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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: Dock Ellis was banned from wearing hair curlers on the field.

Dock Ellis was a strange star baseball player.

As a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1968-1975, Ellis had a lot of highs, but also a lot of lows.

One of his highs was winning 19 games for the Pirates in 1971, in a season that the Pirates won the World Series and Ellis was the starting pitcher for the National League in the All Star Game.

Another high was in 1970, when Ellis throw a no-hitter against the Padres (Ellis later claimed he was on LSD during the game).

But Ellis had his low points, too, like the 1974 game against the Cincinnati Reds, where Ellis attempted to hit every batter in the Reds lineup (he hit the first three, tried to hit the fourth, Tony Perez, who managed to avoid the pitches and draw a walk, and after the first pitch went past Johnny Bench’s head, Ellis was removed from the game).

Or when he was maced by a Reds security guard in 1972 after failing to give identification and for making “menacing gestures” with his fist (Ellis later pointed out that he was trying to show his World Series ring to show he was a member of the Pirates).

However, perhaps the oddest low point in Ellis’ career was when he was banned from wearing hair curlers on the field!
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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 Detroit Red Wings used to lend their trainer to other teams if they needed a goalie for a game.

Teams in sports used to have an entirely different idea of what was sporting and what was not, and just like how baseball teams once allowed their opponents “courtesy runners” when players were injured, Hockey used to have a similar practice.

Ross “Lefty” Wilson was a pretty good goaltender when he was in his teens during the late 1930s, and he bummed around various hockey leagues before taking some time off from the sport in the early 1940s. He returned to hockey in the mid-40s, but soon took up what became his life’s career, working as an assistant trainer for the Detroit Red Wings.

Here he is early in his tenure with the club (he’s the first man in the picture, all the way to the left)…

He stayed with the team for the rest of his career, working as their head trainer from 1950 to 1982!

He won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955 (his name’s on the Cup).

Back in the 1950s, hockey teams didn’t carry back-up goalies. Usually, they would have an amateur goalie ready to go in if need be. Well, that’s just what happened in 1953, when Wilson made his NHL debut filling in for the Red Wings’ Hall of Fame goalie, Terry Sawchuk, in the final minutes of a Detroit loss.

1956 saw an even stranger use of Wilson, though!

In 1956, when the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Hall of Fame goalie Harry Lumley was injured at the end of a Toronto/Detroit game, the Red Wings actually loaned Toronto the use of Wilson!!! The Red Wings were up 4-1 at the time and there were only 13 minutes left, and that’s how the game ended.

Amazingly enough, though, Wilson got into a THIRD NHL game the next year, as the Boston Bruins’ goalie Don Simmons was injured in a game against the Red Wings. This time, though, the injury happened early in the game, and Wilson had to play over 50 minutes of the game, which ended in a 2-2 tie!!! Yep, the Red Wings’ own trainer tied them in a game!! As he said years later, he didn’t want to hear the players teasing him when he went to sew them up the next day!

Isn’t that a nice story of good sportsmanship?

Lefty Wilson passed away in 2002 a Red Wings legend.

The legend is…

STATUS: True

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

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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: There was a remarkable act of almost instant karma in a 2001 Chicago Blackhawks/Colorado Avalanche game.

On January 26, 2001, the Chicago Blackhawks visited Colorado to take on the Avalanche in a fairly standard regular season game – the Blackhawks lost 5-2 to go three games under .500 on their way to their fifth straight losing season (and fourth straight season missing the playoffs) while the Avalanche won on the way to their second Stanley Cup championship.

However, one very NON standard event took place during the game, and it involved the Blackhawks’ leading scorer, Steve Sullivan and, as John Lennon once sang (see the lyrics in the title of this post), “Instant Karma.”
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about basketball and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the basketball urban legends featured so far.

BASKETBALL URBAN LEGEND: Everett Case created the ACC Tournament.

Everett Case was best known for being the head coach of the North Carolina State Wolfpack from 1946 until 1964.

One of the great coaches of his day, Case was also a great salesman for the sport of college basketball, as he helped drive the popularity of the sport in the South.

Originally, North Carolina State was part of the Southern Conference, along with the other great Southern basketball squads like North Carolina, Duke and Maryland.

However, the Southern Conference was very much a football conference at the time (although Case was doing his best to change that in North Carolina), and it was football that led to the formation of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

You see, going into the 1951 season, people were beginning to almost “fear” college bowl games, mostly because there was so much money wrapped up in a team going to a bowl game that they would do anything they could to get there, including rigging their schedule so that they would not have to face the best competition. And since the Southern Conference had an unwieldy 17 teams in it, there was no good way to pick who was the “champion” of the conference. So the Southern Conference decided to ban teams from playing in bowl games, hoping that this would curtail any sketchy behavior. Naturally, colleges disagreed with this idea, and Marylan and Clemson both received and ACCEPTED invitations to play in bowl games in 1952.

They were suspended by the Southern Conference, but that just drove Maryland, Clemson and six other schools (including Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State) to leave and form their own conference that would allow bowl games – the ACC.

It was here that Everett Case came up with an idea that was quite controversial for a few decades – while the ACC college football teams would decide a champion via polls, the ACC college basketball teams would decide via a round-robin, single-elimination tournament. So you could go 24-0 during the regular season, but if you lost in the ACC tournament, you were NOT the ACC champion – the team that won the tournament was, even if they were 11-13.

So that is an innovation that is clearly Case’s, and it was that innovation that helped drive the early interest in the ACC tournaments (which soon expanded into television, as well). However, it is often said that Case INVENTED the ACC tournament, or that he CREATED the ACC tournament.

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

BASKETBALL URBAN LEGEND: An NCAA basketball game once ended with a team playing 1-on-5!

In 1982, two small colleges got together to play a basketball game.

It was the Knights of West Coast Christian College (which closed its doors in 1992) versus the Sea Lions of University of California: Santa Cruz (who have since changed the name of their team to the Slugs…

The Knights were a bit short-manned for the game, having only 8 players available to play.

Well, early on, foul trouble plagued the Knights and they lost three players to fouls (you can only commit 4 fouls during a game – the fifth foul results in your removal from the game, you have “fouled out”).

Later on in the game, another player fouled out, so the Knights had to play 4 on 5, and yet were still leading the Sea Lions!

However, a string of fouls towards the end of the game resulted in SEVEN of the eight remaining Knights to foul out of the game with just over two minutes left to play!

All that was left was guard Mike Lockhart!
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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: Ron Wright had an extremely memorable (not in a good way) performance in his first, and only, major league game.

Ron Wright was a top hitting prospect for the Atlanta Braves as a slugging first baseman when he was traded along with top Atlanta pitching prospect Jason Schmidt to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Pirates’ ace Denny Neagle.

Wright automatically became one of Pittsburgh’s top hitting prospects.

Wright was actually called up to the big league club at the end of 1997, but he had a sore wrist, so the Pirates just kept him on the bench (as why risk an injury when this guy was surely going to get to the Majors eventually anyways, right?).

The next year, though, Wright’s career was basically ruined by a back injury. He missed most of the 1998 season, and the worst thing about it was that the surgery to FIX his back actually ended up hurting his sciatic nerve. Wright was now basically done as a top prospect, but he was still a good enough player to stick in the minor leagues for a few more years and finally, now in the Seattle Mariner organization, he got called up to the big league club in 2002 when Edgar Martinez went down with an injury.

He stayed on the bench, but then an injury to third baseman Jeff Cirillo in batting practice required a change to the lineup and Piniella inserted Wright as the Designated Hitter, batting seventh.

The game was in Arlington against the Texas Rangers (who had former Seattle Mariner star player Alex Rodriguez on the team). Wright’s game would be one for the ages!
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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: Lou Piniella was the first major league baseball player to be thrown out at every base/plate in a single game!

Lou Piniella was originally drafted in 1962 when he was just 18 years old (he turned 19 a couple of months later).

He spent a good long time in the minor leagues for a few different clubs. Piniella has the interesting distinction of being drafted by two different teams in the Major League Expansion Draft.

The Los Angeles Angels took him in the 1962 Expansion Draft and the Seattle Pilots took him in the 1969 Expansion Draft.

In both cases, the teams then traded him to another team.

The Pilots traded him to the Kansas City Royals and finally, in 1969, Piniella became a regular major league player. He went on to win the 1969 Rookie of the Year Award.

Piniella was noted in how aggressive he played the game, but at times, that aggressiveness did not always pay off, noted by an early game in the 1970 season (April 16, 1970 to be precise) in Milwaukee that the Royals played the Brewers.
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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: Bill Lange broke through the outfield fence to make a brilliant catch.

In the film, the Natural, the character of Bump Bailey dies after crashing through a wall to make a dramatic catch in the outfield.

There are a few notable examples in baseball history that likely inspired this tale.

One was Yankee centerfielder Earle Combs, whose career basically ended upon an outfield collision he had in 1934 where he fractured his skull, broke his shoulder and seriously injured his knee – he was in the hospital for two months.

The next season, he attempted a comeback, but suffered another injury. As he was 36 years old and the Yankees were planning on bringing their prized centerfield prospect up the next season (a kid by the name of Joe DiMaggio – whatever happened to that guy?), Combs decided to retire.

So that likely had some influence upon Bump Bailey, but even more likely of an influence would probably be Bill Lange.

Bill Lange was a Chicago Colts centerfielder (he originally broke in as a second baseman) who was known as being a good fielder (he was also a good hitter, too!).

As the story goes, in a scoreless game in the tenth inning against the Washington Senators, with a runner on third base and two outs, Lange made a running catch in left-center field that caused him to crash through the wooden fence in left field, but still holding on to the ball.

It’s a great story, and it likely had some influence upon Bump Bailey’s similar crash in The Natural.

But is it just as fictional?
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about boxing and whether they are true or false.

BOXING URBAN LEGEND: A boxing championship bout once ended in a double-knockout!

First off, almost all states have it written into their rules what would happen if there was a legitimate double knockout (both fighters knocked unconscious or both fighters just able to get to their feet before being counted out) – it would be a draw.

However, it really does not come up that often – boxers are known to occasionally both get knocked down at the same time, but one of the fighters almost always gets up before being knocked out.

That did not happen in the bout between Adolph “Ad” Wolgast and “Mexican” Joe Rivers on July 4th, 1912 in California, as the two fought for the lightweight championship (Wolgast was the defending champ).
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about boxing and whether they are true or false.

BOXING URBAN LEGEND: Oscar De la Hoya’s cornerman told him to “run away” from Felix Trinidad in a fight De la Hoya would go on to lose.

The September 18, 1999 boxing match between welterweights Oscar De la Hoya and Felix Trinidad was one of the most highly anticipated fights in years, and it set Pay-Per-View records for a non-heavyweight fight.

The bout would also go on to be one of the most controversial decisions in recent history, while also leading to a persistent, but I say false, legend about De la Hoya’s cornerman, Gil Clancy.
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