10/22/1990 – Pearl Jam debuts
Today in Sports History: October 22nd
At the Off Ramp Café in Seattle, Washington, the band soon to be known as “Pearl Jam” made its official debut. At the time, the band was actually known as “Mookie Blaylock,” a title inspired by the NBA point guard of the same name. The band later changed its name in order to avoid the tricky licensing issues revolving the original. Their first album was titled “Ten,” after Blaylock’s uniform number.
Darren Blaylock was somehow given the nickname "Mookie" by his grandmother when he sucked on his finger as a child. In the NBA, Blaylock was considered one of the best defenders in the league. He played for the New Jersey Nets, Atlanta Hawks, and Golden State Warriors over the course of his 13-year career. He was an All-Star in 1994 and retired in the top ten in total steals and steals per game (2.3). Asked in 1999 if he was a fan of Pearl Jam, Blaylock told the San Francisco Chronicle, "Yes I am. I've got some of their CDs. I don't listen that much, but every now and then I pop it in."
10/22/2001 - The bald brotherhood rejoice
It was on this day in 2001 that ESPN first aired “Pardon the Interruption,” a show hosted by longtime Washington Post writers Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. The premise of the show was to run through the day’s sports topics in under 30 minutes, while keeping the average conversation to about 90 seconds. In layman’s terms, the show was the equivalent of CNN’s “Crossfire.”
PTI became the most popular show on the network only a few years after its debut. The success of PTI, and it’s spin-off/lead-in “Around the Horn,” moved ESPN to put the PTI stamp on as many things as they could. The morning edition of SportsCenter received a topic rundown as seen on PTI; Wilbon was placed on the set of ABC’s NBA pre-game show; Kornheiser was selected to go into the booth for Monday Night Football; and the final segment of PTI was chosen to air 15-20 minutes into SportsCenter, as a way to increase the latter show’s ratings.
And yet, PTI's success may have hurt the channel in the long run. By proving that loud sports talk could work on TV, ESPN created numerous programs imitating the PTI formula. Whereas ESPN used to be somewhat of a safe-haven from obnoxious sports talk radio hosts, the post-PTI era of ESPN became riddled with personalities who were big on yelling and short on substance. The most notable of those personalities was Stephen A. Smith, who briefly became the most ubiquitous man on cable.
10/22/2006 - The Gambler cheats
Detroit’s only win in the 2006 World Series came in Game 2, when Kenny Rogers threw 8 innings of shutout ball, striking out five and allowing only two hits. However, suspicion arose in the second inning when TV cameras caught a brown smudge on Rodgers’ throwing hand. Rodgers wiped his hand and proceeded to shut down the St. Louis Cardinals. He later claimed that it was merely a mixture of rosin and dirt, an explanation that Major League Baseball bought. The public wasn’t so believing however. Photographs of previous games he had pitched in also showed the same brown smudge, including game three of the ALCS.
The substance Rogers was using was a matter of debate, though there’s no doubt he was doctoring the baseball. Pitchers are extremely fastidious with what is on their throwing hand; there’s no way a 200-win pitcher such as Rogers would allow dirt to interfere with his pitching, let alone during multiple postseason games.
“If it was dirt, something had to make it stick there. Dirt isn’t just sticking there in cold weather,” Gaylord Perry, famous for using the illegal spitball, told the New York Times. “He probably just used a little pine tar. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I’m proud of him, man,” he added. “He did it to them. Good for him. Now you’ll have a thousand high school kids using pine tar, too.”
Further reading:
The Dirt on Kenny Rogers
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