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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about hockey and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the hockey urban legends featured so far.

HOCKEY 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.

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 2015 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?
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about hockey and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the hockey urban legends featured so far.

HOCKEY URBAN LEGEND: Bruce Gamble died during an Old Timer’s Game.

Bruce Gamble was a hockey goalie who was best known for his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs, for whom he played for from 1966-67 until the middle of the 1969-70 season.

During that season, he was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for Bernie Parent.

He would play until the 1972 season for the Flyers before retiring at the age of 34 because of heart problems. He actually had his first heart attack after a Flyers game (the onset of the heart attack occurred during the game!).

What happened next was quite sad but is also misreported…
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about the Olympics and Olympians and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the Olympic urban legends featured so far.

OLYMPIC URBAN LEGEND: A song was re-named years after it first came out because it was used in a clip package for an Olympic athlete.

In an amusing coincidence, yesterday I had a sports legend that seemed like it could also work as an entertainment legend and an entertainment legend that could also work as a sports legend, so I figured I’d do them as bonus legends on each site.

In 1971, Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin, Jr. wrote a piece of incidental music for the movie, Bless the Beasts and Children.

It was called “Cotten’s Dream.”

A couple of years later, the pair adapted the song to serve as the theme song to a new soap opera called The Young and the Restless. The show became very popular, and remains today one of the most popular soap operas out there. The song also gained quite a bit of notoriety from being the theme to the program.

However, it was not until three years later, in 1976, that the song REALLY took off and in the process, amusingly enough gained a new NAME!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: An NFL team once drafted John Wayne when he was 63 years old.

Here’s the final in my series of football legends tied in to the NFL Draft ahead of tonight’s draft.

Marion Morrison, later known by his famed stagename John Wayne, was an accomplished football player who played football at USC under coach Howard Jones. Morrison’s football career was ruined by a collarbone injury suffered while he was surfing (a fact that he kept hidden from his coach).

The loss of his athletic scholarship forced him to leave school. He then became a bit player in films until he eventually became perhaps the most famous actor in the history of the movies.

Read on to learn how an NFL team decided to pay tribute to the acting great late in his career…
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: A team dropped two spots in the draft because they missed their initial pick.

Ahead of tonight’s NFL Draft, I’m continuing looking at some legends involving the draft.

This one involves the strange tale of the 2003 NFL Draft and how the Minnesota Vikings ended up getting the ninth pick in the draft instead of the seventh pick.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: A team drafted the wrong player because two top prospects had similar sounding names.

Ahead of tonight’s NFL Draft, I’m continuing looking at some legends involving the draft. This one was actually sent in to me yesterday by reader Frank W., who asked if it was true that the Cleveland Browns drafted Tight End Jordan Cameron thinking that they were getting defensive end Cameron Jordan.

Simply put, Frank, no, but there WAS an amusing incident on draft night involving the two players.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The Steelers and the Rams both tried to get the final pick in the 1979 NFL Draft, forcing the commissioner to institute a new rule for the draft.

On January 20, 1980, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Los Angeles Rams 31-19 in the Super Bowl for their (at the time) record fourth NFL Championship (after being passed by both the Cowboys and 49ers, the Steelers have since reclaimed the crown by winning two more titles in 2005 and 2008).

Four months later, the Rams were once again defeated by the Steelers, only in a rather bizarre squabble over who got to make the last pick in the 1980 NFL Draft!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers accidentally drafted the wrong player in the first round of the 1982 NFL Draft.

With the NFL Draft this week, I figured it would be nice to do a few legends this week involving the draft.

In the 1982 NFL Draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Guard Sean Farrell with the seventeenth pick in the first round.

However, amazingly enough that wasn’t the player that they meant to draft!

Read on to see how the mess happened.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: One of the most prominent “Mr. Irrelevant”s was still irrelevant enough that his team misspelled his name on his jersey when he became their starting quarterback!

When the NFL Draft takes place next week, we’ll see the continuation of one of the oddest traditions in the NFL, but also one of the coolest. I’m talking, of course, about “Mr. Irrelevant.”

Started by former NFL player Paul Salata (seen here in 2005)…

it is a ceremony “celebrating” the player chosen last in the NFL Draft.

The first Mr. Irrelevant was Kelvin Kirk, picked number 487 of the 1976 draft.

Mr. Irrelevant and his family is invited to Newport Beach for a weekend in the summer after the draft devoted to celebrating him, all for charity, with a golf tournament, a regatta, a roast where people give the player advice and, of course, the awarding of the Lowsman Trophy (a parody of the Heisman Trophy, with the trophy fumbling the ball)…

A “problem” with the ceremony as the years have gone by is that the NFL has greatly reduced the number of rounds in the draft. So while, sure, being the last person drafted today is still a spot where you’re not assured a future in the league, being the 255th player in the draft is a lot better than the 487th player!

So in recent years, Mr. Irrelevants have become more and more commonly parts of teams, including 2009’s Mr. Irrelevant, Placekicker Ryan Succop, who has been a starting kicker ever since he entered the league.

The reigning Mr. Irrelevant is Texans safety, Lonnie Ballentine (who missed his first season due to injury):

But even in the old days, when the odds of a Mr. Irrelevant becoming a major part of a team were slim, there were exceptions.

The most notable exception was 1978’s Mr. Irrelevant, Bill Kenney (technically, Kenney was chosen SECOND-to-last, but the player chosen last suffered a career-ending injury before training camp began, so Kenney became Mr. Irrelevant). His career took an interesting turn a few years into his tenure in the pros.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about baseball and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the baseball urban legends featured so far.

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND: Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees to (among other things) finance a musical called No No, Nanette that proceeded to flop!

As noted in this earlier Baseball Urban Legends Revealed, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee decided to trade his star player, Babe Ruth, after the 1919 season (a season where the Red Sox finished sixth out of eight teams), when Ruth demanded that his salary be doubled to $20,000.

Ultimately, Frazee accepted an offer from the New York Yankees for over $100,000 in cash, plus three $25,000 notes that would be paid out over the next six years PLUS a $300,000 mortgage on Fenway Park (Frazee had just purchased the park to protect him from being forced out as owner of the Red Sox if the other owners turned on him, as he would own the park where the Red Sox played).

At the time, Frazee actually made a strong argument as to why he made the deal…

I should have preferred to take players in exchange for Ruth, but no club could have given me the equivalent in men without wrecking itself, and so the deal had to be made on a cash basis. No other club could afford to give me the amount the Yankees have paid for him, and I don’t mind saying I think they are taking a gamble. With this money the Boston club can now go into the market and buy other players and have a stronger and better team in all respects than we would have had if Ruth had remained with us.

You have to admit, that’s a pretty strong argument.

Of course, Frazee did NOT spend the money on his club, at least not to the extent that he said he would, and the Red Sox became worse and worse over the next few years.

Frazee also happened to be a major investor in the world of the theater.

Perhaps his most famous production was the musical, No, No, Nanette, a 1925 hit (that has been revived and turned into films more than a few times) that featured the song “Tea for Two,” which is STILL famous today…

There are lots of rumors and half truths when it comes to Frazee’s involvement in the theater and its relationship with the Babe Ruth deal, most prominently that Frazee sold off Ruth to pay for the musical No, No Nanette and then saw the musical flop.

Are those rumors true?
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