Sports – davidbruceblog #2

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Work; The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Absent-Mindedness, Actors

Work

• Walt Disney was uncoordinated but fiercely competitive, and during the Great Depression (when jobs were very, very scarce), his employees did not want to throw or tag him out when he played in one of their lunchtime softball games. Disney employee Jack Kinney once witnessed a game in which Walt Disney hit a grounder to second base. Although the second baseman could have fielded the softball easily, he booted the softball instead into right field. Because the softball had stopped rolling, the right fielder was forced to pick it up, and he immediately threw it to the third baseman instead of the first baseman. The third baseman threw it to the second baseman. The second baseman had no choice but to throw it to the first baseman. The first baseman deliberately bobbled the ball, and when uncoordinated Walt finally made it to first base, the first baseman dropped the ball. Result: Walt was credited with a single. Moral: If you are uncoordinated but want to be a great athlete, just be the guy who does the hiring and firing in the midst of a depression.

• As a child, Tod Sloan (who was later a famous jockey) worked in a carnival with “Professor” Talbot, who among other activities rode in a hot air balloon. One day, the Professor, who had never seen a parachute, made one by looking at a picture and using it as a model. He then announced to the crowd that he would go up in the balloon and his little boy would jump from the balloon and float down to earth with the parachute. Tod asked, “Who’s your little boy?” The professor said, “You are.” Tod exclaimed, “Like h*ll I am!”

• In 1916, pitcher Jack Nabors was in a game that was tied 1-1 in the ninth inning, and he let the other team walk in the winning run—on purpose. Why? He explained, “If they think I’d stand there in that sun and pitch another nine innings waiting for our bums to make another run, they’re crazy.”

Absent-Mindedness

• As a young actress just starting in show business, Eve Arden quickly learned not to be absent minded. She once finished a play’s first act, went to her dressing room, took off her costume and removed her makeup, and then left the theater to take a bus home — only to find the theater manager running after her and yelling, “Second act!” She returned to the stage wearing galoshes and no makeup, where she discovered her fellow actors desperately ad-libbing lines such as “I saw her in the garden, I think” and “She’ll probably be here any minute.”

• Early in her career, actress Diana Rigg was regarded as something of a kook by her neighbors because she used to lose her keys a few times a year and be forced to gain entry to her apartment by throwing a milk bottle through a window.

Actors

• British actor Pete Postlethwaite has a rugged face. When he was studying at the Bristol Old Vic, he ran out of money to pay for the completion of his course of study. However, the head of the school knew that the young man had real talent, so he told him, “Listen, I have a hunch you’re going to do all right in this business, so I’m going to put down the outstanding amount as a debt and then, in a few years’ time, I’ll write it off as a bad debt.” Of course, this comment made Mr. Postlethwaite happy, although the next comment did not. The head of the school unfortunately added, “Of course, when you’ve got a face like a f**king stone archway, you can’t go wrong.” Mr. Postlethwaite once acted in a play by Restoration playwright William Congreve, and co-star Prunella Scales sent him a telegram praising his performance. According to Mr. Postlethwaite, she wrote that “I was the best Restoration truck driver she’d ever worked with.”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Umpires

Umpires

• Baseball players have tricks to fool the umpires. Some umpires at first base will look at the feet of the runner and listen for the sound of the baseball hitting the first baseman’s glove. Therefore, some first basemen will try to fool the umpire by pounding their fist in the glove to imitate the sound of a baseball hitting their glove. Once, Larry Goertz was umpiring and watching the feet of runner Johnny Moore. Umpire Goertz heard what he thought was the sound of a baseball hitting the glove of first baseman Sam Leslie while Mr. Moore was two steps from first base, so he called Mr. Moore out—and was surprised when Mr. Moore, who was not known to be a complainer, became very upset. Mr. Moore said to Umpire Goertz, “Larry, I feel I have a right to argue. Leslie doesn’t have the ball. They made the play at third base instead.”

• Umpire Tim Hurst was a very intelligent man. When John McGraw was a baseball player, he liked to bet on the horses and a racetrack was conveniently located just outside the St. Louis ballpark. Therefore, Mr. McGraw decided to get on Umpire Hurst so he could be thrown out of the game and could leave and go to the racetrack. After Umpire Hurst called a play, Mr. McGraw ran over to argue the decision. Unfortunately for Mr. McGraw, Umpire Hurst knew what he was doing, so Umpire Hurst told him, “You’re not going to be thrown out of this game, so get back and play third base. And if you expect to place anything on the horses, you’d better send a boy over to do it for you. You’re playing ball.” Mr. McGraw played third base and sent a boy over to place a bet for him.

• St. Louis Cardinal manager Frankie Frisch used to insult umpires, but he was careful not to say anything so insulting that he would be thrown out of the game. However, once he slipped up. He shouted something that the umpire didn’t hear, and when the umpire asked what he had said, Frankie said, “You guessed at everything else today. See if you can guess what I just said.” The umpire replied, “OK, I will, and for saying it, you’re out of the game, Frisch.

• Detroit Tiger Donnie Bush did not care for the way that umpire Silk O’Loughlin was officiating, so he let him know how he felt—loudly and angrily. Umpire O’Loughlin simply walked away, and Mr. Bush kept following him and continuing to let him know how he felt. Eventually, umpire O’Loughlin walked out the gate near first base. Mr. Bush followed him. Then umpire O’Loughlin turned around and told Mr. Bush, “Keep walking. You’re through for today.”

• Jackie Robinson broke the color line in modern major-league baseball. For a long time, he was treated differently because of his race. In 1948, he heckled an umpire who threw him out of the game. This actually made Jackie happy—the umpire would have done exactly the same thing to a white player who had done what Jackie did. Jackie treasured the next day’s newspaper headline: “Jackie Just Another Guy.”

• Frankie Frisch was manager of the Gas House Gang in St. Louis. One day, Mr. Frisch got into an argument with umpire Bill Klem, and after shouting a while, he pretended to faint in an attempt to avoid being thrown out of the game. The Pump House Gang started shouting, “Heart attack!”—but Mr. Klem leaned over Mr. Frisch and said, “Frisch, dead or alive, you’re out of the game.”

• As an African-American major-league umpire, Eric Gregg used to dance with the Philadelphia mascot, the Phillies Phanatic. When people asked why he was the only umpire who did that, he used to reply, “That’s easy. I’m the only umpire who can dance.”

• Charlie Moran used to be an umpire in the National League. Once, he was very slow in making a call about a hit ball, so some ballplayers surrounded him, asking, “Is it safe, or is it out?” Mr. Moran snarled, “It ain’t nothing until I call it.”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Signs, Training, Umpires

Signs

• In a race to Bermuda, Sherman Hoyt was sailing a tiny yacht when he met the huge ocean liner Monarch of Bermuda, which was making a few minor repairs. Mr. Hoyt immediately ran up some signal flags that asked, “Can I be of any assistance?”

Training

• Sports can toughen a girl—or woman. When Kristine Denise Ferrer first began to study Thailand’s national sport, Muay Thai kickboxing, in Los Angeles, she didn’t do so well. When her coach hit her, she saw stars, then she recovered enough to think, “Wait a minute, I’m a girl—you’re not supposed to do that to me.” Her legs also became very bruised from all of her workouts—she wore sweatpants to hide the bruises from other people, such as her mother. Her hard work paid off; she trained her abdominal muscles until her coach was able to drop a 20-pound medicine ball on her stomach multiple times, and she trained against other Muay Thai kickboxers, including guys. They punched and kicked her, and she punched and kicked them—and she welcomed the training as an important part of her workout.

• Chicago Bear Walter Payton developed his running ability in part through a training program that he and his brother devised that included running up and down the sandy banks of the Pearl River—when the sun was hottest. This training program forced him to adjust to the shifting sand beneath his feet and developed his balance and ability to cut. Of course, it also built up his endurance—other athletes who tried the same training program sometimes had to be carried away—after they finished vomiting.

• At the 1896 Olympic Games in Greece, American discus thrower Robert Garrett was an underdog—he hadn’t even trained with the proper equipment. In fact, he had someone make a discus for him using as a model a drawing of an ancient athlete throwing a discus. But when he handled his first real discus at the Olympic Games, he discovered that it was lighter than the discus he had been using. His training with a heavier discus paid off—he won first place.

• Triathlete Heather Hedrick often trains on cold, windy Illinois roads during the winter. When she first started training seriously, the guys she trained with saw her shivering, so they told her, “Heather, the wind is your friend. The wind will make you strong.” After a while, whenever she trained on a cold, windy Illinois road, she would tell herself, “The wind is my friend. The wind will make me strong.”

• In the late 1980s, after going 10 years without competitive boxing, George Foreman made a comeback. To get into shape, Mr. Foreman lost over 50 pounds. In addition, he attached a heavy punching bag to the back of his truck and every day he ran behind the truck for 10 miles, punching the bag the entire distance. The difficult training paid off. In 1994, he regained the world heavyweight title.

• In modern times, an Okinawan schoolteacher named Gichin Funakoshi revived the art of karate. During typhoons, he used to climb to the top of his roof, assume the horseback stance, and attempt to keep his footing during the wind and the rain. Often, he was blown off the roof, so he used to carry a mat with him so he could land on it. All night, he would fight the typhoon.

• As a professional beach volleyball player, Gabrielle Reece works hard. At Gold’s Gym in Venice, California, her trainer, T.R. Goodman, designed a two-hour workout for her that made her vomit the first time she tried it. Nevertheless, she stuck with the training program he had designed.

Umpires

• John Tener, the President of the National League, was great friends with umpire Charlie Rigler. One day, Mr. Rigler got into a ferocious argument with a player for the New York Giants—an argument so ferocious he punched the player. Giants manager John McGraw wanted Mr. Tener to fire Mr. Rigler. At the meeting of National League president and umpire, Mr. Tener asked Mr. Rigler why he had thrown the punch. Mr. Rigler explained, “I want you to know that I kept my temper when he called me an ugly, stupid this-and-that, and I controlled myself when he said I was a blind, no-good so-and-so and every other name you can think of. That was all right. I’m an umpire. I can take that. But when he said, ‘you’re just as bad as that blankety-blank Tener that you work for,’ I couldn’t hold back any longer. I let him have it.” After hearing this explanation, Mr. Tener shouted, “YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED HIM!”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Problem-Solving, Scouting, Signs

Problem-Solving

• Milwaukee pitcher Bill Zuber complained often that his arm got sore after games. Aware that the soreness probably came from Mr. Zuber’s frequent use of his blazing fastball, a friend told him that if he were cunning in his choice of pitches and did not rely so much on his fastball, then his arm would not be so sore after games. Mr. Zuber took the advice, and in part because the batters kept looking for his fastball, which he did not throw nearly as often as he usually did, he pitched a shutout. But unfortunately he had a new complaint: “My arm’s all right, but I’ve got a headache. I pitched with my head today.”

• When Cammi Granato, a gold-medal winner as a member of the United States women’s hockey team at the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games, was growing up, she was the only girl player on a boys’ team. During one game, her coach learned that the opposing players had been ordered to “get number 21”—Cammi’s number. The coach solved the problem by having Cammi switch jerseys with a six-foot-tall teammate.

• The 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team was terrible, losing 112 of 154 games. After a series against the Giants in which the Pirate center fielder had made three throwing errors and had let the ball go between his legs twice, manager Billy Meyer called a meeting to see if anyone could come up with an idea that would make them win. First baseman George “Catfish” Metkovich suggested, “On any ball hit to center field, let’s just let it roll to see if it goes foul.”

Scouting

• As a child, Donna Lopiano wanted to play Little League baseball. However, when she showed up at the beginning of the season, someone else’s father showed her a rulebook, which stated that girls could not play in the Little League. She attended all the games, became convinced that she was a better player than any kid on the field, and kept playing sandlot baseball. She also bugged her parents about finding a team that she could play on. Sal Caginello, an old Army buddy of her father, scouted for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was friends with the coach of the World Champion Raybestos Brakettes Softball Team, located in Stanford, Connecticut. Her father got his old Army buddy drunk, and without ever seeing Donna play, he agreed to drive her to Stanford for a tryout with the World Champions. Sober, he kept his word, but he stayed in the car for the first part of her tryout, afraid that it was going to be a complete disaster. But he watched her play, and he got out of the car and watched. Then he walked closer, by third base, and watched. At the end of the tryout, he was in the dugout, sitting by the coach, who told him that he was the Raybestos Brakettes’ best scout ever. (Donna Lopiano played for the Raybestos Brakettes for three years, from age 16 to 19. She also became a nine-time Amateur Softball Association All-American player as a pitcher, shortstop, first baseman, and second baseman.)

• Coach George Halas of the Chicago Bears was one of the first coaches to scout teams. After losing a game by a score of 7-3 to the Washington Redskins following a controversial call by an official, the Bears complained and in turn the Redskins called them “crybabies.” Mr. Halas responded by scouting the Redskins and creating plays to exploit the Redskins’ weaknesses. The scouting paid off. The next time the Bears met the Redskins, Chicago won, 73-0.

Signs

• In 2001, Barry Bonds broke the single-season home-run record set by Mark McGwire; however, hitting 73 home runs in one season was difficult for Mr. Bonds in part because pitchers preferred to walk him rather than pitch to him and risk having him hit a home run. Late in the season, whenever Mr. Bonds’ young daughters went to the ballpark to watch their father play, they carried a sign that said, “Please pitch to our daddy.”

• In the early 1980s, the Northwestern University football team was mainly known for its losing seasons; after all, it lost 30 games in a row. In fact, when Doug Single interviewed for the job of Northwestern University athletic director, he saw a highway sign. Underneath INTERSTATE 94, someone had written NORTHWESTERN 0.

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Practical Jokes, Prejudice

Practical Jokes

• At the 2004 football game between Harvard and Yale, pranksters gave colored pieces of paper to selected Harvard fans and told them that when they all held up the pieces of paper at the same time, the pieces of paper would spell “GO HARVARD.” In fact, when held up at the same time the pieces of paper spelled “WE SUCK.”

• Rabbit Maranville once was tagged out when he fell victim to the hidden baseball trick. Later that day, some of his friends treated him to supper. Rabbit’s dessert was a huge bowl of ice cream, and when he started to eat it, he found a hidden baseball.

Prejudice

• Bill Russell experienced prejudice while starring for the Boston Celtics. After a three-day weekend, he and his family returned to their home only to discover that it had been broken into and vandalized. Many of his trophies had been smashed, and the vandals had spray-painted “NIGGA” on some walls. In addition, whenever Mr. Russell was out of Boston playing away games, someone upset his trashcans. When Mr. Russell complained to the police about the trashcans, the police told him that raccoons had created the mess. Therefore, Mr. Russell asked about getting a gun permit so he could shoot the raccoons. Apparently, the “raccoons” heard about the gun permit because they stopped upsetting Mr. Russell’s trashcans. Nevertheless, progress in civil rights was being made. Mr. Russell’s grandfather, whom Mr. Russell called the “Old Man,” lived in the Jim Crow South. When he finally attended his first professional basketball game, he was accompanied by his son, Mr. Russell’s father. The Old Man was astonished at seeing the respect Mr. Russell received as player-coach. The Old Man asked Mr. Russell’s father, “Do them white boys really have to do what William tells them to do?” He was even more astonished when he saw John Havlicek, a white man, and Sam Jones, a black man, showering and talking together. The Old Man marveled, “I never thought I’d live to see the day when the water would run off a white man onto a black man, and the water would run off a black man onto a white man.”

• When Jackie Robinson integrated modern major-league baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, not all the players were happy about it, especially the players from the South. In fact, some players signed a petition saying that they didn’t want to play baseball with him. One player who refused to sign the petition was Pee Wee Reese, who grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. Manager Leo Durocher heard about the petition, and he called a team meeting at which he told the players that he, not them, would decide who played: “I’m the manager and I’m paid to win and I’d play an elephant if he could win for me and this fellow Robinson is no elephant. … And here’s something else. He’s only the first, boys—only the first.” Mr. Durocher made it also clear that he didn’t want to see the petition, and he never did. Later, at least some of the players who had signed the petition supported Mr. Robinson. In a series against Philadelphia, the Phillies were shouting abuse against Mr. Robinson, who would not respond to the abuse because of fear of setting back African-American progress. Eventually, petition-signer Ed Stanky grew tired of the name-calling, so he shouted to the Philadelphia ballplayers, “Listen, you yellow-bellied cowards. Why don’t you shout at somebody who can answer back.”

• John Amaechi became the first player to come out of the closet in the National Basketball Association. Being black, and gay, and intelligent, and outspoken (he has spoken out against the National Rifle Association and George W. Bush’s war in Iraq), he is a target for prejudice. Tariq Abdul-Wahid, one of his teammates, told him even before he came out of the closet, “Meech, you are the only person I have ever met who is an expert at not fitting in no matter where you are.” In his native Great Britain, Mr. Amaechi says that he fits in more readily than he does in the United States, but even in Britain he runs into problems. He points out about people walking towards him on the sidewalk, “At 400 feet they see a big black man and they cross the road to avoid me. At 200 feet they cross back because they realize that I’m a professional basketball player and they want a closer look. At 50 feet they recognize me as the gay bloke who just came out and then they cross back across the road again.” While he was still in the NBA, a teammate asked him, “You gay, dude?” Mr. Amaechi replied, “You have nothing to worry about.”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Pitchers, Practical Jokes

Pitchers

• In the 1920s, the New York Yankees had several power hitters, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Tony Lazzeri, who were called “Murderers’ Row” because they figuratively murdered pitchers by frequently hitting home runs. Waite Hoyt, a right-handed pitcher for the Yankees, once joked, “A Yankee pitcher never should hold out (not sign a contract in hopes of getting more money) because he might be traded, and then he would have to pitch against them.”

• Gaylord Perry was well aware that he had a reputation for throwing spitballs—he titled his autobiography Me and the Spitter and after winning 300 games he wore a T-shirt bearing the slogan “300 Wins is Nothing to Spit At.” Baseball manager Gene Mauch was also well aware of Mr. Perry’s reputation and once said, “He should be in the Hall of Fame, with a tube of K-Y Jelly attached to his plaque.”

• Gaylord Perry was a great pitcher but not a great hitter. In fact, Alvin Dark (manager for the San Francisco Giants) once predicted that an astronaut would land on the moon before Mr. Perry hit a home run. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon—and 17 minutes later Mr. Perry hit his very first major-league home run.

Practical Jokes

• Jay Johnstone played major-league baseball from 1966 to 1984 and made his mark as a clown. After a Dodger shortstop made a couple of fielding errors in one game, Mr. Johnstone put Band-Aids on his glove. While sitting in the dugout, Mr. Johnston often wore giant sunglasses, a space helmet, or a beanie. During one game, he and Dodger pitcher Jerry Reuss left the dugout, changed clothes, and joined the groundskeeping crew in manicuring the field at the end of the fifth inning. They were recognized, a TV cameraman broadcast their antics, and the fans gave them a standing ovation. However, Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda gave both men $200 fines for being out of uniform and sent Mr. Johnstone in to pinch-hit—Mr. Johnstone hit a home run. Returning to the dugout, he told Mr. Lasorda, “Next time you need me, I’ll be in the groundskeepers’ room.”

• When Chamique Holdsclaw played as a first-year athlete for the Tennessee Lady Vols, her first road trip was to Hawaii, where they would play in the Kona Classic. Before they left for the airport, her teammates handed her a yellow broomstick and told her that it was a tradition for a first-year player to carry the “freshman pole” during their first road trip of the season. Not wanting to break tradition, Ms. Holdsclaw carried the broomstick through the airport and onto the airplane, where finally a coach told her that she was the victim of a practical joke. Actually, the practical joke started a new tradition. The Lady Vols won the Kona Classic (and Ms. Holdsclaw was named Most Valuable Player of the tournament), and in years afterward the freshman pole was carried on the first road trip of the season to bring the team good luck.

• Referee Dan Tehan of Cincinnati witnessed a practical joke pulled on a timekeeper at a University of Michigan basketball game in the first half of the 20^th century. The timekeeper always made a grand show of getting his pistol out, pointing it toward the rafters, and pulling the trigger to announce that time had run out and the game had ended. This time, when the timekeeper pulled the trigger, a huge, dead bird fell within three feet of him. Before the game had started, a couple of Michigan football coaches had hidden the bird and a student in the rafters.

• Major-league umpire Eric Gregg was a heavy man, sometimes weighing 360 pounds, and of course he heard a lot of fat jokes while working. Once, he was told that in the fifth inning, his girlfriend would appear. This had him wondering because he didn’t have a girlfriend—he was very happily married. The mystery was indeed revealed in the fifth inning—when the Goodyear blimp arrived. On another occasion, he couldn’t find the baseball, so the Phillies’ Greg Gross told him, “Eric, if it was two scoops you’d find it in a second.”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — People with Handicaps, Pitchers

People with Handicaps

• Diana Golden enjoyed skiing, but her leg collapsed under her when she was 12 years old. Doctors investigated, discovered that she had cancer, and told her that her leg would have to be amputated. Diana didn’t believe them at first because most 12-year-olds don’t get cancer. She asked the doctors, “Did you ask my grandfather?” (Her grandfather was also a doctor.) The doctors replied, “He knows. He agrees with us. We’re sorry.” She cried at first, but she was able to laugh when her roommate said, “When you have a fake leg, maybe you’ll be able to turn your foot around backward.” Despite being one-legged, Diana continued her hobby of skiing. One day, a skier with two legs lost control and knocked her over. She shouted at the skier, “Look what you’ve done to my leg!” Ms. Golden was very talented as a skier—she won many gold medals as a member of the United States Disabled Ski Team.

Pitchers

• Satchel Paige won many games as a pitcher, but he also boasted about winning many games as a pitcher. In one game, he had a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning, and he quickly got the first two batters out. However, three straight errors by his teammates led to loaded bases. Mr. Paige was angry because he thought that his teammates had committed the errors on purpose. At first he was going to leave the ballpark, but he thought better of it and returned to the pitcher’s mound. He even made his outfielders sit in back of the pitcher’s mound—then he struck the batter out for the win. In a years-later game in which he did NOT make his outfielders sit in back of the pitcher’s mound, he didn’t get the win. Angry at his boasting, his teammates let an easy-to-catch fly ball fall to the game for a home run that won the game for the other team.

• Babe Ruth had trouble remembering names, so he called other people, including baseball players, such names as “Pal,” “Kid,” and “Doc.” While Babe was pitching for the Boston Red Sox, manager Ed Barrow warned about a Chicago Cub hitter named Les Mann, saying, “The man is tough against lefthanders, Babe. Any time he comes up in a pinch, I want you to be careful. In fact, it won’t do any harm to dust him off a bit, for he takes a heavy toehold on the plate.” During the game, Babe dusted off not Les Mann, but a player named Max Flack. Back in the dugout, he told Mr. Barrow, “I guess I took care of that Mann guy for you.” Mr. Barrow shouted, “Babe, you wouldn’t know General Grant if he walked up with a bat.”

• Sometimes a major-league pitcher will get a little of his own back by throwing a knock-down pitch at a lesser hitter after the big bats have roughed him up. In one 1947 game, the New York Giants—a club with some heavy hitters—got three home runs in a row by Sid Gordon, Johnny Mize, and Walker Cooper. The next batter was Buddy Blattner—not one of the heavy hitters on his team. Mr. Blattner bit the dust twice on knock-down pitches, made an out, then returned to the dugout. Mr. Cooper said to him, “I’ll say one thing, Blattner—they really respect you.”

• Politeness often pays, and lack of politeness often does not pay. Lew Burdette, a pitcher for Atlanta, got into trouble with two runners on base and no outs, so catcher Bob Uecker went out to the mound to give him a few minutes to get settled and then pitch his best. However, Mr. Burdette was in a foul mood, and he told Mr. Uecker, “The only thing you know about pitching is that you can’t hit it.” Big mistake. Mr. Uecker went back to his position as catcher—and told the batter which pitch Mr. Burdette was going to throw.

• A doubleheader in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and 1950s consisted of a regular game of nine innings followed by a shorter game of seven innings. For one doubleheader, Doris “Sammy” Sams was assigned to pitch the short game, and she had thought that she had been given the easy game. However, that game turned into a mammoth struggle that she did not win until the 22^nd inning. After the game, Sammy told her manager, “I don’t want to pitch any more seven-inning games—they’re too long!”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Overconfidence, People with Handicaps

Overconfidence

• Overconfidence cost Dan O’Brien a shot at an Olympic gold medal in 1992. As a world-class decathlete, Mr. O’Brien appeared to be a cinch to win a medal at the Olympics in 1992; however, first he had to qualify at the United States Olympic Trials. There he made a crucial error. In the pole vault competition, athletes need not compete at lower heights. They can start competing at a higher height, but of course they must clear the first height at which they begin to compete. Mr. O’Brien did not compete at 14 feet, 5 1/2 inches, or at 14 feet, 9 inches, or at 15 feet, 1 inch, or at 15 feet, 5 inches. Instead, he waited to start competing until the bar was set at 15 feet, 9 inches. Unfortunately, on his two first attempts, he slammed into the bar. Only three attempts are allowed, and Mr. O’Brien was so rattled by his first two misses that on his third attempt he went under the bar! This gave him zero points for the pole vault and kept him from making the Olympic team. However, Mr. O’Brien is made of tough stuff. He trained for four more years, made the 1996 U.S. Olympic team, and won the gold medal in the decathlon.

• In 1969, the Boston Celtics were coached by center Bill Russell, whose knees were so worn out that he could not practice. Nevertheless, the Celtics made it to the NBA Finals, where they faced the Los Angeles Lakers. The series went to seven games, and the seventh game was held in Los Angeles. The Lakers were immensely confident that they would win, and nets suspended from the ceiling held 5,000 balloons in anticipation of a big victory celebration after the Lakers won. The balloons were never released as the Celtics held on for a 2-point victory and their eleventh NBA championship in thirteen seasons.

People with Handicaps

• Jean Little, the author of Little by Little, had major problems with her eyesight. She was cross-eyed with weak eyes, and to read a book—one of her favorite activities—she had to have her face so close to the page that her nose touched it. One day, she planned to attend a basketball game at which some of her friends would play. Unfortunately, some of their players were either away or ill, so they were short-handed for the game, meaning that they would lose by default despite being a superior team with superior players. However, Ms. Little volunteered to go on the court as a player since all she had to do was to stand there while the other women actually played the game. When Ms. Little arrived in uniform, the referee actually looked through the rulebook to see if there was a rule against allowing a “blind” player on the court. She couldn’t find any such rule, so Ms. Little was allowed to play. At halftime, her team was ahead, but near the end of the game the score was tied because no one had to guard Ms. Little, who simply stood on the court. However, the ball came directly toward Ms. Little, who managed to grab it. Of course, everyone stopped playing because they were wondering what the “blind” woman would do with the ball. One of the players on Ms. Little’s team yelled, “Jean, throw it here.” Ms. Little threw the ball in the direction the voice was coming from, the player on her team grabbed the ball, and shot a last-second shot that went through the hoop. Because of Ms. Little’s assist, her team won the game.

• Aimee Mullins was born without fibula bones in her legs, and her parents decided to have her legs amputated rather than have her use a wheelchair the rest of her life. She learned to use prosthetic legs and became a track sprinter at Georgetown University—despite being disabled, she competed against able-bodied athletes. During the Big East Championships, she ran into a problem. The weather was hot, and her perspiration lubricated the silicon sleeves that held on her sprinting legs. In fact, during the 100-meter race, one of her legs almost fell off. She begged her coach, Frank Gagliano, to take her out of the 200-meter race, but he told her, “So what if your leg falls off? Ya pick it up, ya put it on, ya finish the godd*mned race! Now get out there and run!” Ms. Mullins was stunned then, but she says today, “I had proposed to him the worst-case scenario—my leg coming off, me falling in front of thousands of people—and he made it seem so simple. You pick up and you still go on—advice you can use pretty much anywhere in life.”

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Olympics, Opera

Olympics

• As a little girl, figure skater Sasha Cohen sometimes watched a videotape of Kristi Yamaguchi winning a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics; however, she was so young that she didn’t realize that she was watching a tape. She thought that she was seeing a new competition each time, and she was impressed that Ms. Yamaguchi kept winning gold medal after gold medal. Even as a little girl, Sasha had won a few medals at kids’ competitions. These were displayed on her bedroom wall, and she thought that Ms. Yamaguchi’s wall had to be covered with gold medals.

• In 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska did not want the Soviets in her country, so she was not permitted to train in a proper facility. She ended up practicing her floor exercise in a field, and tree limbs substituted for bars during her training. Nevertheless, despite the lack of proper training facilities, she triumphed at the 1968 Olympic Games, winning four gold medals, including one in the all-around competition, and two silver medals, including one in the team competition.

• At the 1896 Olympic Games in Greece, James Connolly competed in the hop, skip, and jump, an event that is now known as the triple jump. The French competitor made a very good effort, so Mr. Connolly threw his hat a little further than the French competitor had gone, then he proceeded to better the French competitor’s effort. When Mr. Connolly threw out his hat, the crowd was shocked, but when he tripled-jumped past his hat, they cheered.

• Watching TV with someone who has a lesbian sensibility can be interesting. Lesbian comedian Kate Clinton and her significant other were watching the Salt Lake Winter Olympics when the women’s luge event came on the screen. Her significant other said, “The luge is a very gay event.” Almost immediately, as they watched the luge sled hurtling down a chute, the TV announcer said, “She’s controlling the whole thing with her inner thighs.”

• During autumn of 1975, David Leonardi took several photographs of figure skater Dorothy Hamill outside. During the photo session, a single leaf fell on top of Ms. Hamill’s head. When Mr. Leonardi snapped her photograph, the leaf looked exactly like a small crown. The leaf was prophetic—Ms. Hamill became queen of the 1976 Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria, when she won the gold medal in women’s figure skating.

• American Al Oerter became a discus thrower by accident. In high school, he had been running the mile, but when an errant discus fell near him during practice he picked it up. Rather than walk it back, he threw it back—and it landed 50 feet past the discus throwers. His coach ran up to him and said, “You’re now my discus thrower.” Good choice. Mr. Oerter won the gold medal in discus at the 1956, 1960, 1964, and 1968 Olympic Games.

• At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, Soviet Olga Korbut captured the hearts of sports fans everywhere with her open personality that reflected happiness or sadness and with her incredible flexibility and gymnastics skills. Fans were so taken with her that at one point when the television coverage broke away for a commercial, the announcer said, “We’ll be back with the Olga Korbut show in just a minute.”

• To get ready for the 1996 Olympic Games, softball shortstop Dot Richardson installed a batting cage in her apartment, and she practiced whenever she felt like it. One day, she discovered this note on the door to her apartment: “Please train for the Olympics a little earlier in the evening. Thanks.”

Opera

• Lots of people enjoy opera when it is broadcast on the radio. A football fan had an unusual problem when the Metropolitan Opera was broadcast on the radio at the same time his favorite football team was playing a game on TV. He solved the problem by listening to the opera on the radio while watching the football game on TV with the sound turned off.

• In 1946, opera singer Helen Traubel met the widow of a famous baseball player. The widow told her, “My husband was always such a fan of yours. He would go and hear you whenever he could. He never told any of the fellows on the team because he was afraid they would think he was a sissy.” The baseball player was Lou Gehrig.

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David Bruce: The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes — Names, Olympics

Names

• Several major-league baseball players, including Florida Marlin Alex Fernandez, Toronto Blue Jay Alex Gonzalez, New York Met Alex Ochoa, and Seattle Mariner Alex Rodriguez, once attended a Boys and Girls Club fund-raising event all at the same time. Mr. Gonzalez says, “Every time a kid said, ‘Hey, Alex,’ all four of us looked around.”

• Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine of the 1970s consisted of such great players as Johnny Bench, Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey, Tony Perez, and Pete Rose. Many of these players had young sons who played catch together. These sons—including Ken Griffey, Jr., and Pete Rose, Jr.—were known as the Little Red Machine.

• In 1967, Kathy Switzer decided to run in the Boston Marathon, although it was not open to women. She sent in her application using the name “K. Switzer,” but when she arrived at the race site and officials discovered that she was a woman, they ripped her number off her back. She ran and finished the marathon anyway.

• Figure skater JoJo Starbuck got her nickname as a baby. Her real name is Alicia Jo, but when her mother tried to teach her to say her name, she couldn’t say “Alicia,” so she called herself JoJo Buckle instead. The JoJo part stuck.

• Yogi Berra once did a radio show with a friend of his, Jack Buck. After the show, Yogi was handed a check made out to “Bearer.” Yogi complained to Jack, “You’ve known me all this time and you still can’t spell my name!”

• Babe Ruth was such an American sports hero that during World War II, Japanese soldiers used to shout at American soldiers, “To h*ll with Babe Ruth!”

Olympics

• In 1904, Cuban Felix Carvajal decided to run in the Olympics marathon race that would be held in St. Louis—even though he was not a distance runner and had never run 26 miles and 385 yards before. The Cuban government would not pay his way to St. Louis, and he had no money, so he started to run around Havana’s great public square each day to attract the attention of people whom he asked for money to pay his way to the Olympics. He did get enough money, and he sailed to America. Unfortunately, he landed in New Orleans where some friendly people persuaded him to play a friendly game of chance, and all his money ended up in the pockets of the friendly people. Still, Mr. Carvajal was determined to compete in the Olympics. He ran all 700 miles to St. Louis, relying on the kindness of farmers and their wives to feed him and give him a place to sleep during his journey. When he arrived at the Olympics to compete in the marathon, people laughed. He was wearing long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and shoes too heavy for a marathon. Still, an Olympian used scissors to cut off the bottoms of Mr. Carvajal’s long pants so they would be more suitable to run in. On August 20, the marathon began, and many runners wilted in the hot sun and dropped out of the race, but Mr. Carvajal ran on and on. Eventually, he finished the marathon—fourth. Mr. Carvajal did not become an Olympic marathon champion, but Felix the Fourth did become one of the Olympics’ most memorable athletes.

• When Tara Lipinski was two years old, she played in front of a TV that was tuned to the Olympics. Because she was so little, she didn’t pay much attention—until some athletes were awarded medals. Young Tara also wanted a medal. Like the athletes standing on a platform, she stood on a plastic tub in which she stored her toys. Her mother put a ribbon around her neck, similar to the ribbons that were put around the necks of the athletes, and she handed her some flowers similar to the flowers that were handed to the athletes. In 1998, Ms. Lipinski went through the awards ceremony for real after winning the gold medal in the women’s figure skating competition.

• When Sarah Hughes won the gold medal in ladies’ figure skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics, she accomplished a major upset. She skated early in the long program, and she skated excellently. The crowd roared, and her coach, Robin Wagner, wanted her to wait a few extra moments before leaving the ice. She told Sarah, “Turn around. Close your eyes. Soak it in.” After winning the gold medal, Sarah slept with it, and when she met her family next, although she had not seen them for a while, they asked, “Where’s the medal? Where’s the medal?” She joked, “Hey, guys, what about me?”

***

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