Bullsh*t! It is true that masks were a part of Aztec culture, but Lucha Libre masks did not evolve from Aztec masks. The sport is not ancient, and is an offshoot of professional wrestling, not the other way around. The first Lucha Libre masks were inspired by masked United States professional wrestlers.
The first major Mexican professional wrestling organization, Empresa Mexicana de la Lucha Libre, was founded in 1933, and the sport gained true popularity with the advent of television in the 1950s. The mask phenomenon began when a masked United States wrestler, the Cyclone, fought in the EMLL. Fans loved the mystique, and the tradition was quickly adopted.
Fact. Huerta wrestled for nearly five decades and became an enormous celebrity and cultural icon in Mexico, spawning an animated series, comic books, and many movies. He fought his last match just weeks before his sixty-fifth birthday. Huerta was buried wearing his silver mask.
Fact. As a general rule, the rudos (rude ones) will “break the rules” and employ a brawling style, while the técnicos (technicians) stick to the rules, play the part of the good guy, and display much more technical proficiency.
Mosca, gallo, and pluma mean fly, rooster, and feather, respectively and directly correspond to the terms flyweight, bantamweight, and featherweight in combat sports.
NASCAR!
In 2003, Danica Patrick became the first woman to compete for the Winston Cup.
NASCAR is the most popular spectator sport in the United States, and it is the second-most popular televised sport. NASCAR is regularly broadcast in over 150 countries.
Since 1965, there have been twelve driver fatalities at Daytona International Speedway, the most recent being the 2001 death of racing legend Dale Earnhardt in the last lap of the Daytona 500. There have been more than forty driver fatalities in the history of NASCAR.
Bullsh*t! Janet Guthrie was actually the first woman to race for the Winston Cup–in 1976. She finished a very respectable fifteenth.
Fact. NASCAR holds seventeen of the twenty most-attended sporting events in the country. It benefits from huge stadiums–as many as 170,000 fans can attend a NASCAR event, whereas NFL stadiums hold between 61,000 and 92,000 spectators. NASCAR is second in television viewership, behind the NFL.
Fact. The figures are actually surprisingly low when the inherent danger of the sport and the frequency of accidents are considered.
Still, Earnhardt’s death led to a wave of new safety measures in NASCAR, the most prominent being the requirement of all drivers to wear HANS (head and neck support) devices, which help prevent whiplash of the driver’s head upon impact. Earnhardt (and several other NASCAR drivers) died from a basilar skull fracture, of which the HANS device is supposed to reduce the likelihood. A second safety measure was the installation of SAFER barriers on NASCAR tracks.
SAFER stands for “steel and foam energy reduction,” and SAFER barriers absorb impacts much better than concrete walls.
CLUSTER BALLOONING!
In July 1982, in San Pedro, California, Larry Walters attached forty-five helium-filled weather balloons to his lawn chair, cut the cord, and flew to an altitude of 3 miles. The Vietnam veteran brought sandwiches, beer, and a BB gun along with him, and eventually fired the gun at a few balloons, sending him back down to earth. He was immediately arrested.
In July 2008, in Bend, Oregon, Kent Couch attached more than 150 giant party balloons to a lawn chair, cut the cord, and flew more than 235 miles. The gas station owner brought two GPS devices, boiled eggs, and a BB gun along with him, and used the gun to shoot balloons and control his altitude, and he finally descended in the farming town of Cambridge, Idaho.
In August 2008, in Rocha, Uruguay, Adelir Antonio de Carli attached 3,000 party balloons to a chair, cut the cord, and flew more than 100 miles. The talk show host brought a bottle of wine and a wine glass with him, and landed safely in Brazil to great fanfare.
Fact. Walters was arrested and charged with numerous violations by the FAA, because his chair drifted into controlled airspace and put him directly in the landing corridor of the Los Angeles airport.
Walters became a legend, often referred to as “Lawn Chair Larry,” and was interviewed by both Johnny Carson and David Letterman.
After his popularity waned, Walters ran out of money, and he eventually committed suicide in 1993.
Fact. It was Couch’s third flight, all of which were inspired by Larry Walters. In the first flight, his descent was too rapid, and he had to parachute to the ground. In the second, he flew 193 miles but landed just short of the Idaho border, which was his goal.
Bullsh*t! In April 2008, in Paranaguá, Brazil, Adelir Antonio de Carli attached 1,000 party balloons to a chair, cut the cord, and flew 55 miles and reached an altitude of more than 3½ miles before he lost contact with people on the ground. The priest did not bring any wine but brought enough food and water for five days.
Father de Carli took jungle survival and rock climbing classes to prepare him for the trip, and brought along a cell phone, a satellite phone, and a GPS device, but it was all for naught: He disappeared over the ocean.
In July of 2008, his waist and legs were discovered floating in the water by a passing oil rig. DNA tests showed that they did indeed belong to de Carli.
THE BASEBALL GLOVE!
While playing for the Chicago White Stockings, Hall of Fame pitcher Albert Goodwill Spalding became the first baseball star to wear a padded glove on his catching hand. Spalding had an ulterior motive: He manufactured gloves on the side and began to sell them like hotcakes. Today, his company, Spalding, is still a major sporting goods brand.
In the early days of American baseball, it was downright unheard-of to wear a glove. When players tried out the first gloves (non-padded, fingerless affairs), they were ridiculed, jeered, and called sissies. Even catchers played barehanded, and nearly all catches in a game were two-handed.
A Wake Forest study on the minor leagues showed that catcher’s gloves are extremely effective at protecting the hand. Players in this position have about the same rate of hand injuries as other baseball players, despite the fact that they catch more often.
Fact. Albert Goodwill Spalding was a pitcher for the Chicago Excelsiors, the Boston Red Stockings, and finally the Chicago White Stockings. While playing for the White Stockings in 1877, he opened a sporting goods store and began to manufacture baseballs and baseball gloves. He started to use a glove in games in order to promote them.
Today, Spalding is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts, makes supplies for a variety of sports, and is probably best known for its basketballs.
Fact. A catcher named George Ellard immortalized the anti-glove sentiment in his 1880 poem:
“We used no mattress on our hands,
No cage upon our face;
We stood right up and caught the ball
With courage and with grace.”
It was a stigma that was slow to disappear, but players, dealing with excruciating bruising, eventually prevailed over the mindset.
Bullsh*t! The study showed that seven of nine baseball catchers experience serious hypertrophy of the index finger (usually two ring-sizes bigger), and that the phenomenon only affected catchers.
Forty-four percent of catchers had weakened catching hands due to trauma (compared to 17 percent of outfielders), and all of the catchers showed symptoms of nerve damage and abnormal blood flow.
ICE SKATING!
Ice skates were invented in 1831 by Finnish daredevil Renny Harlin. However, Finns have a long history of skating across the ice–2,000 years ago, they propelled themselves with sticks while standing on platter-shaped sleds called valheita.
Figure skating emerged as a popular sport in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the first international championship competition was held in 1896. At first, it was considered a men’s sport only, and it was called “figure” skating because competitors had to draw perfect figures on the ice with their skates.
In 2009, a bear viciously attack
ed two men in Kyrgyzstan, killing one and severely injuring the other, before being shot dead by police. The bear was wearing ice skates at the time.
Bullsh*t! Ice skates were invented by Finns, but it happened more than 5,000 years ago. In southern Finland, there are more lakes per unit of land area than anywhere else in the world, and the ancient Finns discovered that it was a lot more efficient to skate across a frozen lake than to walk around it. The first skates were simply animal bones tied to the feet. The Vikings became big adopters of the practice.
Renny Harlin is the Finnish movie director who gave us Cliffhanger and Die Hard. Valheita is Finnish for “lies.”
Fact. Figures weren’t removed from competition until the ’90s.
Fact. The bear was one of many famous Russian circus bears that have been trained to ice skate and even play hockey. The bear might have decided he was sick of skating, however, when he attacked and killed the circus director. One of the bear’s trainers was critically injured when he heroically (if not intelligently) tried to intervene.
TUG OF WAR!
The first black athlete to ever compete in the modern Olympics was Haitian-born Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera, who competed for France in the 1900 games. De Zubiera helped France earn a silver medal in a very unique sport: tug of war.
During a massive tug of war in Taiwan in 1997, the rope snapped and completely severed the left arms of two separate men, Yang Chiung-ming and Chen Ming-kuo.
Despite the fact that tug of war is popular internationally, there is no international governing body for the sport. Previous attempts to create one have failed, thanks to disagreement over the sport’s rules. The most notable is TOWEL (the Tug of War Earth League), which was begun by comedian and tug of war aficionado Scott Thompson (a.k.a. Carrot Top). TOWEL has never caught on.
Fact. De Zubiera played in the games as part of the French rugby team, but decided to participate in tug of war as well.
Tug of war, you may protest, is not an Olympic sport. But it’s a little-known fact that from 1900 to 1920 it was.
Fact. There were an estimated 1,600 participants in the tug of war, which was part of the Retrocession Day celebration in Taipei.
When the contest began, an estimated 175,000 pounds of force was applied to the rope, which immediately snapped. It’s believed that Yang and Chen lost their arms when the rope rebounded with astonishing force. Both left arms were severed below the shoulder.
Amazingly, after hours of surgery, both men had the arms successfully reattached.
Bullsh*t! There is an international governing body for tug of war, which is called the Tug of War International Federation (TWIF). Over fifty countries are members of the TWIF, from Australia to Zambia and Iran to Ukraine. Tug of war could bring the whole world together in peace, if you ask me.
I don’t know if Carrot Top is a fan of tug of war or not. I do think TOWEL would be a good name for a league, though.
SYNCHRONIZED
SWIMMING!
In modern times, the first organized synchronized swimming was called water ballet, and was as likely to be performed in lakes, rivers, and decorative water tanks as in a swimming pool. In the first official competitions, only men were allowed to compete.
In Olympic competition, the women’s synchronized swimming is scored based on grace, agility, and precise timing, whereas the men’s synchronized swimming is scored based on power, agility, and precise timing.
Synchronized swimming has an unlikely honorary founding father: Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a proponent of physical fitness and an avid swimmer who sometimes performed feats and stunts in the water to impress onlookers.
Fact. It’s funny to think that a sport that is now so thoroughly dominated by women was, in a way, invented by men. The first official competition in Berlin in 1891 featured only men. But many credit a particular woman for truly popularizing the sport in the modern age.
Australian-born Annette Kellerman had the perfect background to be the mother of modern synchronized swimming: She had been both a competitive distance swimmer and a ballet dancer. In 1907, she performed in a giant water tank in New York’s Hippodrome, and was an instant sensation. Afterward, interest in organized water ballet spread extremely quickly.
Dancing in the water is likely as old a practice as dancing in general. There is historical evidence of in-water performances in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as ancient Japan.
Bullsh*t! Men cannot compete in Olympic synchronized swimming competitions. Nor can they compete in World Championship competitions, although they are allowed to dip their toes into other international competitions.
Fact. Franklin was living proof that an athlete doesn’t necessarily have to look like Atlas.
He was posthumously inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, and he penned his own tome on the art of swimming: The Art of Swimming Rendered Easy: Directions to Learners, to Which Is Prefixed Advice to Bathers.
KARATE!
Though karate is a Japanese martial art, it was invented by non-Japanese. It was first called te, but when it was later influenced by martial artists from China, it was called kara te, which translated to “Chinese hand.”
In 2009, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made karate an official Olympic sport. The only other Olympic martial art is judo.
While Chuck Norris won many karate championships, he has never been a karate fighter. Norris primarily studied a Korean martial art called tang soo do. Now Norris is the founder of his own martial art, chun kuk do, which is studied around the world.
Fact. A cultural exchange between China and Okinawa in the fourteenth century brought a whole settlement of Chinese families to the island. Practitioners of te began to exchange ideas and styles with practitioners of kung fu, and kara te, meaning “Chinese hand,” was born. Okinawa was officially annexed by Japan in the nineteenth century.
Today, the official Japanese translation for karate is “empty hand,” since karate is a homophone that can mean both “Chinese hand” and “empty hand.” It’s likely they didn’t like the fact that such a popular martial art was named after the Chinese.
In Japan, the word is often elongated to karate-d ō, which means “the way of the empty hand.”
Bullsh*t! The IOC has considered karate for inclusion on multiple occasions, but never approved it. Beginning in 1964, judo was the only Olympic martial art, but it was joined by tae kwon do in 2000.The IOC is mum about their repeated denial of karate. A prominent theory is that the sport is too political, and that major karate organizations would not be able to agree on unified rules.
Fact. Chun kuk do was founded in 1990 by Norris and is based in Korean martial arts styles.
Norris incorporates his personal philosophy into the teaching of chun kuk do, and students are exposed to his philosophical code, which includes “I will maintain an attitude of open-mindedness” and “I will always remain loyal to my God, my country, family, and my friends.”
THE JOCKSTRAP!
The word “jock,” meaning athlete, is derived from “jockstrap.” The “jock” in “jockstrap” is an abbreviation of “jockey.” In the late nineteenth century, cyclists were called jockeys, and the jockstrap was invented for them.
In the early twentieth century, the Sears catalogue sold the Heidelberg Electric Belt, a jockstrap that delivered current to the genitals. The electricity was purported to “reduce anxiety” and solve a variety of other ailments.
In Middletown, Connecticut, the police department has been unsuccessful in its pursuit of the “Jockstrap Bandit.” The unidentified man has committed an estimated seventeen armed robberies while wearing nothing but a mask, tennis shoes, and a jockstrap. Much to the chagrin of local authorities, the man has become a cult hero among area high school and university students.
Fact. Take heart in the fact that when you refer to an athlete as a “jock,” you are in effect calling him a “jockstrap.”
Fact. The Heidelberg belt was truly a marvel of sci
ence! It claimed to cure “weakness, exhaustion, impotency, rheumatism, sciatica, lame back, railroad back, insomnia, melancholia, kidney disorder, Bright’s disease, dyspepsia, disorders of the liver, female weakness, poor circulation, weak heart action, and almost every known disease and weakness.”
Considering all that it could do, it’s a wonder that it’s not still on the market.
Bullsh*t! That’s a total fabrication.
It would lead to a pretty funny police lineup, however!
THE SPORTS BRA!
The first sports bra, invented in 1977 by Lisa Lindahl, was made from two jockstraps sewn together, and called the Jockbra. After a booming mail-order business, her company was purchased by Playtex.
A popular new sports bra on the market is the Wine Rack, which has a built-in bladder that you can fill with the beverage of your choice. A concealable rubber tube lets you sip away at the contents wherever you are. The makers insist that the Wine Rack can hold an entire bottle of wine, and argue that the bra is “better than a boob job, and cheaper too!”
Champion’s Vapor sports bra incorporates a moisture-wicking fabric from an unlikely source: the cocoa tree. Structural fibers from the tree itself are woven into the fabric, prompting a popular nickname: “the chocolate bra.”
Fact. According to Lindahl, her sister Victoria complained to her about soreness after jogging, and quipped, “Why isn’t there a jockstrap for women?” Immediately, Lindahl’s idea was born. She sewed together a bra out of two jockstraps, tested it out, and dubbed it the Jockbra.
She later amended it to the Jogbra, since jogging was an enormous craze in the ’70s. She did a landslide mail-order business and successfully marketed it to some stores. Eventually, Playtex bought the Jogbra company from Lindahl.
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