a number of later accounts suggesting that Haughton had created a Bulldog doll (presumably out of Papier-mâché), and he had strangled THAT. In addition, that he had attached the doll to his car and drove around town dragging the doll. In an excellent historical study on the Harvard/Yale rivalry a few years back, John Powers of the Boston Globe mentioned the doll theory.

I find the doll theory to be such a clear choice that I feel confident stating it to be the truth.

Thanks to Tim Bonang for his research, Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel for posting Bonang’s research in a column a few years back and John Powers for his research.

Haughton, by the way, left Harvard to enlist in the military during World War II. When he returned, he joined the business world before he was lured back to the world of coaching by Columbia, who offered him a staggering $20,000 to coach their football team in 1923. Halfway into his second season, with the team 4-1, Haughton grew ill on the field and suddenly died. He was only 48 years old. He was posthumously inducted in to the College Football Hall of Fame with the inaugural group of coaches in 1951.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: A panty raid helped lead to Auburn’s first national championship.

STATUS: True

Earlier this year, Auburn University won the national college football championship by defeating Oregon in the BCS National Championship Game. It was the first national championship for the Auburn Tigers since 1957, when they were voted the National Champions in the Associated Press poll (Ohio State were National Champions according to the Coach’s poll). That 1957 Championship began with a number of controversies and ended with still more.

One of those controversies, though, might have been the key to Auburn’s season. In fact, you could argue that they might owe a great deal of their success that year to, of all things, a panty raid.

A number of issues that had been building up for years came into play for Auburn in their 1957 football season. The first was the matter of the extreme scarcity of “clean” programs in college football during the 1950s. You see, for decades, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) did not particularly pay attention to whether teams were running “clean” programs (as in not paying their players). A 1929 Carnegie Foundation investigation over a number of years revealed just 28 “clean” programs of the 112 universities that they visited. Things did not get any better over the next two decades, particularly after World War II, when college football was having another boom in popularity. In fact, the NCAA did not even have an enforcement division until 1952! Can you believe it? 1952! The enforcement division was important because it gave the NCAA a variety of ways to punish schools other than their only previous method of punishment – expulsion (and as you might imagine, it was nearly impossible to actually expel a University from college sports. The NCAA actually tried in 1950 with seven schools, including Maryland and Boston College, but it did not get enough votes). You would not be surprised to find that the schools with the best football programs also tended to be the ones who were in trouble the most. Ohio State and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) shared the National title in 1954 – in 1956 both were on probation with sanctions by the NCAA. Oklahoma won the National title in 1955 and 1956 while on probation (no sanctions) both years. So it should come as little shock that when Coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan turned the Auburn football program around (after an 0-10 season in 1950!) when he was hired in 1951 that there might be some improprieties as he dramatically improved the talent level of the squad. In 1956, an assistant coach was found to have paid two high school recruits (twin brothers) $500 as an enticement to come to Auburn. As a result, Auburn was punished by not being able to compete in a bowl game for three years, the harshest punishment handed out yet for the new enforcement division of the NCAA. So entering the 1957 season, Shug Jordan knew that Auburn could not compete for a bowl.

The other issue that came to a head in 1957 had to do with the role of women in colleges after World War II. You see, once the war ended, colleges were filled to the brim with returning G.I.’s going to school on the G.I. Bill. However, schools also saw an influx of female students at the same time. In fact, at Auburn, female attendance doubled between 1946 and 1950! With the influx of male students and the increased role of female students, male-female fraternization became a major issue in colleges during the late 1940s – the mixture of sexual revolution tempered with puritanical values caused quite an interesting set of interactions. Perhaps the greatest symbol of this new era of interaction was the “panty raid,” where male students would storm into female-only dorms to steal undergarments of female students. Future pop singer Toni Tennille (of Captain and Tennille fame) attended Auburn during the late 1950s and she remarked about the practice, “I experience guys standing outside the dorms and yelling for panties. We were so repressed.”

But a decade earlier, in November of 1947, there was a massive panty raid. It outraged Auburn’s new Dean of Women (she began in 1946), Katharine Cooper Cater. She wrote a thorough report detailing the property destruction and the affronts to women students. She detailed two dozen suspects and fifty-five incidents , including “many boys drinking,” “kissed girls— tried to kiss others,” “very ugly talk,” “chased girls in rooms,” and “kissed by drunkard.” This led to Cater instigating a “Rules for Women in Case of Panty Raids.” She ordered female students to don housecoats or raincoats, turn off all lights, and go sit on the floors of the hallways. And if anyone disobeyed, they would suffer restrictions.

However silly the whole thing was, Auburn did take these things seriously and so did Coach Jordan. Jordan had very strict rules when it came to the team’s moral code. Well, in 1957, the quarterback of the team, Jimmy Cooke, was caught in the female dorm late at night. Auburn history has detailed that it was, in fact, a panty raid, but no one can confirm that for sure (including Cooke’s former teammates). Whatever the reason Cooke was there, the restrictions that came up from the panty raid era led to Coach Jordan kicking Cooke off of the team.

So now you had a team with no chance at a bowl game and they didn’t even have their starting quarterback!

As it turned out, this was a blessing in disguise as Junior Lloyd Nix, who had lost the quarterback job when he was shifted to halfback (where he did not even start) stepped up and helped lead Auburn to an undefeated season.

Now don’t get me wrong, it was not like Nix was some dominant quarterback who rescued the season with his cannon of an arm. In fact, Nix only completed 33 passes…ALL SEASON. However, his halfback experience served him wonderfully as the Tigers developed a powerful option system, led by halfbacks Tommy Lorino and Bobby Hoppe and fullback Billy Atkins and, of course, Nix’s intelligent game-calling.

But the team was really led by its defense, particularly linebacker Jackie Burkett, nose guard Zeke Smith and ends Jim Phillips and Jerry Wilson. The team gave up 28 points ALL SEASON, including six shutouts, as they outscored their opponents 207-28 as they rolled their way to a 10-0 record (by the way, Auburn’s last game of the season was a 40-0 annihilation of Alabama, a loss so bad that Alabama fired their head coach and hired some fellow named Bear to take over…).

Here is where things get tricky. You see, back then, the Associated Press poll took place BEFORE any bowls were played. Not only that, but a little known rule allowed that any AP subscriber was allowed to vote in the AP poll. Knowing all about rule, Auburn sports information director Bill Beckwith went to small radio stations and small newspapers and asked them to vote for Auburn. His strategy worked and Auburn ran away with the voting, ending up with 210 first-place votes and 3,123 total points as compared to Ohio State’s 71 first-place votes and 2,646 points (this loophole was soon closed – now there is a standard list of voters for the poll). Had the voting been down AFTER the Ohio State Buckeyes defeated Oregon Ducks in the 1958 Rose Bowl, things might have been different, but they weren’t, so Ohio State won the Coaches’ Poll (and their Coach Woody Hayes was named Coach of the Year) and Auburn won the AP poll.

The following year, Auburn went 9-0-1 (only a tipped pass that led to a tie against Georgia Tech kept them from being 10-0 and possible repeat AP champions, as the “every subscriber could vote” rule had not yet been changed), so Nix went undefeated as a quarterback at Auburn. And he would never have gotten the chance had it not been for rules connected to panty raids.

Thanks to reader Philip for suggesting I look at Auburn’s 1957 season (Philip specifically asked if they played a bowl in Cuba – they did not, Philip, they DID play the Bacardi Bowl in Cuba in 1937, though). Thanks to Robert Heard’s article, “Scarlet Champions” about the institution of the NCAA enforcement division, thanks to Steve Irvine’s article in The Birmingham News about Beckwith’s lobbying for the AP poll, thanks to Leah Rawls Atkins’s extensive article on a century of women at Auburn from 1892-1992 (she had helpful information about the alleged 1957 panty raid that got Cooke into trouble), thanks to Pete Daniel’s book, Lost revolutions: the South in the 1950s, for information about panty raids and thanks to Kelly Kazek’s book, Hidden History of Auburn, for even more information about panty raids.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: Stanford University’s students voted for the school’s mascot (and team names) be “Robber Barons.”

STATUS: True

In 1891, Stanford played California in the very first “Big Game.” Stanford won, and in the headlines about the victory, it read “Cardinal Triumphs O’er Blue and Gold.” Therefore, Stanford chose Cardinal (the school color) as its name.

Over time, though, a new name developed – the Stanford Indians. In 1930, this name was made official and an official mascot was not far behind.

Eventually, Native American students began to protest the usage of the nickname and mascot. At first, they specifically protested the live performances at Stanford games by Timm Williams, who went by the name Prince Lightfoot and the protesters felt that his act mostly consisted of mocking traditional Native American religious practices.

A couple of years later, in 1972, the students once again sought relief from Stanford – this time to get rid of the name and the mascot all together. The President of the University agreed, and in 1972, the Indian mascot was banned completely, and has been banned ever since.

This, though, left Stanford without a mascot.

A few years later, students decided to vote for a new mascot, with the options mostly involving Stanford’s history with the railroad. The winning choice was the satirical choice Robber Barons, a reference to Leland Stanford, the wealthy industrialist who made millions in the railroad industry before founding Stanford with his wife Jane (in honor of their son, Leland Junior, who died as a teenager) in 1884.

The University, as you might imagine, did not accept this selection and the school has not had a mascot ever since (although the Stanford “tree” has become an unofficial mascot for the school).

Okay, that’s it for this edition!

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

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of all the previous baseball urban legends.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: Robert Redford played high school baseball with Don Drysdale on the Van Nuys high school team.

STATUS: False

In his entertaining memoir, Bob Broeg: Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter, the late, great St. Louis sportswriter Bob Broeg related the following story:

I broke away one weekend to watch Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley in “Barefoot in the Park.” Two nights later, I attended an unusual Sunday night preview of an ill-ated Burt Lahr venture, “Foxy.” At intermission, I rose, turned, stretched, and looked into the blue eyes of – Robert Redford. Impulsively, I introduced myself, mentioned his show, and said, “You’re goin to be a great success…” Redford, pleased, wondered what I did. When I told him, he arched his brows. “Then,” he said, “I guess you know my high-school teammate, Don Drysdale?” Redford told me he had played the outfield behind Drysdale when Van Nuys was a fruit-and-vegetable farm area. “I hope,” said the actor, “that Drysdale makes the Hall of Fame one day.” When I later related the story to Drysdale, he assured me, “Redford was a pretty good ball player.”

So you can certainly understand that a story that cool has been passed around many times over the years. You can find in many different books the fact that Robert Redford and Don Drysdale played high school baseball with each other and that Redford then attended the University of Colorado on a baseball scholarship.

But is it true?

The first time I had any reason to doubt the story (which I had seen a few times over the years) came when Lee Barnathan did an article at the end of last year about the late Drysdale, specifically about his former classmates remembering the Hall of Fame Dodger pitcher. Here is Barnathan’s article. While working on the article, Barnathan had a couple of former classmates of Drysdale’s cast some doubt about whether Redford actually played for the Van Nuys team. One particularly good friend of Drysdale’s specifically stated that he did not think that Redford was on the high school baseball team. So Barnathan contacted me and I began to look into it.

One thing was for certain – Redford and Drysdale definitely did both attend Van Nuys high school at the same time. So they certainly were familiar with each other. Barnathan helped with another aspect of the story when he scanned Van Nuys yearbooks from 1952-1954 (Redford and Drysdale both graduated in 1954) to note that there are no references to Redford as being on the baseball team, although there was a mention of Redford being on the tennis team.

The fact that Redford was not mentioned as being on the team in the yearbook was a major piece of the puzzle, but I was not prepared to fully discount the story because of the existence of the baseball college scholarship. It certainly is not impossible to get a baseball college scholarship without playing varsity baseball in high school, but it is fairly unlikely. That part of the story kept holding me up from just discounting this as a false story.

However, a few months back, Michael Feeney Callan released his highly-anticipated Redford biography, appropriately titled Robert Redford: The Biography. In it, Callan refutes the idea that Redford ever played high school baseball, but even better, he settles the college aspect of the story, and he does it in such a way that matches up perfectly with past stories I have seen about Redford being “kicked off” the University of Colorado baseball team. As Callan notes, Redford (although Redford was clearly a bright guy, traditional schooling was not his forte, so his grades made his college options somewhat limited) was recruited by University of Colorado at Boulder under the notion that if he performed well, he would get a sports scholarship after the fact (which is not that uncommon – David Eckstein, for instance, was a walk-on at the University of Florida as a freshman but then received a baseball scholarship for his sophomore year). Soon into his time there, though, Redford became disinterested in baseball and left the team (he might technically have been kicked off of the team for missing practices and for partying too much, but either way, it was only a matter of time before he was off of the team, as he had lost all interest in playing the sport at school). Redford became interested in art and he eventually left school before graduating and ended up in New York, first studying art and then, much more famously, working as an actor.

Now Redford definitely had skills as a baseball player, so I think there are ways of accepting Broeg’s story in such a way that doesn’t leave the take as “Redford was making things up.” Perhaps he and Drysdale played baseball with each other outside of school? Again, Redford was a talented enough athlete to be offered the promise of a scholarship, so the notion that Redford played non-high school baseball is quite easy to believe. Similarly, it is very believable that Drysdale would play baseball outside of school, as well (especially over the summer). So the two teens could easily have played baseball together, leaving the mistake only that Redford said “teammate” instead of “classmate” (and even then – if they played together during the summer, they would, in a way, be “teammates”). Thus, Drysdale could have been speaking honestly when asked about Redford’s skills, as opposed to some takes on the situation I have read where people feel as though Drysdale was just trying not to embarrass Redford by pointing out the falsehood. In fact, since I first wrote this piece, a few people have written to me to suggest that yes, Drysdale and Redford DID, in fact, play summer ball together.

Thanks to Bill Broeg, Lee Barnathan and Michael Feeney Callan for the information needed for this piece.

EDITED TO ADD: Bill Ford, son of the late William Ford, baseball coach at Van Nuys during Drysdale’s time at the school, made a very informative comment that you can read below. Very cool stuff. Thanks, Bill!

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: A Hall of Famer revealed the truth behind a famous catch in a letter only to be read after his death.

STATUS: True

On October 13, 1974, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Sam Rice passed away at the age of 84. His death came almost exactly 49 years after Game Three of the 1925 World Series (October 10, 1925). In that game, Rice made one of the most famous catches in World Series history. It was also one of the most controversial catches. The controversy surrounded whether Rice ACTUALLY made the catch. Since the play involved Rice being out of everyone’s field of vision for at least ten seconds, only Rice knew the answer for sure. Rice always actively avoided telling people the truth (not even his own wife and children), and legend had it that Rice had written a letter for the Baseball Hall of Fame containing the truth that was not to be opened until his death.

Well, two weeks after Rice died, there was no such letter. Cliff Kachline, the official historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame, said “That Sam Rice letter has been a rumor for a long time, but we never had any solid evidence there was one.”

Was there a letter?

Sam Rice began his Major League career in 1915 as a 25-year-old relief pitcher for the Washington Senators. He would on to play a remarkable 18 seasons as a member of the Senators. However, his fame came not as a pitcher but as an outfielder. In 1916 he was converted to the outfield and he spent the rest of his career as a speedy outfielder. He had range like you wouldn’t believe and he was one of the best defensive outfielders in the American League during the early 1920s. He was a very similar hitter to Rod Carew – mostly a singles hitter but his speed would often turn those singles into doubles. His career batting average was .322. He ended his career in 1934 with a one-year stint with the Cleveland Indians. The 44-year-old Rice finished just 13 hits shy of 3,000, a fact that he later revealed was unknown to him at the time or else he would have stuck around to get those hits. In fact, a year or so later, Clark Griffith (owner of the Senators) offered to bring Rice back to the Senators just to get the hits. Rice thanked him for the generous offer but noted that he was out of shape and did not feel it worth it. Rice has the most hits of any player not to reach 3,000 hits.

Rice won a World Series championship with the Washington Senators in 1924 (defeating the New York Giants in seven games with the great Walter Johnson winning Game 7). The following year, the Senators were in the Series again, this time matched up against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Senators would lose this series in seven games, as well (with Johnson this time taking the loss in one of the worst playing conditions the World Series has ever been played in – there were so many delays due to bad weather that Game 7 was “forced” to be played in a foggy downpour). However, the Senators had a classic victory in Game 3. The Senators took a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning with a single by the slow-moving rightfielder Joe “Moon” Harris. The Senators player-manager Bucky Harris then removed Harris for a defensive replacement in the eighth inning. Harris had Rice move from center to right and had Earl McNeely come in to play centerfield. After two outs in the top of the eighth inning, the Pirates’ catcher, Earl Brown, seemed like he was about the tie the game up with a booming drive to right field. Harris’ defensive change looked brilliant, though, as Rice raced to right field (where temporary bleachers had been set up) and managed to dive for the ball, falling behind the bleachers. At least ten seconds passed before McNeely pulled Rice out of the stands – with the ball clutched firmly in Rice’s glove. The umpires ruled that it was a catch and the Washington fans were elated while the Pittsburgh bench was irate. Pittsburgh manager Bill McKechnie insisted that the ball had to have fallen out of Rice’s glove when he hit the fence and that someone (Rice even) must have just put the ball into his glove from behind the stands when he was out of sight. The umpires still kept it as an out. And obviously, this being 1925, there were no replays to prove it either way.

Rice was besieged by requests for the truth of the matter. Magazines, newspapers, he could have made a good deal of money out of telling his story. Instead, he went with “the umpire said I caught it.” This was his only statement on the topic for decades. Again, he would not even tell his wife or kids the truth. Once Rice was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1963, though, the demand for the answer increased. Every time he would attend a Hall of Fame event, Lee Allen, then-historian of the Hall of Fame, would pester Rice to at least write a letter that the Hall could keep when Rice passed away. By this point in time, by the way, fellow Hall of Famer Bill McKechnie had changed his tune and now thought Rice HAD made the catch (winning the 1925 World Series probably made McKechnie a good deal more magnanimous about the catch). Rice gave McKechnie the impression that he would go along with Allen’s recommendation. In addition, Rice’s wife recalled that Rice told her he was going to do what Allen asked of him.

The problem came in 1974 when Rice passed away and no one could find the darned thing! Some felt that Allen must have had it, but Allen had died a few years earlier, as well. Things looked bleak and, as I stated earlier, the Hall of Fame itself was ready to chalk it up to an urban legend (despite Rice’s widow insisting that her husband HAD written the letter in question). Luckily, as it turned out, the letter was not with the Hall of Fame but at the Manhattan office of Hall of Fame president Paul S. Kerr, who somehow had not realized that people were looking for the letter that was in his possession (which is weird, since he attended Rice’s funeral). Kerr made a bit of a ceremony out of the opening of the letter at his Wall Street office. It was like the reading of a will!

The letter was dated Monday, July 26, 1965 and it read:

It was a cold and windy day; the right field bleachers were crowded with people in overcoats and wrapped in blankets, the ball was a line drive headed for the bleachers towards right center, I turned slightly to my right and had the ball in view all the way. Going at top speed and about 15 feet from [the] bleachers jumped as high as I could and back handed and the ball hit the center of pocket in glove (I had a death grip on it). I hit the ground above five feet from a barrier about four feet high in front of the bleachers with all my breaks on but couldn’t stop so I tried to jump it to land in the crowd but my feet hit the barrier about a foot from top and I toppled over on my stomach into first row of bleachers, I hit my Adams apple on something which sort of knocked me out for a few seconds but [Earl] McNeely arrived about that time and grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out. I remember trotting back toward the infield still carrying the ball for about halfway and then tossed it towards the pticher’s mound. (HOw I have wished many times I had kept it).
At no time did I lose possession of the ball.
Sam Rice.

That certainly answers the question of whether Rice actually left a letter!

Thanks to Jeff Carroll’s neat (and aptly-titled), Sam Rice: A Biography of the Washington Senators Hall of Famer for the information for this piece. And thanks to one of my pals at the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog, kronicfatigue, for inspiring me to feature this legend this particular week.

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: A top closer had his career de-railed by an attempt to show how he could dunk.

STATUS: True

Cecil Upshaw was a major part of the success of the 1969 Atlanta Braves, who made it to the playoffs in 1969 only to lose to the “Miracle Mets.” The 26-year-old Upshaw was a dominant closer for the Braves, back in the days that a closer was more of a “fireman” than a traditional “enter the game in the ninth inning up three runs” pitcher. He threw 105 innings with a 2.91 ERA and 27 saves. This followed his 1968 campaign where he put up similar numbers (in 1967, he did much of the same, but in limited time as it was his rookie season). He looked to become a major part of the Braves’ future.

Then came 1970.

Upshaw was 6 foot 6 inches tall and an adept basketball player. He also prided himself in his ability to dunk a basketball. Well, during Spring Training in 1970 he was walking with a few fellow Braves pitchers when he talking about his dunking proficiency. I presume someone doubted his abilities (or perhaps he just wanted to demonstrate for the heck of it), so he showed how high he could jump by jumping up to grab a nearby awning. However, what he did not expect was for his wedding ring to catch on a protrusion on the awning – thus when he came down, he almost tore his ring finger off completely.

Luckily, the finger was saved, but Upshaw missed the entire season. Here he is after the fact…

If this sounds familiar, it might be because I did a recent Soccer/Football Urban Legend about a player who suffered a similar injury celebrating a goal that he assisted on (click here to read that legend – noting that I show the actual injury there, in all its graphic beauty).

Upshaw returned in 1971 and was actually pretty decent, but clearly something was missing. He was out of baseball by 1976.

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

-Brian Cronin

Let’s begin!

HORSE RACING URBAN LEGEND: The term “upset” to describe an underdog winning a sporting event was derived from a horse named Upset defeating the heavily favored Man o’ War in 1919.

STATUS: False

There are certain sports stories that are just so good that you almost feel bad debunking them. This is one of those stories.

As you are all well aware, one of the meanings of the word “upset,” especially when applied to the world of sports (although politics, or really, anything involving competitions between people, has latched on to the word, as well), is to describe situations where a favored team/athlete/horse loses to an underdog opponent.

The origin of the term is thought to have derived from one of the biggest upsets in horse racing history. Man o’ War is one of the greatest Thoroughbred racehorses history (amusingly enough, with the 2011 Kentucky Derby just being run, Man o’ War never actually competed in the Kentucky Derby, so he never had the chance to win the Triple Crown), with a 20-1 record. Blood-Horse magazine named him the #1 Racehorse of the 20th Century. And yet, on August 12, 1919, Man o’ War lost its only race ever – to a horse that it had already defeated six times before! There are plenty of places that tell how this story led to the term “upset,” so I’ll just pick literally the first result that came up for me when I did a web search. Here, from the official Secretariat website, in an article about how Secretariat also lost to a severe underdog in 1973 is a description of Man o’ War’s loss:

It was at Saratoga, in 1919, that the word “upset” entered the American sports lexicon. That’s when a horse named Upset beat the mighty Man o’ War. It was the original Big Red’s only defeat.

In those days, the word upset had a more literal meaning, along the lines of tip over, or capsize. But it had no particular connection with sports.

Then came Upset’s victory over the seemingly invincible Man o’ War. So shocking was Upset’s triumph over Man o’ War, that sports scribes began to describe unexpected outcomes in other sports like football and basketball by saying so-and-so “pulled off an Upset.” Eventually, the capitalized “U” in Upset became lower case as upset became a part of regular usage, and a word we know well today.

So, is that true?

First off, a little bit about that race itself. You see, while Man o’ War DID lose the race, it was clearly the best horse in the race that day. What happened was that there was a mix-up at the start of the race. They did not have starting gates back then – the horses were just lined up behind a barrier and then told to go. Well, the horses on that day in August 1919 were not lined up well at all. As Fred Van Ness of the New York Times described it at the time:

For those who had hoped for a pretty race without anything to mar it, it was unfortunate that the acting starter, C.H. Pettingill, one of the placing judges, spent several minutes trying to get the horses lined up and then sent them away with only those near the rail ready for the start.

So when the race began, a bunch of horses had a wide lead on Man o’ War, with Upset being the best of that bunch. However, to the astonishment of the crowd, Man o’ War was so fast that the horse nearly caught up to Upset and clearly would have overtaken the lead horse if the course was twenty or so feet longer.

Now as to the origins of the word “upset.” The first problem with the idea that Upset originated the term is the fact that if you look at the meaning of the word, the usage of “upset” to mean “an overthrowing or overturn of ideas, plans, etc.” had long in use. So just keeping that in mind, it does not exactly take a lot of stretching to get that meaning applied to the world of sports. It is not like the horse was named, say, Mailbox and suddenly people were saying “that horse pulled a mailbox” or “The Braves really mailboxed the Phillies today.” A long accepted meaning of the word was quite similar to its usage in relation to sports.

However, the main evidence that the term did not originate from Upset’s upset of Man o’ War was discovered by researcher George Thompson. He found the following citation in a July 1877 edition of the New York Times referring to the horse racing that day:

The programme for to-day at Monmouth Park indicates a victory for the favorite in each of the four events, but racing is so uncertain that there may be a startling upset.

There, plainly stated, is the modern sports-related usage of the word “upset,” and it is is a newspaper a full forty years before Upset defeated Man o’ War.

Now, this does not mean that Upset’s defeat of Man o’ War did not popularize the term, but despite it being such a great story that you almost want to follow the advice of the newspaperman at the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (“when the legend becomes fact, print the legend”), it is not true.

Man o’ War and Upset raced again, by the way, and Man o’ War avenged his loss. Again, it was the only loss of his career.

Thanks to Secretariat.com for the quote, thanks to Fred Van Ness and the New York Times for the story of the 1919 race and thanks to George Thompson and the New York Times for the evidence of the term’s 19th Century usage.

HORSE RACING URBAN LEGEND: A side bet inadvertently led to the first American Triple Crown winner in horse racing history.

STATUS: True

Due to his being a character on the popular HBO program, Boardwalk Empire, early 20th Century mobster Arnold Rothstein has become a well-known name again (not that he ever was obscure, of course). However known or unknown he was by the general public, though, he has always been a bit of a legend in the world of sports gambling. For decades (nearly a century now!) people have debated over exactly what role he played in the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal. At the very least, he knew that a group of Chicago White Sox players had been paid to throw the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds and he profited greatly from that information. At most, he financed the entire operation. I tend to believe that the latter assertion is closer to the truth of the matter. In any event, while his involvement in baseball gambling will likely be his sports gambling legacy, Rothstein was actually far more interested in horse racing.

Not just gambling on horse racing, though (which he did plenty of) or fixing horse races (which he also did plenty of), but Rothstein just plain ol’ enjoyed horse racing period. He would often attend races with his wife, Carolyn, especially at Belmont Park (as Rothstein “worked” in New YorK). While he would bet remotely if he couldn’t be at the track, he preferred being there for the live events. Over time, he began to fancy himself a bit of an expert on horses. And what better way to express this expertise than by gambling? This led an amazing bet between Rothstein and a horse owner, John Kenneth Leveson (JKL) Ross, which inadvertently set the stage for the first horse to win the American Triple Crown.

JKL Ross was born to one of the co-founders of the Canadian Pacific Railway, so when Ross’ father passed away in 1913, Ross inherited sixteen million dollars! Two years later, Ross entered the world of Thoroughbred ownership and breeding. He hired jockeys Earl Sande, Carroll Shilling and John Loftus as well as trainer H. Guy Bedwell. All four of those men are currently enshrined in the United States Racing Hall of Fame, so Ross definitely knew how to pick his employees. He also seemed to know how to pick horses, as one of the first horses he ever bought, Damrosch, won the 1916 Preakness Stakes!

Thus we come to early 1919 and the months leading up to the forty-fifth running of the Kentucky Derby in May of that year. Ross was eating dinner in a Manhattan restaurant one day when he was approached by another gentleman. He wanted to make a bet with Ross on the upcoming Derby. Ross later recalled that he expected the bet to be for $100 or something like that. Instead, the bet was for $50,000 (I’ve seen the story told differently – some say $20,000 and some say $50,000 – the $50,000 version appears to be more common – it’s hard to say which one is more accurate). It was right around this point that Ross realized that he was dealing with Arnold Rothstein.

The bet was this – Rothstein would bet that Eternal, a horse owned by James W. McClelland, would finish higher than Ross’ horse, Billy Kelly. The catch was that the winning horse would have to place in the race (finish first, second or third). So, entering the race, Ross had a clear strategy. He had two horses running in the race. Jockey Earl Sande was given the choice of which one to ride. He chose Billy Kelly, leaving the other horse, Sir Barton, for fellow Ross jockey Johnny Loftus. The strategy was that Sir Barton would be the “rabbit” – he would run strong early to dictate a fast pace, wearing out the other horses and then fall back at the end to allow his fellow horse, Billy Kelly, to win the race.

However, all Ross really needed was for Billy Kelly to finish ahead of Eternal and to place. Eternal had a tough go at it that day (some folks believe that the wet track was his undoing) so he was quickly out of it. So it soon became apparent that it was going to be either Sir Barton or Billy Kelly. Interestingly, Sir Barton’s trainer, the aforementioned Bedwell, had bet on Sir Barton to win. Whether that was just an informed guess or whether he knew what was about to happen, Bedwell’s bet proved prescient, as Sir Barton did not slow down as originally planned. Loftus would later recall, “I stood up in the stirrups and looked around to see where Sande and Billy Kelly were” and that “[s]seeing nothing of Billy Kelly, I gave Sir Barton a cut of the whip and he jumped off as if it were the start. Then I rode him the rest of the way, figuring to hell with Bedwell, Sande and Billy Kelly.” Since Billy Kelly was close behind Sir Barton most of the way, Loftus’ story seems a bit suspicious, as it seems he more likely just decided “to hell with them” and went to win it. Of course, little did he know that Bedwell had bet on his horse to win (maybe Bedwell knew Loftus’ personality that well?).

In any event, Billy Kelly placed second (the first time the same stable had the top two finishing horses) and Ross collected $20,825 for Sir Barton winning the race, $2,500 for Billy Kelly finishing second and $50,000 for Billy Kelly defeating Eternal.

This story is, in and of itself, pretty cool, but what makes it even cooler is that Sir Barton then went on to win the Preakness Stakes, the Withers Stakes and, to complete the first American Triple Crown (before the term even existed), the Belmont Stakes. Had he not served as a rabbit in the Kentucky Derby, there is a very good chance that the horse would not have won the Derby and thus, would not have won the Triple Crown. So his success really did appear to be owed to, of all things, a side bet between his owner and a mobster.

Thanks to Jim Bolus’ Remembering the Derby and Kentucky Derby Stories, Dorothy Oars’ Man o’ War: A Legend Like Lightning and David Pietrusza’s Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series for the information on this story! Thanks to reader Terry Crow for suggesting that I feature this legend!

HORSE RACING URBAN LEGEND: Christopher Chenery ended up acquiring Secretariat by LOSING a coin toss!

STATUS: True (with a sizble cavaet)

One of the key ways that a famous male horse racing champion horse can create revenue for its owner is by selling the right for other owners to have their female horses (mares) mate with the famous horse, with the intention of giving birth to a horse that could be a legitimate horse racing champion in the future itself. Such “stud fees” nowadays can get into six figures for particularly impressive horses.

That was the situation that Ogden Phipps had with his famous stallion, Bold Rider, who had finished fourth in the 1957 Kentucky Derby. A strong and durable racehorse, Bold Rider was a much-desired stallion for breeding purposes. A problem, of sorts, for Phipps and “Bull” Hancock (owner of Claiborne Farms, where Bold Rider had retired to – so Hancock had an interest in the horse, even though the Phipps family still controlled him) was that they did not have access to the best mares to mate with Bold Rider for their own breeding purposes. They certainly could sell the right for other horse owners to have their mares breed with Bold Rider, but the progeny would be owned by the other horse owners.

Thus, Phipps and Hancock came upon an idea – they would offer a proposition to the owners of the great mares out there. They would waive the stud fee and in return, they would get half of the horses that were born as a result of the studding. This is similar to arrangements that go on today, except they had a twist back then – a coin toss would determine who would get first pick among the horses born.

Here is where it gets a bit tricky. Christopher Chenery, a horse owner who had a nice variety of prize mares, agreed to the deal. He brought two of his finest mares to breed with Bold Rider – Hasty Matilda and Somethingroyal. They each were impregnanted by Bold Rider in 1968. The following year, Hasty Matilda was replaced by another mare named Cicada. In 1969. Somethingroyal got pregnant again, but Cicada proved to be barren. That’s the tricky part – the terms of the coin toss were that the winner of the toss got first pick of the horses born in the first year and then second pick in the second year. Well, obviously, there WAS no second horse the second year. So whoever “won” the coin toss would get one horse while the “loser” would get two. However, the winner would still get to determine which horse they would get, and since Phipps and Hancock were specifically looking for mares, when they won, they gladly took the filly (the term for female horses under the age of three) born of Somethingroyal, leaving the young colt (male horse under age three) from Hasty Matilda to Chenery and whatever Somethingroyal gave birth to (Somethingroyal was due in early 1970 – the agreement involved the assumption that Somethingroyal WOULD give birth – if something went wrong, she likely would have been bred a second time with Bold Rider at no extra cost).

Naturally enough, that unborn horse turned out to be Secretariat, one of the most famous race horses of all time.

The other colt turned out to be pretty much unsound and was eventually sold for $50,000 just because of its lineage. The filly was named The Bride and while she turned out to be quite slow (which was funny, considering she was the sister of Secretariat, for crying out loud!), she turned out to be a valuable breeding horse, giving birth to two notable race horses herself (genetics are quite important in horse breeding!).

So while it is not simply a case of, “Oh man, we lost – oops, we won!,” it is still a very interesting case of a bet going into interesting directions (Phipps never did the beet system again – even before Secretariat was born he decided he did not like the idea).

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

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of all the previous baseball urban legends.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: Vladimir Nabokov worked an actual baseball headline into his acclaimed novel Pale Fire.

STATUS: I’m Going With False

Vladimir Nabokov was one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th Century, both as a novelist (with his most famous work being 1955′s Lolita and as a non-fiction writer (his memoir, Speak, Memory, was one of the most acclaimed autobiographies of the century). While Lolita is both his best known and most celebrated work, his 1962 novel, Pale Fire, is nearly as revered. Pale Fire is a uniquely designed novel. It is framed as a long poem by a fictional poet, John Shade, along with a commentary on the poem by the editor of the book, Charles Kinbote. As Kinbote examines the poem, he shares insights into Shade and, ultimately, Kinbote himself.

A much-discussed part of the novel is in lines 97-98 of Shade’s poem (emphasis added)

I was brought up by dear bizarre Aunt Maud,
A poet and a painter with taste
For realistic objects interlaced
With grotesque growths and images of doom.
She lived to hear the next babe cry. Her room
We’ve kept intact. Its trivia create
A still life in her style: the paperweight
Of convex glass enclosing a lagoon,
The verse book open at the Index (Moon,
Moonrise, Moor, Moral), the forlorn guitar,
The human skull; and from the local Star
A curio: Red Sox Beat Yanks 5-4
On Chapman’s Homer, thumbtacked to the door

Later, Kimbrote explains the line thusly:

Line 98: On Chapman’s Homer

A reference to the title of Keats’ famous sonnet (often quoted in America) which, owing to a printer’s absent-mindness, has been drolly transposed, from some other article, into the account of a sports event.

Obviously, it is a reference to John Keats’ famous poem, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” But is it also a real headline?

One of the fascinating ways in which Nabokov worked was the amount of actual popular culture references that he would work into his stories. In Pale Fire, there are references to literally dozens of other poems, poets, novels and authors. Not only that, but also odd little pieces of popular culture that appealed to Nabokov’s keen sense of satire. When Nabokov came across something that interested him, he would jot it down with the hope of eventually working it into one of his stories in the future. For instance, upon coming across an advertisement he found particularly abhorrent, he jotted down in his notes, “Must write something about advertisements,” and the next day went to the library at Cornell University (where he spent time as a professor) to look through old copies of Life magazine for specific ads that he could mock. After jotting the ads down, he would years later work them idea into Pale Fire, with Kimbrote’s notes on line 91.

Line 91: trivia

Among these was a scrapbook in which over a period of years (1937-1949) Aunt Maud had been pasting clippings of an involuntarily ludicrous or grotesque nature. John Shade allowed me one day to memorandum the first and the last of the series; they happened to intercommunicate most pleasingly, I thought. Both stemmed from the same family magazine Life, so justly famed for its pudibundity in regard to the mysteries of the male sex; hence one can well imagine how startled or titillated those families were. The first comes from the issue of May 10, 1937, p. 67, and advertises the Talon Trouser Fastener (a rather grasping and painful name, by the way). It shows a young gent radiating virility among several ecstatic lady-friends, and the inscription reads: You’ll be amazed that the fly of your trousers could be so dramatically improved. The second comes from the issue of March 28, 1949, p. 126, and advertises Hanes Fig Leaf Brief. It shows a modern Eve worshipfully peeping from behind a potted tree of knowledge at a leering young Adam in rather ordinary but clean underwear, with the front of his advertised brief conspicuously and compactly shaded, and the inscription reads: Nothing beats a fig leaf.

I think there must exist a special subversive group of pseudo-cupids—plump hairless little devils whom Satan commissions to make disgusting mischief in sacrosanct places.

The aforementioned ads are actual ads that appeared in the cited issues of Life. With that in mind, then, when Nabokov refers to the headline in question, it is quite logical to believe that it, too, was an actual headline that Nabokov came across and jotted down for future use. Nabokov biographer Alfred Appel, Jr., stated this very fact in his book on Nabokov, Nabokov’s Dark Cinema. In it he notes that “Nabokov unearthed in the stacks of the Cornell library the newspaper story headlined ‘Red Sox Beat Yanks 5-4 on Chapman’s Homer’”

The Chapman in question has to be Ben Chapman, as he was the only Chapman to ever play for the Red Sox during the years before this novel came out (I believe since then, as well, but I only checked players before 1962). In his two years with the Red Sox, Chapman only hit one home run in a game in which the Red Sox defeated the Yankees. In that game, the Red Sox won 8-4, with Chapman’s solo home run tying the game at 2-2 in the second inning. The Red Sox would take control of the game in a six-run inning in the sixth, during which Chapman sacrificed runners on first and second to second and third in front of a two-run double by Bobby Doerr.

Therefore, there is no way that the headline could have read “Red Sox Beat Yanks 5-4 On Chapman’s Homer” and there is almost certainly no way that the headline could have read “Red Sox Beat Yanks 8-4 On Chapman’s Homer.”

Instead, it is more likely that Nabokov did, indeed, come across some headline that did mention Chapman hitting a homer (Chapman hit a walk-off home run for the Yankees in 1934 and one for the Red Sox in 1937. The former was an 8-7 victory and the latter was a 4-3 win) and just used that as the basic inspiration for the gag. Or, I suppose, he could have encountered the actual sonnet and thought, “That sounds like a baseball reference – I should do something with that.” Whatever Nabokov’s reasoning was, he did not get the headline from an actual newspaper clipping, despite the assertion that he did by many Nabokov scholars over the years.

Thanks to Michael Donohue for first coming up with the notion of, “Hey, we could actually fact check this” and checking out Chapman’s home runs as a Red Sox (I confirmed it myself, as well, but Donohue was the first one to do it).

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: Two teams playing in the Little League World Series were both trying to intentionally fail in the last inning of their match-up so that they could advance to the final of their region.

STATUS: True

The idea of strategically losing is a well ingrained concept in the world of sports. In most leagues, the team with the worst record in the regular season will have the first pick of the next season’s draft (or in the NBA, the team with the worst record will have the best odds of getting the first pick in a lottery drawing held after the season). Therefore, if there is a particularly heralded prospect available in the upcoming draft, it actually makes a certain amount of sense for a mediocre team to try to become as bad as they can to give themselves the best chance to snare the number one pick. It is such a well known strategy that there is even a phrase for it – “tanking the season.” We have seen it work well for the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Pittsburgh Penguins (who netted themselves Lebron James and Mario Lemeiux, respectively), but we have also seen it backfire horribly, as it did for the Vancouver Grizzlies and the Boston Celtics when they had the worst two records in the NBA in 1996-97, but saw the 3rd worst team, the San Antonio Spurs, end up with Tim Duncan in the 1997 NBA Draft.

Beyond losing to get a good draft pick, teams also often intentionally lose to affect where they are seeded in the playoffs. I have written in the past about an amusing incident where the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks both tried to lose their final meeting of the 1999 NBA season because the Heat wanted the Knicks to be the #7 team and face the #2 seeded Pacers while the Knicks wanted to be the #8 team so that they could face the #1 seeded Heat.

So the idea of stragetically losing is normal. However, what is abnormal is seeing two teams that were playing in the final inning of the game that decided who would go to the finals of their region in the Little League World Series (where the winning team would advance to the Little League World Series) where one team was trying to let the other team score and the other team was trying intentionally to make outs!

In case you’re unfamiliar with Little League Baseball, it is a non-profit organization founded in 1939 that organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues all over the world. They have leagues for youths from ages 5 to 18, but likely their most famous league is the titular “Little League,” for players aged 9-12.

Every year, the Little League World Series finals takes place in August in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania (where Little League was founded). The Little League World Series is an international competition consisting of the winners of eight regional tournaments from the United States and the winners of eight regional tournaments from around the world. The winners of each region then play each other until there is a champion of the United States bracket and a champion of the international bracket. These two teams then play each other in the Little League World Series. The tournament has been going on since 1947 (it began as just a United States thing but has developed into the international tournament it is today).

Each local league is represented by an “All-Star Team” made up of 11 and 12 year olds who play in that local league (if they chose to enter the tournament). Since 2001, the regions are as follows (they’ve changed slightly since 2001, mostly names of the region – I’m giving you the current alignment):

In the United States: New England, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest (including Alaska) and West (including Hawaii)

In the rest of the world: Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Latin America and Caribbean

Since Little League is, at its heart, a league devoted to good sportsmanship, there is a notable rule that must be adhered to in all Little League games, including the All-Star Teams that compete in the Tournament – everyone has to get a chance to play. Specifically, every player on the team roster must have at least one plate appearance and play three consecutive outs on defense in each game (so basically get one at-bat and play an inning defensively). Since Little League Games are six innings long, this could be an issue at times.

And that was the issue at hand in the match-up of two teams in the New England region of the 2006 Little League World Series. The Portsmouth, New Hampshire All-Stars were playing the Colchester, Vermont All-Stars for the right to play the team from Glastonbury, Connecticut to represent New England in the Little League World Series.

In a high-scoring game, Colchester was batting with a runner on and two outs in a 7-7 game in the bottom of the fifth inning. Then, suddenly, Nate Frieberg two-out, two-run homer put Colchester ahead 9-7. This would normally be a good thing, however, Colchester manager Denis Place had not managed to get substitute Adam Bentley up in the bottom of the fifth. The third out was made before Bentley came to bat. I don’t know how Place made the mistake – perhaps he thought it unlikely for his team to score with two outs?

In any event, if Bentley did not bat (he was due up the next inning), Colchester would have to forfeit the game. Therefore, the only way to win the game was to get Bentley an at-bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, and the only way to do that would be for Portsmouth to tie the game in the top half of the inning.

In the top of the sixth inning, Portsmouth scored a run to cut it to 9-8, but then Portsmouth got two outs. It was at this point that Place had a meeting at the mound to inform his players of his strategy (it might actually have been at that point that he realized his mistake, I honestly couldn’t say). So pitcher Zach Tandy started throwing the ball wildly and the Colchester infielders began throwing the ball around wildly, as well. Portsmouth manager Mark McCauley noted later that he didn’t figure out what was going on until he noticed that Tandy wouldn’t pitch to McCauley’s son, Connor, choosing instead to throw pitches way out of the strike zone. Around this point, a Portsmouth supporter shouted something to the effect of “they haven’t gotten a kid in!”

At this point, Little League officials took both managers aside and admonished Place and said to cut it out. Colchester did not, so Place and Tandy were both ejected. With it clear that Colchester was still going to let Portsmouth tie the game (and with the tying run on third base now), McCauley began to tell his players to just swing at everything (and not advance on wild pitches, naturally). Eventually, the third out was made without the tying run scoring.

Portsmouth then, naturally, protested the game and two hours later officials determined Colchester violated the Mandatory Play rule and the game was forfeited in Portsmouth’s favor. McCauley said of the game, “I’ll be drop-dead honest. I would’ve rather walked off that field losing, 9-8, and been ignorant to the fact that we didn’t do our job to check that book. I hate this. I absolutely hate this. I wish I wasn’t here. I feel absolutely horrible about it. You know who I feel the worst for is those Vermont kids. You can’t say anything to those kids. My heart breaks for those kids.”

Portsmouth defeated the team from Glastonbury to advance to the final tournament, which began with a round robin before going to a three-round single elimination round. Portsmouth actually won the round robin but were eliminated in the first round of the elimination round by the Columbus, Georgia team representing the Southeast region.

Doesn’t this all sound like the plot for the next Bad News Bears movie?

Thanks to reader Joe Maggio for the suggestion (I sure do love suggestions!) and thanks to the Boston Herald (I can’t seem to find who wrote the article) for the quotes!

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: An umpire once ejected two TV cameramen!

STATUS: True

In a game between the Mets and the Braves on May 9, 1984, there was a close play at the plate involving New York Mets third baseman Hubie Brooks. Umpire Joe West (who is still umpiring in the big leagues today) called Brooks out. The Mets manager, Davey Johnson (who is still managing in the big leagues today) came out to argue the call.

Meanwhile, Mets coach Bobby Valentine and Mets pitcher Mike Torrez went to the end of the dugout where Al Friedman and Doug Zimmer, cameramen for the cable station SportsChannel (who broadcasted some Mets games at the time), had their cameras. The cameramen showed Valentine and Torrez a replay of the call, showing that Brooks appeared to be safe.

Thus, the argument was resumed and Valentine and Torrez started shouting at West. West responded, but not by ejecting either Valentine or Torrez, but by having Friedman and Zimmer ejected from the stadium!!!

The Mets complained about West’s actions, but ultimately National League president Chub Feeney stood behind West. Feeney acknowledged that West’s actions were without precedent, but noted that there was a rule against showing TV replays to players, so the ejections were reasonable enough.

Still, it was a pretty bizarre situation that I do not believe has re-occurred since.

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

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of all the previous soccer/football legends.

Let’s begin!

SOCCER/FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: An Italian team once accidentally purchased the wrong player.

STATUS: False

In the Summer of 1983, Associazione Calcio (AC) Milan, one of the most storied franchises in Italian football, had just recently returned to Serie A (the top level of Italian professional football) after spending two seasons in Serie B (their only two seasons in Serie B in the history of the franchise) – one in 1980-81 due to punishment over a betting scandal in 1980 and one in 1982-83 due to finishing in the bottom three of Serie A in 1981-82. On July 6, 1983, AC Milan purchased the contract of Watford Football Club striker Luther Blissett for one million pounds for a three year contract. The center/forward proceeded to have a terrible first year in Italy, scoring just five goals in thirty matches. He was booed relentlessly and he returned to Watford after just that single season in Milan (Milan sold him back at a loss of about 550,000 pounds).

As the years went by, a persistent legend began to pop up in the discussion of Luther Blissett and AC Milan. As the story went, when scouting Watford, Milan was impressed by Blissett’s 19-year-old teammate, John Barnes, and it was Barnes that they wanted and not Blissett. The rub was that Blissett and Barnes were the only black players on the Watford team. So, according to the tale, Milan essentially could not tell the difference between the two black players.

Could this actually have any validity to it?

Simply put, no.

Now don’t get me wrong, it was not like AC Milan owner and president Giuseppe Farina ever went out of his way to deny the story. He was understandably embarrassed by how poorly Blissett had performed for Milan. Farina had just recently taken over the fabled franchise (while it was in rough shape due to the various scandals that plagued the squad) and it was in still pretty poor shape by the time he sold it to Silvio Berlusconi in 1986 amid some scandals of Farina’s own (charges of fraudulent bankruptcy claims). So when asked about Blissett, Farina noted that “Luther was recommended to me by a London gardener.”

But truthfully, while Watford was likely surprised by the amount of money Milan was offering, the fact that Milan pursued Blissett was not surprising in the least (and this is not even getting into the general sketchiness of suggesting that AC Milan owner and president Giuseppe Farina could not tell the difference between two black guys). It is true that John Barnes, Blissett’s 19-year-old linemate, became a much better player during his career than Bllissett, but when Blissett left for Milan it was clearly Blissett that was the star of the team. When Blissett first appeared for Watford in 1975-76 as an 18-year-old, the team was in the Fourth Division of English football. When he got his first full season in 1977-78 as a 20-year-old, they were still a Fourth Division team. But this was the same time that Graham Taylor took control of Watford as their coach. Taylor’s aggressive “long ball” style of play involved quickly pushing the ball up the filed to large, powerful strikers who would take an approach of overpowering the opponents with repeated attacks. Blissett was the perfect striker for such a system – as he was a fast and powerful player. Blissett was not good at placing his shots – he depended on his teammates to get him the ball in good positions. However, he was such a strong physical athlete that he was always able to GET to those spots.

So as Watford began to play better, Blissett began to become a top goal scorer. Watford moved out of the Fourth Division in 1978-79, and in the one season the team spent in Third Division, Blissett scored 21 goals in 41 matches, helping to lead Watford to the Second Division in 1979-80. They spent three seasons in second division, with Blissett scoring 10 goals the first season and 11 the next. In their last season in Second Division, 1981-82, Blissett scored 19 goals as Watford moved up to First Division for the 1982-83 season. As you might expect, Watford drew quite a lot of attention for such a momentous feat (Fourth to First in five seasons!) and Blissett was added to the English National Team. In October of 1982, Blissett debuted on Team England. In his second match, in December of 1982 (for a European Championship qualifier), Blissett scored a hat trick against Luxembourg! Those three goals would be the only goals Blissett would ever score in international competition. Meanwhile, though, Watford and Blissett continued their remarkable turnaround and in their inaugural First Division season, Blissett scored 27 goals in 41 matches. So the idea that Blissett somehow was not viewed as a star player at the time was preposterous. He was clearly the star on the team, even if Barnes was beginning to show the skills that would make him one of the top English players of the late 1980s.

You need only to look at contemporary newspaper articles about the deal at the time to see how this was viewed. In the Watford Observer, they quote Taylor:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is no way we could have stood in Luther’s way. The boy has a chance to reshape his life and his life-style. He will be able to earn more money in those three years than he will in a lifetime in England. But let’s remember, we didn’t want to sell Luther Blissett. AC Milan offered us a deal that we couldn’t turn down and it would have been morally wrong to prevent Luther from going.

The article continued:

Blissett’s departure will obviously be a great disappointment to Watford fans, who have seen the coloured striker rise from the obscurity of the Fourth Division to top of the First Division goalscoring charts last season and stake a regular place in the international set-up.

Similarly, the articles from Italy were all about how excited they were to have a guy coming in who scored 94 goals for Watford in six seasons, including the 27 against First Division opponents. Interestingly, though, the Watford Observer warned that quite often English players had a tough time adjusting to the Italian leagues. That turned out to be the case for Blissett, who, as stated before, was a bust in Italy. The badgering style that worked in Watford made Blissett stand out (for the wrong reasons) in the slower-paced Italian league. When speaking of his time in Italy, Blissett noted:

I would’ve liked to be coached by him [referring to legendary AC Milan coach Arrigo Sacch, who brought fame to the team in the late 1980s], instead I had Ilario Castagner. No one spoke English on the team apart from [defender Franco] Baresi, the guy who I remember most fondly still today. I found myself in an unnerving isolation. I didn’t have a strategist, someone who knew how to develop a skerrick of tactic. Whether we faced the top of the league or the bottom placed, we always played the match in the same way. I soon got tired and in the spring of 1984, I asked to be released. Money is important but the secret, the formula for getting up that hill that all of us of us must climb, is not to get sad. In Milan that was happening and I reacted. I wasn’t a bad player, on the contrary, but in Italy I didn’t express myself to more than 20% of my ability.

While in Italy, by the way, Blissett had one of the great all-time quotes, which goes along with his later reflections shown above. “No matter how much money you have here, you can’t seem to get Rice Krispies.”

So Blissett returned to Watford and finished out his career. His international career was already in trouble even before he signed with Milan (as the Watford style was not conducive to international play, either) but he was officially replaced in 1984 by Mark Hateley. Interestingly enough, Hateley also replaced Blissett on AC Milan in June of 1984. In fact, that is another sign that Blissett was their intended target. They got a striker, he didn’t work out and they replaced him with…another striker, with similar stats. Hateley’s style, though, worked better for the Italian league and international play (he was on the English National team from 1984-1992). Although, oddly enough, Hateley’s greatest years as a pro were spent in Scotland playing for the Rangers.

After his playing career ended (a career that saw him end as the career leader at Watford in games played and goals scored), Blissett tried to make a go of it as a coach, even returning to Watford as an assistant during Graham Taylor’s second go-around with the team. He was pushed out when new management came in. He has worked in the world of autosports, trying to promote the sport among Afro-Caribbean youths in England and has also worked as a TB commentator (he is especially valuable for English coverage of the Italian leagues, due to his experiences in Milan). Currently, he is the head coach of the football club in Hemel Hempstead Town in England.

Thanks to Malcolm Pagani for the great Blissett quotes (as well as the relation of what Milan thought of the deal at the time), thanks to the Watford Observer for the 1983 coverage and thanks to reader Tolga Mills for suggesting that I feature this legend!

SOCCER/FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: Cerro Porteño chose its colors as a compromise between two rival political parties.

STATUS: True

Cerro Porteño is one of the most popular professional football teams in Paraguay (it is arguably the MOST popular) and is the second most successful team in the country (next to its chief rival, Club Olimpia). Between the two clubs, they have won more than HALF of the championships in the Paraguayan top soccer league, the Primera División (38 for Olimpia and 28 for Cerro Porteño).

Cerro Porteño had a fascinating debut as a club. You see, they were founded in 1912 when Paraguay was in the midst of a tense political rivalry between the Colorado Party and the Liberal Party. The Colorado Party was founded by Porteño in the late 19th Century and ruled Paraguay until the early 20th Century. The Liberal Party took control from roughly 1906 through the late 1930s, at which point they lost control of the country. The Colorado Party ultimately ruled uncontested for over SIXTY YEARS until recently losing control of the government. So in 1912, things were quite sore between the two groups. Therefore, this new club, which club founder Susana Núñez (and a group of young people) intended to be a “team for the people” (which is why they took the name Cerro Porteño after the famous hill where the Paraguayan Army had won a famous battle), so to avoid any ill will between the parties, Cerro Porteño took on the colors of BOTH parties as their team colors. Red for the Colorado Party and Blue for the Liberal Party.

Eventually they also worked in the color white, to complete the colors of the Paraguay flag.

Clever idea, Cerro Porteño!

SOCCER/FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: A Swiss football player once lost most of his finger while celebrating a goal.

STATUS: True

WARNING: There is an image to follow of the accident discussed in the piece. If you don’t want to see the injury, stop reading this column now.

Paulo Diogo was a midfielder who spent most of his professional football career playing on first division teams in his native Switzerland.

In 2004, a recently married Diogo was playing for Servette FC against FC Schaffhausen (the game was in Schaffhausen). Very late in the match, Diogo set up Jean Beausejour for a goal to put Servette up 4-1. Diogo went nuts celebrating the goal and at one point he jumped on to a metal fence that separated the fans from the field. When he jumped off, though, he did not realize that his wedding ring had gotten stuck on the fence. So as he jumped off, his finger…well…it did not…

CUE PHOTO! LAST CHANCE TO AVOID SEEING IT, PEOPLE!!

Pretty darned messed up!

The most awesome thing about it is that the referee actually gave him a yellow card! The ref thought that he was spending too much time celebrating the goal, while actually they were looking for his finger!! Ultimately, doctors were unable to re-attach the digit and they instead told him to amputate the remaining parts of the finger, which he did. He continued to play professional football until retiring in 2009 (including two seasons playing for FC Schaffhausen, which you would think would have brought back some pretty bad memories for him).

Okay, that’s it for this edition!

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

-Brian Cronin

Click here to view an archive of all the previous football urban legends.

Let’s begin!

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The Governor of Colorado lost Pike’s Peak to Texas in a football bet.

STATUS: True

Bets between politicans are a common tradition in the world of professional sports. Just this past year, before the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series began between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made a bet with Arlington mayor Robert Cluck that the mayor of the losing city has to travel to the winning city to do a day of community service wearing the jersey of the victorious team. In addition, had the Giants lost, Newson would have had to send to Cluck some Ghirardelli chocolate, sourdough bread, Dungeness crabs, and some Anchor Steam Beer. If the Rangers lost, Cluck would have had to send to Newson some BBQ from a local place called Spring Creek BBQ. Similarly, Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi made a bet with Arlington representative Joe Barton. If San Francisco won, Pelosi would receive a Pecan Pie from Corsicana’s Collin Street Bakery. If Texas won, Pelosi would send some of San Francisco’s finest Ghirardelli chocolate.

So this is a common tradition. But in 1938, did the Governors of Texas and Colorado take this tradition to the next level? Did they actually bet national landmarks on the results of a football game?

Teller Ammons was born in 1895 to Elias Ammons, who served one two-year term as the Governor of Colorado from 1913-1915. In 1937, the younger Ammons followed in his father’s footsteps. Teller Ammons served as the Governor of Colorado for one two-year term of his own. After he lost his re-election bid, Ammons worked as a lawyer for the rest of his life (he was Denver’s city attorney directly before becoming Governor). At 42 years old, Ammons was a fairly young Governor. James V. Allred was even younger when he became the Governor of Texas in 1935 at the age of 36!

Allred (the V. stood for nothing – it was a mistake when he enlisted in the Navy in 1918 that he liked enough to keep for the rest of his life) was a popular Texas attorney who, at the age of 31, became the youngest person ever elected Attorney General of Texas. Allred was an ardent supporter of President Franklin Delano Roosvelt, and was rewarded with a federal judgeship after his two terms as Governor of Texas finished in 1939. He resigned in 1942 to try to unseat the conversative Democractic Senator from Texas, W. Lee O’Daniel (who had followed Allred as Governor). After failing to do so, Roosevel tried to get Allred back as a federal judge, but the Senate Judiacry Committee refused to confirm him in 1944. In 1949, though, President Harry S. Truman (who shared a middle name, of sorts, with Allred) again nominated Allred, and this time Allred was confirmed. He served as a federal judge until his death in 1959.

Allred was well-known for his love of publicity stunts designed to attract attention to Texas. His most famous stunt occurred after the 1938 Cotten Bowl, which saw the University of Colorado Buffalos face off against the Rice University Owls. The Cotton Bowl was formed just a year earlier, as Texas oil executive J. Curtis Sanford financed the first game out of his own pocket. He lost money that first year, even though 17,000 people saw TCU defeat Marquette. The 1938 game, though, saw 37,000 attend and the game made money and has become a college football institution ever since.

In any event, before the game, Allred and Ammons made a rather unusual bet on the game. Ammons bet Colorado’s famous mountain, Pike’s Peak (the peak that inspired the song “America, the Beautiful”) and Allred bet Texas’ Big Bend Country.

Rice won the game 28-14, so Allred has successfully “won” Pike’s Peak. A popular joke in Texas at the time was that Allred was the first Texas Governor to actually ADD territory to Texas! So on October 20, 1938, Allred traveled to Colorado to claim his prize. He went to the top of Pike’s Peak and after a short address placed the Lone Star Flag into a snow drift, thereby claiming the mountain for the state of Texas.

Amusingly enough, the two Governors playfully began to wrestle in the snow before the flag was planted (Life magazine was not amused at the time, noting that the pair had set a new record for gubernatorial lack of dignity).

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The New York Giants originated the “Gatorade shower.”

STATUS: False

During the 1986 National Football League (NFL) season, the New York Giants dominated the league as a whole. They went 14-2 and crushed their three playoff opponents on their way to a Super Bowl victory in January 1987 (their smallest margin of victory in the playoffs was seventeen points). After every one of the Giants’ seventeen victories, the Giants would pour a bucket of Gatorade on head coach Bill Parcells. This “Gatorade shower” (or “Gatorade dunk” or “Gatorade bath,” the act has been given a lot of different names over the years) became a national sensation in 1987, popping up from everywhere to sporting events (like the 1987 World Series) and Presidential celebrations (President Ronald Reagan was given a drawing for his 76th birthday party depicting Reagan receiving a Gatorade shower). Bill Schmidt, head of sports marketing for Gatorade, did not see the Giants do their celebration until the first round of the playoffs (where the Giants defeated the 49ers 49-3). When he did, Schmidt later recalled that he thought, “What the hell? I think I have died and gone to heaven?” Gatorade naturally latched on to the celebration and marketed it heavily. It has now become a longstanding sports tradition, especially in the world of football.

But where did the tradition start? In his excellent book,First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon,Darren Rovell wrote about how the Giants first began doing the celebration. Amazingly enough, it began as somewhat of an act of aggression! You see, in 1985 the Giants started the season 3-3. They hosted their divisional rival Washington Redskins on October 20, 1985 in a big game for both teams (the Redskins had also started the season 3-3). In the week leading up to the game, Bill Parcells gave nose guard Jim Burt a lot of grief, telling him that Redskins offensive lineman Jeff Bostic was going to eat him up. So when the Giants won the game 17-3, Burt decided to celebrate/take his anger out on his coach by pouring the Gatorade cooler on Parcells’ head. The next week, the Giants won again. This time, Burt enlisted Giant Pro Bowl Linebacker Harry Carson, one of the most respected members of the team (and a favorite of Parcells) to do the dunk, figuring that if Carson did it, Parcells could not get mad. Parcells did not mind the dunks. The following season, while Burt felt that the bit was no longer original and did not want to do it anymore, Carson continued doing it after every Giants victory. As a result, Carson and Parcells became the face of the dunk (Carson even ended up signing a $20,000 deal with Gatorade where they would use his image on a “How to dunk” promotional poster!). So clearly, the New York Giants, Harry Carson and Bill Parcells are what people think of when it comes to the “Gatorade dunk,” and Rovell is quite correct as to the origins of how the Giants came to do the dunk. But was it actually the ORIGINATION of the Gatorade shower?

Quite simply, no, it was not. The previous season, on November 25, 1984, the Chicago Bears were on the verge of clinching the Central Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) via a 39-3 thrashing of the Minnesota Vikings. Defensive tackle Steve McMichael grabbed head coach Mike Ditka and defensive tackle Mike Hampton and linebacker Mike Singletary (both Pro Bowlers that year) poured the Gatorade cooler over Ditka’s head in celebration of the Bears clinching the division (which capped an impressive three-year turnaround for the franchise). This particular Gatorade shower was even included in NFL Film’s 1984 Yearbook for the Bears, so it was not an obscure incident.

I think that it is very believable that Burt had no idea that the Bears had done the Gatorade shower the previous season when he did it to Parcells, but whether he was inspired by the Bears’ celebration or not, the Bears clearly did do it first. So when you see an article refer to the Giants as originating the Gatorade shower, you now know better.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The NFL changed the rules for extra points during the 1940 NFL Championship Game because they were running out of footballs.

STATUS: True

On November 17th, 1940, the West division leading Chicago Bears brought their 6-2 record into Washington D.C. to face off against the East division leading 7-1 Washington Redskins. Both teams had a very good chance of making the playoffs and then facing off again in the NFL Championship Game in three weeks (the Redskins ended up having a very good Brooklyn Dodgers team give them a bit of a scare at the end of the season, but the Bears were pretty much all by themselves in the West) and the game had a bit of a “let’s find out who the best team in the NFL is” feel to it.

The Redskins won 7-3, but the game ended with the Bears on the Redskins’ five-yard line and a possible game-winning touchdown pass going by Chicago Pro Bowl fullback Rob Osmanski. The Bears called for pass interference but to no avail, the game was Washington’s. Redskin owner George Marshall then gave Chicago both barrells as he called them whiners and crybabies, even going as far as to say that they were quitters and they were not a second-half of the season team.

The December 8th Championship Game was a rematch in two ways, with the Redskins only previous NFL Championship coming in 1937 when they also defeated the Chicago Bears.

The game went a whole different direction, though.

The biggest Super Bowl margin of victory in NFL history is 45 points.

The Bears defeated the Redskins by SEVENTY-THREE points!!!

Yep, 73-0.

And here’s where the rule change came in. Late in the game, with the Bears up 60-0, they missed their NINTH point after kick. This led to a problem – the balls were going into the crowd and the angry Washington audience were NOT returning them! So they were running out of balls to play with!!

Therefore, for the last two scores in the game, the Bears were not allowed to kick an extra point. They had to pass or run the ball in. The Bears went 1 for 2 in their attempts.

Pretty nuts, huh?

Okay, that’s it for this edition!

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

-Brian Cronin