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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Football Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. The NFL tried to trademark “The Big Game.”

2. Pat Summerall got the nickname “Pat” from his job as a placekicker

3. A paternity test was done on George Gipp – almost seventy-seven years after he died!

4. Ryan Fitzpatrick scored a perfect 50 on his Wonderlic test.

5. The Steelers and the Eagles combined teams for a season.

6. The Super Bowl is named after the Super Ball.

7. A player played professional football under an assumed name so that he could play college football, as well!

8. Kurt Warner refused to appear on the cover of an issue of Sports Illustrated about the supposed “Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx.”

9. In back-to-back years, two separate Canadian football teams drafted dead players.

10. The Governor of Colorado lost Pike’s Peak to Texas in a football bet.

11. President Nixon called a play in a Washington Redskins playoff game.

12. Bo Schembechler owned a Domino’s Pizza franchise in Columbus, Ohio during the 1980s

13. The New York Giants originated the “Gatorade shower.”

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

15. Hall of Fame coach George Allen was killed by a Gatorade Shower

16. Edgar Allan Poe played an early form of football

17. Two Detroit Lions recorded a Gold Record while still playing in the NFL

18. The owners of the Eagles and the Steelers actually TRADED franchises.

19. A player shouted “This one is for the Gipper” when he won a game for Notre Dame after Knute Rockne’s famous “Win one for the Gipper” halftime speech

20. The bloody Y.A. Tittle photograph, one of the famous images in NFL history, never appeared in a newspaper when it was first taken

21. The second half kick-off in the first Super Bowl was re-played because NBC missed it coming back from commercial.

22. Pamela Anderson’s big break came when she was shown on the Jumbotron at a football game

23. Monster Cable sued the Chicago Bears over the phrase “Monsters of the Midway”

24. The Steelers chose Mike Tomlin as their Head Coach over Ken Whisenhunt

25. An injured NFL rookie almost destroyed the entire NFL draft system

26. A player suffered a career ending injury walking back from a coin toss.

27. 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!

28. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers accidentally drafted the wrong player in the first round of the 1982 NFL Draft.

29. The Steeers 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.

30. A team drafted the wrong player because two top prospects had similar sounding names.

31. A team dropped two spots in the draft because they missed their initial pick.

32. An NFL team once drafted John Wayne when he was 63 years old.

33. Gino Marchetti won the 1958 NFL MVP Award.

34. Fresno State wears a “V” on their helmets as in “V for Victory”

35. Ohio State once gave up a touchdown…to its own player!

36. Sun Devil Stadium had an extreme makeover when Pope John Paul II came to visit during the 1980s.

37. Ole Miss changed the speed limit around campus in honor of former Ole Miss great Archie Manning.

38. NBC sent an employee running on to the field to delay the 1958 National Football League Championship because they had lost the TV signal.

39. The Saints got their name because they were founded on All Saint’s Day.

40. The Saints’ field caught fire in the middle of a game!

41. The kicker who held the NFL record for longest field goal for four decades inspired the NFL to come up with a new rule because of the special shoes he wore due to having no toes on his kicking foot!

42. The deed to Kenan Memorial Stadium required that the stadium never rise above the pine trees that surround the stadium.

43. Vince Lombardi traded a player five minutes after learning the player had hired an agent to represent him in contract negotiations with the Packers.

44. A $1 investment by a team manager eventually turned into 10% of the Minnesota vikings.

45. A future Hall of Famer was drafted in the last round of the 1934 NFL Draft based on the sound of his name!

46. Jack Lambert was ejected from a game for “hitting a quarterback too hard.”

47. The Washington Redskins used to be the Duluth Eskimos.

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

49. Pamela Anderson got her big break when caught by a TV camera at a Canadian Football game.

50. The Cardinals got their name from the faded used jerseys they wore.

51. A waived player once pulled a gun on his general manager.

52. The annual Army-Navy Game drew two separate U.S. Presidents directly into the planning of the game and, ultimately, the future of football itself.

Ta da!

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Baseball Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. The New York Yankees were the first Major League Baseball team to regularly use uniform numbers.

2. Charlie Kerfeld sought to commemorate his uniform number when it came time to renegotiate his contract after the 1986 baseball season.

3. Roger Bresnahan invented the shin guard..

4. Wally Joyner was hit by a bowie knife thrown at him by a fan in Yankee Stadium.

5. Tony Horton had an amusing response to being retired by Steve Hamilton on a trick pitch.

6. When Rickey Henderson was introduced to his new Seattle Mariner teammate John Olerud, he told Olerud that he reminded him of a player Henderson had played with before. That player was John Olerud.

7. A baseball player who went missing for a couple of days claimed to have been kidnapped by gangsters.

8. Bill Lange broke through the outfield fence to make a brilliant catch.

9. Lou Piniella was the first major league baseball player to be thrown out at every base/plate in a single game!

10. Ron Wright had an extremely memorable (not in a good way) performance in his first, and only, major league game.

11. Major League Baseball used to allow injured players to have another player run for them and still allow the injured player to return later.

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

13. Joel Youngblood got a hit for two different baseball teams in two different cities all in a single day!

14. Rob Ducey was traded for himself.

15. The baseball that Barry Bonds hit to pass Babe Ruth’s career home run total ended up in the hands of a fan who was at the concession stand at the time!

16. Tommy Davis’ former Dodger teammate Johnny Roseboro helped him bat over .300 in 1967.

17. Ferguson Jenkins lost five games 1-0 in 1968.

18. The New York Post had an editorial up the day after the Yankees defeated the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series bemoaning a Yankee loss in the series.

19. Wade Boggs once drank 64 cans of Miller Light on a cross-country flight (in the alternative, Wade Boggs drank over 50 cans of Miller Light).

20. The Atlanta Braves had a night celebrating a gay group.

21. A Cubs outfielder misplayed a ball in the outfield due to falling into an exposed manhole!

22. Tommy John once made three errors on a single play.

23. Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher Joel Hanrahan won a game on July 9, 2009…for the Washington Nationals!

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

25. Major League Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick vetoed the fans on voting for two All-Stars in 1957.

26. The White Sox once accidentally traded for the wrong player!

27. An organist was once ejected from a game by an umpire.

28. Los Angeles Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda has a rather…interesting response to a reporter’s question about the performance of Mets outfielder Dave Kingman.

29. Shea Stadium congratulated the Boston Red Sox on winning the 1986 World Series before Game 6 of the 1986 World Series ended.

30. Frank Thomas’ agents dropped him for skipping team workouts.

31. Due to a scorer’s error, Tris Speaker went unrecognized for an RBI record for seventy-nine years!

32. Tris Speaker predicted that the New York Yankees were making a mistake by turning Babe Ruth into a full-time outfielder instead of a pitcher.

33. A baseball pitcher missed almost a month due to his fingers getting caught in a rocking chair while he was sleeping.

34. A Twins pitcher was once knocked out during a bar brawl…by his own manager!!

35. The White Sox offered Joe Jackson and $60,000 for Babe Ruth before the Red Sox sold him to the Yankees.

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

37. Bo Belinsky intentionally hit Hank Aaron after Aaron hit his 400th home run off of Belinsky, with Belinsky tipping his hat to the slugger both times.

38. After a tragic stadium collapse, the owners of the Philadelphia Phillies were forced to sell the team.

39. Yankee outfielder Brett Gardner didn’t even make the College of Charleston’s baseball team as a walk-on!

40. Ted Williams had an infamously cocky response as a rookie when told how he could learn from watching the great Jimmie Foxx hit.

41. Ray Chapman was the first player killed during a baseball game.

42. For a few seasons, the Philadelphia Phillies were known as the Philadelphia Blue Jays.

43. Garry Maddox’s hair style was due to an accident during his time fighting in the Vietnam War.

44. As an adolescent, Mark Teixeira had an interesting way of expressing his appreciation for the band, Nirvana.

45. Pedro Martinez lost the 1999 American League Most Valuable Player Award due to being left off the ballot of two voters completely, one of whom who had made some rather interesting votes the previous season.

46. The Red Sox began playing “Sweet Caroline” in honor of a Red Sox employee who named her newborn daughter “Caroline” in 1998.

Ta da!

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SPORTS LEGEND: Boise State’s blue turf causes duck to think it is water, leading ducks to dive into the turf and die. Read the rest of this entry »

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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: Major League Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick vetoed the fans on voting for two All-Stars in 1957.

Ted (Big Klu) Kluszewski was a slugging first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds during the 1950s. A popular player, he was an All-Star in 1953, 1954, 1955 and 1956.

However, in 1957, Kluszewski was injured most of the season, so his back-up, George Crowe, became the everyday first baseman for the Reds, and it was Crowe who was on the All Star Ballot as the Reds’ First Base representative.

That’s notable only because, when the voting results were in for the 1957 All Star Game (to be held in St. Louis), Crowe was the ONLY one of Cicinnati’s EIGHT players on the ballot to NOT get elected to be in the All-Star Game!!!
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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: Tommy Davis’ former Dodger teammate Johnny Roseboro helped him bat over .300 in 1967.

We can’t always expect stars to remember all the details from the stories they relate in their biographies (or other places where they are asked to reminisce about the past), but when the main point of the story appears to be incorrect, I think it is worth pointing it out.

Tommy Davis spent the first eight seasons of his career playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He was a great hitter, and won back-to-back batting titles with the Dodgers in 1962 and 1963 (the Dodgers also won the World Series in 1963).

After an injury in 1965, Davis was never really the same player ever again, and after being traded to the Mets in 1967, Davis played an additional eleven seasons for a total of TEN other teams (counting the Mets and also, admittedly, counting the Yankees, who Davis signed with but never actually suited up for).

In his memoirs, Davis spoke of a particular situation that took place in the second to last game of the 1967 season, with his current team, the Mets, squared off against his old team, the Dodgers.

Davis recalls coming to bat against Don Drysdale having already gone 0-2 so far in the game. Davis felt he was close to .300 (maybe even under) and really wanted to hit .300, so he asked his former teammate and friend, catcher John Roseboro, if he could help him out. He told him where he stood, batting average-wise. The game was a meaningless game (the Dodgers and Mets were 8th and 10th, respectively), so it didn’t really mean much except for personal statistical accomplishments (in the days before free agency, batting .300 and batting .299 likely DID matter on how much money you made the next season).

So Davis’ old teammate, Roseboro, had Drysdale throw one right down the middle and Davis scorched it for a double. With his average now safely above .300 (.302, as Davis tells it), Davis took himself out of the game and then skipped the final game of the season.

Is the story true?
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SPORTS LEGEND: A Wimbledon finalist was later convicted of murder. Read the rest of this entry »

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SPORTS LEGEND: During “The Battle of the Sexes” between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, there were special rules that gave King an advantage. Read the rest of this entry »

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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: Ferguson Jenkins lost five games 1-0 in 1968.

1968 is known as the “year of the pitcher.”

Major League Baseball, in an attempt to combat increased offense in the years following the expansion in the early 1960s, decided to give pitchers some advantages. They raised the pitching mound and increased the size of the strike zone.

As a result, pitching dominated the big leagues in 1968.

In 1966, National League teams averaged 4.09 runs a game.

In 1967, National League teams averaged 3.84 runs a game.

In 1968, National League teams averaged 3.43 runs a game!

Bob Gibson set a new major league record for lowest Earned Run Average for a season (1.12 ERA).

So when Ferguson Jenkins says that he lost five games in 1968 1-0, it’s not unbelievable, but at the same time, it seems like the sort of thing that a guy might easily misremember.

So what’s the deal?
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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: The Harlem Globetrotters began in Chicago.

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

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

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

However, Saperstein figured that a traveling team would be more interesting if they were out of towners.So he went to figure out a place where the team could be “from,” and he came up with quite an idea!
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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: The New York Post had an editorial up the day after the Yankees defeated the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS bemoaning a Yankee loss.

When it comes to jumping the gun a bit, the New York Post’s mistake on October 17, 2003, was not nearly as bad as the infamous Chicago Tribune headline wrongly naming Thomas Dewey as the thirty-fourth President of the United States.

Still, mere hours after Aaron Boone’s dramatic 11th inning walk-off home run sent the New York Yankees to the World Series by defeating the Red Sox four games to three…

the New York Post had the following editorial in some editions of their paper (thanks to the Smoking Gun for the image)…
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