Hoax Museum Blog: Sports

Supermanning —
Status: Real
Add this to the list of strange extreme sports. Crewmen on military helicopters have apparently been engaging in an activity known as Supermanning. This involves "hanging from an open cargo door and letting the rushing wind 'fly' [your] body, attached only by a safety belt." This practice came to light when Petty Officer Brian Joplin recently died as a result of it. (He fell 125 feet from the helicopter into the Persian Gulf after the safety belt slipped over his shoulders.) I imagine this would make Joplin a strong candidate for a Darwin award. The Virginian-Pilot (may require registration to view the article) provides a brief reconstruction of what happened:

“The co-pilot in the left seat noticed in his … mirror, a pair of boots dangling below the back of the aircraft,”... The co-pilot asked the other crew members by radio if everything was OK and was told it was, according to the report. But then crew members saw Joplin’s belt start to slip and still could not get him inside the helicopter. They told the pilot to slow down immediately and lower altitude. “The co-pilot aggressively decelerated and descended,” the report said. But it was too late. Almost immediately, one of the crew members said, Joplin had fallen.

Another stunt crewmen do to pass the time is called the "slide for life." This involves swinging out on a safety line and slingshotting back into the aircraft. Senior military officers claim to be astounded to learn that this kind of activity has been going on behind their backs. However, while supermanning might be real, fire diving remains a hoax.
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005.   Comments (17)

Is Chin-Whiskered Charlie A Fraud? —
Status: Undetermined, but it doesn't look good for Charlie
image Controversy is swirling in the world of muskie fishing over the status of Chin-Whiskered Charlie, the muskie that currently holds the title of biggest muskie ever caught, weighing in at 69 pounds, 11 ounces. He was reeled in by Louis Spray back in 1949. But now a group calling itself the World Record Muskie Alliance is challenging Charlie's right to the title. Based on an analysis of old photos of Charlie (Charlie himself was destroyed in a fire in 1959), they're claiming Charlie's a fraud. They suspect Spray stuffed him with wet sand to increase his weight:

The muskie alliance supplied vintage photos of the suspect fish to Mills, a professional surveyor and former Transport Canada investigator who uses physics and various computer measurement technologies to reconstruct traffic accidents, trace bullet trajectories and discern the height of suspected criminals from video surveillance cameras. "This was definitely my first fish," says Mills. "It was a unique application of the science I use, but I tackled it the same way I would with any other evidence." His findings: the muskie Spray said was 63 inches in length couldn't have been more than 55 inches from snout to tail; and its reported girth of 31.25 inches was not possible given the maximum 10-inch, single-side width calculated by Mills. The Muskie Alliance submitted the results to the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, Charlie's defenders are claiming this is all a plot dreamed up by people in Illinois to rob Wisconsin of the Muskie title. Since photos are all anyone has to go on to determine Charlie's true weight, the battle will likely rage on for a while.
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005.   Comments (2)

Ronaldinho Nike Ad —
Status: Undetermined (but I'm guessing fake)
image Nike has a new ad featuring Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho Gaucho. In the ad Ronaldinho puts on a pair of Nikes, juggles the ball a few times, and then kicks the ball towards the goal so that it hits the crossbar and bounces directly back to him. He does this four times in a row. And it's all shot in a single take. This has inspired a lot of discussion on the net, because it's hard to believe anyone could be skilled enough to do this. In an article posted on the BBC (in Portuguese... I read it via AltaVista Translate) Ronaldinho swears that the scene is real, although the reporters interviewing him refuse to believe him. Given that it's an ad, I would assume it's fake, since one should always assume that what you see in ads is bogus, unless it's proven otherwise.
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005.   Comments (56)

Penile Weight Lifting (A Follow-Up) —
Status: Real
I feel compelled to post something about this simply because I've posted about the sport of penile weight lifting before, expressing a few doubts about its reality. (I also had a few questions about the actual mechanics of the process). Inside Bay Area has this report of a recent demonstration of penile weight lifting in action:

Grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng, best known for his Iron Crotch, attached himself not once, but twice, to a rental moving truck and pulled it several yards across a parking lot in Fremont. In lace-up leather boots and a black tank top, the 50-year-old tied a strip of blue fabric around the base of his penis and testicles and tugged to make sure it was on tight. An assistant kicked him hard between the legs before he lashed himself to the vehicle.

Here's the best part of the article:

Jin-Shengs performance drew a hearty applause (and only a few gasps) from the sparse crowd. He wrapped a piece of fabric around his waist to conceal his genitals from the crowd, but in the heat of the second truck pull, when he tied the cloth around his testicles only, it was pushed aside to reveal a ball of flesh that looked ready to burst.

Lovely. So apparently this sport doesn't involve muscle training, per se. It's more like hoping your skin and connective tissue don't rip apart as you lift (or pull) the weight. The description of the event sounds credible enough for me to categorize it as real.
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005.   Comments (59)


Black League Basketball —
Status: Never Existed
image Remember the Black Basketball League? Its teams (including favorites such as the Newark Eagles, Harlem Knights, Baltimore Crabs, West Philly Dancers and Cleveland Ebonies) competed from 1920-40, when they were shut out of the all-white league. Consumers can now honor the memory of this league by buying sportswear emblazoned with the team logos. Of course, if you don't remember this league, it might be because historians insist that it never existed. But Eric Williams, the guy who's selling the black league sportswear, isn't letting that minor fact bother him. He explains that:

"These logos had to come from somewhere.. Whether there was a league or not those logos ... that's still nice to represent the 'hood or whatever it was. Those were all the inner cities. (Whether it was) an interim league or a professional league, those leagues and those logos, to me they sound like they exist. The story sounds good to me so I'm rolling with it."

So there you have it. Damn the facts. He's rolling with the story. (Thanks to Joe Littrell for the link.)
Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005.   Comments (32)

Chess Boxing —
Status: Real
Chess Boxing seems to be getting a lot of attention lately. The basic premise of this sport is that you play chess for four minutes, and then you box for two minutes. Then you go back to playing chess, followed by another round of boxing. And this goes on and on for eleven rounds until someone is either knocked out, or checkmated. The website of the World Chess Boxing Organization states that:

One of the goals of this new sport is the old ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body: mens sana in corpore sano. During a chessboxing fight the control of aggression plays a big role. That's why WCBO's motto is: "Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board".

A search of news articles about chess boxing confirms that this is, indeed, a real sport. Though it may be a while before it gets included in the Olympics. The Wikipedia article about Chess Boxing provides this history of the sport:

The concept was invented in 1992 by cartoonist Enki Bilal, and a match of chess boxing was a major plot point of his graphic novel Froid-Équateur. Iepe "the Joker" Rubingh, a Dutch artist, inspired by Bilal's book, brought the concept to life in the spring of 2003... The first world championship was held in Amsterdam in 2003 and was won by Iepe Rubingh himself. The 1st European Chess Boxing Championship took place in Berlin on 1 October 2005 when Tihomir Titschko of Bulgaria defeated Andreas Schneider of Germany after the latter conceded defeat in the seventh round.

(via The Presurfer)
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005.   Comments (16)

Runaway Bride Runs Again — image
Status: True
It sounds like a joke. Jennifer Wilbanks, the Georgia woman who made headlines earlier this year by disappearing shortly before her wedding only to surface a few days later in New Mexico claiming (falsely) that she had been kidnapped, thereby earning herself the nickname 'The Runaway Bride,' is running again. But this time it's in a marathon. And it's for real. At least, her name is listed among the contestants in the Chicago marathon. Of course, if she really wanted to add to her notoriety, she could pull a Rosie Ruiz. (via Marathon Pundit)
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005.   Comments (5)

Extreme Fans Fake Emergency Landing To See Team Play —
Status: Pathetic, but true
Fanatical Gambian soccer fans chartered a jet and faked the need for an emergency landing so that they could watch their team play:

The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday in Peru's northern coast city of Piura, where Gambia played Qatar in the FIFA Under-17 World Championships later that night. Emergency crews were scrambled ahead of the Lockhead L1011 Tri-Star's unscheduled landing. It was to have landed in the capital, Lima. The fans were allowed to watch the soccer game in Piura, which Gambia won 3-1. The fans apparently would have been late or missed the game if the flight had first gone to its scheduled destination of Lima, 550 miles to the south. "It truly was a scam," said Betty Maldonado, a spokeswoman for Peru's aviation authority, CORPAC. "They tricked the control tower, saying they were low on fuel."

I think there was a TV show on recently about the lengths some fans go to in order to see their teams play. But I can't remember the name of it.
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2005.   Comments (4)

Emily Fox Stacks Cups — image About a year ago I posted an entry about cup stacking, since I found it hard to believe it was a real sport. Now after watching this video of Emily Fox stacking cups (requires windows media player and also viewable at speedstacks.com), I've got to say it's not only real but pretty impressive. I don't think I've ever seen cups move that fast. Assuming, that is, the video hasn't been speeded up.
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005.   Comments (23)

Groping Cardinals — image Here's a photo that I received in my email (forwarded by Robert Avallone). My first impulse is to say that it looks real, though it's conceivable that someone whited out something that Jim Edmonds (on the right) was holding in his hand, making it look like he's groping Jason Marquis (on the left). I haven't been able to find any references to the photo online. Maybe this is an example of the 'Pope grope' that cardinals are said to use to check the gender of the Pope (following the Pope Joan debacle). Wait, no. Wrong type of Cardinals.
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005.   Comments (10)

NBA Draft Prank — Curtis Heroman has decided to toss his hat into the ring to make himself eligible for the NBA draft. The unusual thing about this is that Heroman isn't a particularly good basketball player. He played in high school and competes on Louisiana State University's intramural team. But that's it. So he would seem to be an unlikely candidate for the NBA draft, but as it turns out, anyone can sign up to put their name on the list of eligible draftees. All you need to do is fill out the paperwork. It's just never occurred to anyone in the past to put their name on the list if they weren't a serious candidate. An NBA scout commented that "It sounds like he's playing a joke for his friends."
Posted: Tue May 17, 2005.   Comments (1)

The Golf Ball Liberation Army — image Watch out all you people who enjoy hitting golf balls. Justice will be done:

GOLF BALLS ALL OVER THE WORLD ARE READY FOR A NEW LEADER.
HERE'S A WARNING FROM THE GOLF BALL LIBERATION FRONT.
WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!
THE GOLF BALL LIBERATION ARMY IS ON THE WAY!

Posted: Thu May 12, 2005.   Comments (4)

Coin Stacking — I never realized that coin stacking was a sport, nor that people could create such intricate stacks. Some of these things really seem to defy gravity. But I see no reason to believe that any of the images aren't real. It reminds me of rock balancing, which I posted about last year. Check out some of the other coin stack pictures here. (via Reality Carnival)
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Posted: Thu May 05, 2005.   Comments (11)

Fake Sports Reporter — As a representative of Westchester Cable Services, Mark Sabia has been allowed into press boxes at sports games for years. The one problem is that Westchester Cable Services doesn't exist. The teams finally figured out he didn't belong there (but it was a good scam while it lasted):

Sabia, who lives in Ossining, was arrested Monday when he showed up to cover Opening Day at Shea and was charged with scamming season passes for almost all of New York's professional teams, as well as for several World Series and League Championship Series dating to 1998. He was charged with five felony counts of falsifying business records and 16 misdemeanor counts ranging from petit larceny to criminal impersonation.
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2005.   Comments (5)

Do Baseball Players Pee on Their Hands? — Given that I've posted periodically about various forms of urine therapy, I was intrigued to come across this slate.com article alleging that many professional baseball players regularly pee on their hands in the belief that the urine will toughen their skin:

"In a recent interview with ESPN's Gary Miller, Chicago Cubs outfielder Moises Alou revealed that during baseball season he urinates on his hands to toughen them up. Alou, one of the few major leaguers who doesn't wear gloves while batting, is backed up by Yankees catcher Jorge Posada, who says, "You don't want to shake my hand during spring training." Even Cubs hurler Kerry Wood mentioned on a local radio show that he's tried the technique to remedy blisters on his pitching hand."

The article goes on to argue that urine probably would work well to soften your skin since urea is an ingredient in many commercial moisturizing lotions, but it's very doubtful that it will do anything to toughen up the skin. Slate.com figures that this hand-peeing fad is just another one of the many superstitions that baseball players get hooked on to try to improve their game.
Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005.   Comments (27)

World Record for Smoking — image True or False: Did Stefan Sigmond of Transylvania gain the world record for smoking by smoking 800 cigarettes in less than six minutes? If I hadn't seen the picture I wouldn't have believed it was possible, but apparently it is true, although I'm a bit wary about whether using this 'special wheel-like device' should really count. It doesn't seem like you would be fully smoking all the cigarettes. Anyway, I hate smoking, but I'd love to see someone whip out a device like this at a bar and start puffing away. (via RealityCarnival)
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005.   Comments (40)

Oversized Biceps — I wish these pictures were fake, but they appear to be real. They show bodybuilder Greg Valentine. He got his arms that big by injecting a combination of steroids directly into them. At the risk of being insensitive, I'd say the results look pretty gross. In fact, his biceps no longer look like real biceps at all. They look like strange tumors growing out of his arm. It's a wonder that his biceps are functional at all. (via ChrisDiClerico.com)
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Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005.   Comments (47)

Sky Tennis — image Here's a cool picture (click to enlarge) that's started going around. It looks totally fake, but it's real. It shows a tennis court that was laid out on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai last week. Playing on the court are Andre Agassi and Roger Federer. It was all just a publicity stunt. Regular guests aren't allowed to play on the helipad.
Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005.   Comments (16)

The Ancient Art of Yellow Bamboo — image Yellow Bamboo is a form of white magic/martial art developed in Bali. If you sign up to get the free Yellow Bamboo training video then "you can learn very powerful methods to protect yourself and others. If you watch the videos you will see that it is possible to knock down attackers without touching them. This is a very powerful form of personal development." Annoyed by these extravagant claims (particularly the one about being able to knock down opponents without touching them), some Jiu-Jitsu practitioners decided to challenge the local Yellow Bamboo masters to a test "to prove once and for all that no-touch or Chi knockouts are, and have always been, complete and utter bullshit." These were the guidelines for the test: "The YB practitioner assumes a stance on the sand and is given time to prepare his Chi in accordance with YB practices. The challenger then runs 20 feet across the sand and attacks the YB practitioner. As the challenger is making his run, the YB practitioner has to effectively disable or deflect him using his chi." Needless to say, the Yellow Bamboo people completely failed the test.

Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005.   Comments (80)

Cheerleader Toss — The cheerleader goes up, and comes down exactly through the basketball hoop. It seems like there has to be a trick to it somehow, though I can't figure out what the trick might be. As I watched the movie clip, I kept thinking 'what if her foot got caught in the net'. At the very least the net must be rigged so that it would rip away from the hoop if her foot were to catch it.
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004.   Comments (81)

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