The Greatest Innovations in Sporting Equipment History

 I’m sure I can only speak for myself when I say that studying sports equipment is really interesting. See, I know most sports fans out there aren’t thinking about what kind of resin Justin Verlander powders on his hands before hurling a 90 mph heater. And there aren’t many fans, like me, who see a boxer laid out on the canvas and wonder what kind of mouthpiece it is laying beside him in a puddle of his own drool.

It’s this hazy attention to details that causes many of us to take these seemingly innocent innovations for granted. We fail to see the important roles they play in the lives of our athletes and rarely think about how things would be different without them

Therefore, I feel it is my duty to present to you the most important innovations in sports equipment history.

Honorable Mention – Nerf Footballs

Ok, so these flashy globes of foam rubber aren’t really pieces of equipment used by the professionals, but they sure make your Uncle Harry look like Johnny Unitas.  Maybe he was telling the truth when he told you he would have went pro if not for that damn alien abduction. Either that Nerf ball is scientifically designed to soar 90 yards with a flick of the wrist, or your Uncle Harry’s stashed some performance enhancers in that six pack of brew he’s got dangling from his belt loop.

5. Football Helmets with Facemasks

Just think, it wasn’t until the 1950’s that the modern football helmet and face mask were mandated in the pros. Before that, guys pretended to be tough while wearing the same leather helmet worn by Snoopy in his exploits as the Red Baron. Could you imagine how many teeth must have littered the turf by game’s end? It must have looked like closing time at the Chic-let factory. I guess on the bright side, however, not having facemasks would have eliminated pretty-boy smile guys like Tony Romo and Tom Brady from the game. Of course, I’m sure it also eliminated any chance of having the ability to produce rational thought after an average playing career.

4. Batting Helmets

The original batting helmet, used from the mid 1800’s all the way up into the 1950’s, was portable, fit like a glove, and was incredibly inexpensive. That’s because it was the human skull. Apparently no one thought it was a priority to protect the most vital organ in the body from whizzing, rock-hard projectiles. That is until the Major League death toll from wild pitches tallied six players by 1951. Teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates took notice of this scary statistic and began wearing protective helmets. Of course, the rest of the league immediately branded them as pansies… until 1954, when Joe Adcock was knocked unconscious by a wild pitch for a full 15 minutes. After that, the league decided to mandate the helmet rule for all players. Now you couldn’t catch a ballplayer standing in the on-deck circle without a helmet.

3. Hockey Goaltender Masks

You have to be either extremely brave or extremely stupid to stand in front of a blazing slap shot and stop a puck with your face. Until Jaques Plante of the 1960 Canadiens finally donned a protective mask, hockey goalies were a little bit of both. Since then, the goalie mask has progressed from the full plastic variety, made famous by Jason Voorhees in the slasher flicks Friday the 13^th, to the modern version of a helmet and a protective metal cage that we commonly see today. Both varieties have allowed goaltenders to escape their playing days without losing an entire row of teeth or winding up with a face only a mother could love. 

2. Protective Cups

There’s really not much to say here. To even provide a reminder of sports without the trusty walnut shell would be an exercise in barbarity to anyone who’s ever taken a knee to the groin during a game of rough-touch football. But, yes, the forefathers of sports didn’t think twice about leaving the little guy open to injury. Makes you wonder how we all came to be, doesn’t it? The first cup was actually just a rolled-up piece of leather. Yeah, that gives you peace of mind. Thankfully, a wide variety of lightweight and sturdy materials now exist to protect you from the ultimate manly mishap.

1. Baseball Caps

There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t sing the praises of the baseball cap. I mean, I where a cap so often it’s become my hairstyle, and that’s the way it is for millions of hat-dependent Americans each day. Don’t feel like combing your hair? Baseball cap. Don’t want your hair to get wet in the rain? Baseball cap. Don’t have hair at all? Baseball cap. It’s the answer to most head-related issues…at least in my book.

But one thing that can’t be disputed is the modern ball cap has become an American staple, like the cowboy hat or apple pie. Thankfully, the original straw hat worn by the 1860 Brooklyn Excelsiors has come a long way. It’s been updated to the modern 59-50 style worn by current major leaguers. Otherwise I’d be sitting on a porch with a goofy straw hat and a corn cob pipe trying to whittle something right now.  

 And, really, who wants that?

Ten Pro Records We May Never See Broken

By: C.G. Morelli

Many will tell you that a record is the highest personal honor that can be obtained by any athlete. Others contend that records set new standards and push athletes to reach higher, to run faster, and to push harder. As spectators, we relish in seeing these feats accomplished, and we thrive on seeing them broken a short time later. In fact, it’s no secret that many of us live and die by the age-old axiom, “records are made to be broken.” 

But some feats are just so unbelievable they stretch the viability of such a saying to its breaking point. Here is a list of the top ten records in professional sports that may never be matched.

10. Secretariat’s Belmont Time

On his way to perhaps the most impressive Triple Crown in horse racing history, Secretariat shattered track records that still stand today. Set in 1973, his time at the Kentucky Derby of 1:59 is a lengthy half-second better than any other horse that’s run the track.  But that’s not the amazing feat. Big Red’s blazing Belmont mark of 2:24, is a full two seconds better than his next closest competition (A.P. Indy, 2:26, 1992), making it a run that may never be matched no matter how many geneticists they put on the job.

9. Pete Rose’s Career Hits

When you shatter Ty Cobb’s mark by 65 hits, you know you’ve done something special.  Still, some believe Rose’s career mark of 4,256 hits does seem reachable. Ichiro Suzuki now has 1,592 hits. That means he only needs 2,655 more to eclipse Charlie Hustle. But let’s remember, Ichiro is 34 years old. That means he probably needs to average 270 hits or more for the next decade. A-Rod is currently 2,007 hits shy of Rose’s mark. That means he needs to average 200 hits every year for the next decade. He’s only reached the 200-hit plateau once in his career. Doesn’t seem so reachable now, does it?

8. Tiger Woods’ Cuts Made Streak

Does this guy ever have a bad round?  From 1998 to 2005, Tiger pretty much answered that question with a big, fat NO. Any thoughts of possibly not making a cut clearly didn’t cross his mind during this time because he was automatic. Tiger made a mind-boggling 142 tournament cuts in a row, leaving him in the money more times than Richie Rich. Ironically, the only golfer who seems to have a shot at breaking this streak any time soon is Tiger Woods himself.  But even that seems unlikely.

7. Cal Ripken Jr. / Brett Favre Consecutive Games

The iron men of baseball and football are both testaments to a hard-nose era in sports. Cal’s streak of 2,632 straight games bested Lou Gehrig in 1995. You know you’re tough when you outlast a dude whose nickname was the Iron Horse. Maybe more impressive, because of the position he plays, was Brett Favre’s recent streak of 297 straight starts as the Packers/Jets/Vikings' quarterback. This record is especially amazing in the current hospital ward version of the NFL, where it sometimes feels like the injured lists are longer than most of the active rosters in the league.

6. Wayne Gretzky’s Single Season Goals

The Great One plugged the net 92 times in 1981 on his way to a 212 point season. His mark bests the next player on the list, Brett Hull, by six goals. Even though the NHL has changed rules to increase overall scoring, there’s just not one single player who dominates the game the way Gretzky did for so long. I simply don’t see another player capable of matching the Great One’s mark. And yes, that includes you too, Mr. Crosby.

5. Lance Armstrong’s Tour de “Lance”

Scandal or no scandal, Armstrong’s domination of the Tour de France for nearly a decade is perhaps the most significant act ever performed in the sport of cycling. From 1999 to 2005, Lance won the hallowed event seven straight times. What’s even more amazing is he ran his gauntlet just three years after battling cancer. I don’t care what people want to accuse this guy of doing, his feat is simply unmatchable.

4. Nolan Ryan’s No-Hitters

We may never see a pitcher like Nolan Ryan again, let alone see his record of seven career no-hitters ever beaten. What’s even more mind-numbing is the Ryan Express tallied his first no-no in 1973 at the tender age of 26, and his last one in 1991 at a slightly more ripened 44. Talk about standing up to the test of time. The only thing that’ll last longer than Ryan himself is an almost surreal record. Did I mention he also boasts 5,714 career strikeouts?

3. Bill Russell’s Rings

Perhaps no sports figure has been as fortunate as the legendary Bill Russell, especially when it comes to winning championships. From 1956 to 1969 Russell collected a ring for every finger, and even one for his toes. That’s right, an outrageous 11 championships.  Not even Vince Lombardi or Michael Jordan can match that total. Want your jaw to drop a little lower? He won two of those titles as a player/coach. Maybe we give him a few extra rings for that.

2. Wilt Chamberlain’s Points in a Game

Everyone knows about Wilt the Stilt’s 100 points in a single game, but do they realize just how unreachable this standard seems to be? There hasn’t been a single player to even come within shouting distance of this mark. Kobe Bryant’s became the Stilt’s second fiddle when he dropped 81 points on the Raptors in 2006.  But even that ridiculous performance was 19 points shy of Wilt’s total. Nineteen points? Most guys never reach that total in a single game in the course of an entire season, but that’s the gap between Chamberlain and his nearest competitor. Amazing.

1. Joe DiMaggio’s Hitting Streak

There’s just no way to deny the Yankee Clipper his rightful spot at the top of this list. On May 15, 1941 Joe DiMaggio slapped a single off Eddie Smith, and for the next 61days this country ate, slept, and dreamed nothing but Joe. He thrust the insurmountable weight of the City of New York on his shoulders and carried it through 56 straight games of steady hitting. Then he took just a single day off before feasting on American League pitching for another 16 straight. His 56-game hitting streak has only been approached once, that by Pete Rose, whose measly 44-game streak seems like a distant cloud of dust in DiMaggio’s rear-view mirror. Every year we see another player run a hitting streak to 25, maybe even 30 games before fizzling out. And every year it becomes clear that Joltin’ Joe’s streak will stand as long as there is baseball.

BOOM! Roasted.

By: C.G. Morelli

A few nights ago I saw a rerun of my favorite episode of The Office.  In it, Michael Scott asks his employees to roast him. In typical Michael fashion, he’s completely blindsided when the jokes start to get personal. The following clip is his classic rebuttal:

 

So I thought: wouldn’t the world of sports be that much better if Michael Scott were at the helm? And the answer is most definitely NO…but I thought I’d give you a little glimpse anyway. Feel free to insert your own. That's what she said.

NFL - BOOM! Roasted.

Jay Cutler: Great game against the Packers. You looked cute on the sidelines in your Chicago Bears Snuggie. Boom! Roasted.

Tom Brady: You’re a bigger fruitcake than Cutler. I didn’t know Uggs were official team gear. Boom! Roasted.

Rex Ryan: Send your wife over. I’ve got a bunion. Roasted.

Ben Roethlisberger: Is that a comb in your pocket or are you trying to sexually assault me. Boom! Roasted.

Jeff Fisher: Fired. Roasted.

MLB – BOOM! Roasted.

 

Bud Selig: Great job keeping steroids out of baseball. Now my six year old nephew has chest hair. Boom! Roasted.

New York Mets: The Yankees called: You’re grounded this weekend. Boom! Roasted.

Milton Bradley: Parker Bros. called: Stop being such a DOUCHE! Boom. Roasted.

NBA – BOOM! Roasted.

 

Lebron James: You know how they say “you can never go home?” Roasted.

Ron Artest: Jeffrey Dahmer has more fans than you. Boom! Roasted.

New York Knicks: You haven’t done s%@& since Ewing left town. Boom! Roasted.

NHL – BOOM! Roasted.

Sidney Crosby: Jay Cutler called: He looks forward to watching the All Star game with you. Roasted.

Alex Ovechkin: You could score an “Ovech-trick” in every game this season and you’d still have a problem—you’re name’s not Crosby. Boom! Roasted.

Carolina Hurricanes: Great marketing team. The All Star game’s twenty minutes from my house and I just found out. Boom! Roasted.

The 20 Greatest Hockey Quotes of All Time

By: C.G. Morelli

I said it before and I’ll say it again: everybody loves a good sports quote. Ranging from witty insults to deep, sometimes spiritual, insights into life, a legendary line from our favorite athlete can serve as the inspiration that keeps you going, or as something that simply makes you laugh.

No sport has contributed more comedic value to the sports quote spectrum than the game they play up North. Trust me, it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to produce laughter when you get a bunch of Canadian ruffians to beat each other with sticks on a frozen pond. It’s pure genius, folks, and its no wonder the sport has provided the inspiration for a plethora of entertaining quotables. Of course, your humble scribe is here to share with you the best of the best.  

So grab a couple of ice cold Molsons, pop a few of those fake teeth out of your mouth, and have a look for yourself. And be quick about it. You don’t want to be a hoser your whole life, do you?

The 20 Greatest Hockey Quotes

20. “Hockey is a fast, body-contact game played by men with clubs in their hands and knives laced to their feet.” - Paul Gallico

19. “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” –Wayne Gretzky

18. “Goaltending is a normal job, sure. How would you like it in your job if every time you made a small mistake, a red light went on over your desk and 15,000 people stood up and yelled at you?” - Jacques Plante

17. “Hockey is the only job I know where you get paid to have a nap on the day of the game.” - Chico Resch

16. “Hockey's the only place where a guy can go nowadays and watch two white guys fight.” - Frank Deford

15. “If you've only got one day to live, come see the Toronto Maple Leafs. It'll seem like forever. ” – Pat LaFontaine

14. “It's not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it's what you put into the practice.” - Eric Lindros

13. “Last season we couldn't win at home and we were losing on the road. My failure was that I couldn't think of any place else to play.” - Harry Neale

12. “My former wife made me a millionaire. I used to have three million dollars.”- Bobby Hull

11. “Our first priority was staying alive. Our second was stopping the puck.” - Glenn Hall

10. “The three important elements of hockey are: forecheck, backcheck and paycheck.”

-Gil Perreault

9. “We take the shortest route to the puck and arrive in ill humor.” - Bobby Clarke

8. “They say you're not a coach in the league till you've been fired. I must be getting pretty good.” - Terry Simpson

7. “Bob Kelly was so dumb, they shoulda written his name on the Stanley Cup in crayon.” - Gene Hart

6. “Get used to this phrase: how could both referees have missed that?” - Mike Brophy

5. “The only way you can check Gretzky is to hit him when he is standing still singing the national anthem.” - Harry Sinden

4. “Half the game is mental, the other half is being mental.” - Jim Mckenny

3. “If I play badly I'll pick a fight in the third, just to get into a fight. I'll break a guy's leg to win, I don't care. Afterward I say, 'Yeah all right I played badly, but I won the fight so who gives a damn.” - Derek Sanderson

2. “Goaltenders are 3 sandwiches shy of a picnic. From the moment primitive man lurched erect, he survived on the principle that when something hard and potentially lethal comes toward you at great velocity, get the hell out of its path.” - Jim Taylor

1. “You do dat, you go to da box; you know, uh, two minutes by yourself, and you feel shame, you know, and then you get free.” - Denis from SlapShot

The Ghost of Pelle

By: C.G. Morelli

He was the last piece of the puzzle for a team, and a city, that had their hearts set on hoisting another Stanley Cup.  He was a savage acrobat, a new-age Bernie Parent and, with his signature full-face hockey mask, he was a possible stunt double for Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13^th.  Tragically, it was on a drive home from the Flyers’ practice facility in Voorhees, NJ that ended it all for future star, Pelle Lindbergh.

Pelle was only five years old when he learned how to skate on an iced-over soccer field just south of Stockholm, Sweden.  By the time he was seven, his agility had already been recognized by Swedish National coach Curre Lindstrom, who urged Lindbergh to begin playing organized hockey in the Hammarby Youth League.  It was at this early stage that young Pelle began formulating a plan for himself.  And he wasn’t shy about it.  As a ten year old boy, he had already discovered his talent as a net-minder and vowed to his friends that someday he’d become the greatest goalie in the world.

By the time Pelle was 12 years old, he was playing for Hammarby’s traveling pee wee team, which routinely made trips to Leningrad and Moscow, and even to Canada.  It was on a trip to hockey Mecca in Toronto where Pelle further solidified his living blueprint.  While all his teammates were soaking in the classic confines of Maple Leaf Garden, wearing newly-purchased items all embroidered with the hallowed blue leaf, Pelle took the road less traveled.  He, instead, went to the souvenir shop and purchased a black and orange jersey with a curious insignia sewn to the front.  It was the first time he’d ever wear a Philadelphia Flyers jersey, but certainly not the last.

Pelle never played a game thereafter without the Flyers’ logo stamped somewhere on his helmet.  He wore it throughout the 70’s as he minded net for the Swedish Junior Nationals.  On this team, Pelle developed his characteristic quick glove playing alongside future NHLers Thomas Eriksson, Hakan Sodergren, and Mats Naslund.  In 1975, Pelle was named the best junior goalie in Sweden, and in 1978 he led his team, Smakrongorna, to the Junior League championship.  After the tournament, when asked why he wore a curious black and orange logo on his helmet, he told spectators simply, “I’m going to play for the Philadelphia Flyers.”

Of course, most people scoffed at Pelle’s early prediction.  It would be hard enough just to make it to the NHL, but it would take all kinds of luck to land on one of the league’s elite teams.  But that luck would come.  In the 1979 NHL Entry Draft, the Philadelphia Flyers selected a young, Swedish goaltender named Pelle Lindbergh to the surprise of many.  Pelle, of course, had known this would happen all along.

Before reporting to the Flyers, Pelle was selected to compete for Sweden at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, where he managed to bring home a bronze medal. The Swedes were the only squad who didn’t lose to the Miracle on Ice team.  That summer, Lindbergh reported to the Flyers training camp to begin learning the North American style of goaltending from his long-time idol, Bernie Parent.  With Parent’s tutelage, Pelle developed amazing quickness and led Philadelphia’s AHL affiliate from Portland, Maine, the Mariners, to the Calder Cup.  The team could not bring home the championship, but Lindbergh made a name for himself in a big way by bringing home an armful of hardware.  He had won the Red Garrett Award as rookie of the year, the Hap Holmes Award for the best goaltender, and the Les Cunningham award as the AHL’s most valuable player.

But for the next few years, Pelle was up and down between the big club and his AHL team.  He was inconsistent and struggled in net.  At one point he even asked to be traded from the team he once dreamed of playing for.

In 1985, however, his dream finally took shape.  The Flyers traded goalie Pete Peeters for defenseman Brad McCrimmon, officially paving the way for Lindbergh.  This time he made the most of his opportunity, leading the Flyers to the Stanley Cup Finals against Edmonton with a sparkling GAA of 3.02 and a record of 40-17-7.  The Flyers weren’t able to overcome the play of the great one, Wayne Gretzky, but the fans of Philadelphia were uplifted by the future promise of their team with Lindbergh at the helm.  At season’s end, Pelle was awarded the prestigious Vezina Trophy to go along with his first-team All-Star designation.  He had become one of the NHL’s biggest stars almost overnight.

In ‘85-’86, the Flyers picked up right where they left off.  They shot out to a 6-2 start.  Lindbergh was doing his best impression of Bernie Parent in goal, and the outlook was good for a team that was generally regarded as one of the tops in the NHL.  The quick start was reason enough for Coach Mike Keenan to reward his players with a rare, early-season night off. 

Pelle and a few others went out for the evening, eventually finishing off the night with a few drinks at a lounge inside the Coliseum, the Flyers’ Voorhees, NJ practice facility.  In the early hours of the morning, Pelle and two passengers set off in his new Porsche.  He never noticed the sharp, winding curve in the road which culminated in a set of concrete school house steps, until it was too late.  The two passengers survived the crash with minor injuries, but Pelle was not so lucky.  He was declared brain-dead a few hours later at John F. Kennedy Hospital in Somerdale, NJ.  Two days later, after seeing no change in their son’s condition, Anna-Lisa and Sigge Lindbergh were faced with the ultimate decision.  They elected to stop the respirator and spare Pelle any suffering.

And with that, the fortunes of a future NHL legend were erased…but not from the minds of his teammates, his favorite hockey club, or the millions of fans from the Philadelphia area who had quickly grown to love their adopted Swedish son.  To them, somewhere in the backs of their minds, there will always be a lightning fast goaltender in a Friday the 13^th mask making heart-stopping glove saves.  To them, the memories of Pelle’s one shining season will never be lost.