When Athletes Predict The Future: Broadway Joe and A Pistol Named Pete

00:00:32 Speaker 1: Michel de Nostre Dame, more commonly known by his Latinized name of Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, and physician who lived in the sixteenth century. He was also a seer and not your typical hermit that lived in some secluded, dark forest far off from civilization. He was the most widely read and popular seer during the Renaissance, and even today there is still those who believe in his prophetic visions of the future. He first began making prophecies in fifteen forty seven, and a few years later, in fifteen fifty five, he published a collection of these cryptic prophecies called Lace Prophetees. The most famous of these works, known as the Centuries, were formed by one hundred quatrains, each which are stanzas made up of four lines of rhyming verse. Each set of these one hundred quatrains are considered a century. And if you're wondering how this man wasn't burned at the stake, considering how many people were burned for accusations of aculthood at the time, it's because of two factors. First, no ser Damis originally became popular by publishing yearly almanacs that contained weather forecasts, agricultural planting dates, and other helpful things that weren't very witch like. Secondly, he was also an astrologer. An astrology was a massive part of European intellectualism, him some leeway and making future predictions, compared to say h a commoner over the following centuries. According to some, many of his prophecies came true, like the Great Fire of London in sixteen sixty six, the death of Henry the Second, and even the rise of figures like Napoleon and Hitler. According to others, well most people, his alleged prophecies are completely false. You see, Nosir Damis had a tendency to write extremely vague predictions, and his so called believers tend to have huge quantities of what we now call confirmation bias. His prediction about the Great Fire of London, which raised four fifths of the city to the ground in sixteen sixty six, is a well cited example of this. One translation reads quote the blood of the just will be lacking in London burnt up in the fire of sixty six unquote. Another more accurate translation reads slightly different quote the blood of the just will commit a fault at London burnt through lightning of twenty threes the six unquote. The fire didn't start from lightning, and it's quite a stretch to start from twenty threes the six and end up at sixteen sixty six. You'd have to whip out pemdos and do twenty times three plus six to get sixty six, which is still really technically not sixteen sixty six. While the legitimacy of noster Damis's predictions can certainly be questioned, their staying power cannot, and he will forever be tied to the idea that humans can predict the future. Nearly four hundred years after his death, another man the history books won't forget channeled his inner Nostradamis on October first, nineteen thirty two, at Wrigley Field in Chicago. It was Gay three of the Baseball World Series, and with his Yankees losing four to three, facing a crowd filled with opposing fans screaming insults and jeering at him, Babe Ruth stepped up to the plate and made his own prediction by stretching out his right hand and pointing towards the flagpole near the center field stands, a gesture indicating he was going to hit a home run. The action didn't consist of four rhyming lines, just a simple motion of his arm. A few moments later, the crack of a bat signaled that the prophecy had come true. Babe Ruth had hit a home run, and that is an unquestionable fact. Him famously calling his shot right before that, however, is highly debatable. Some swear he pointed out the stands, others that he pointed out the Chicago Cubs bench, and some swear he was pointing at the pitcher. It's impossible to know now what actually had happened, and regardless of where he actually pointed his pointing to the stands, his prediction of that immediate future has become the truth. I'm not a huge fan of ambiguity, though, and so on this episode of Sports Dot MP three, we'll be exploring two rare moments when sports stars actually did predict the future, not with vague, cryptic prophecies or debatable gestures, but with eerily precise predictions in the form of Joe Namath's Immortal Super Bowl guarantee and Pete Maravich's chilling self forecast first Up Broadway Joe and Super Bowl Number three. As the sixties inched their way closer and closer to a new decade, one of America's first true sports stars was also making his way into the spotlight. In January of nineteen sixty nine, the NFL or National Football League was in the midst of a merger with its once rival, the AFL or American Football League. The NFL and AFL had agreed to create one super league towards the end of nineteen sixty six and until the nineteen seventy season, which would be the first to truly combine the conferences and divisions of both the NFL and AFL. The two leagues had agreed to have their respective champions play each other in what they called the AFL NFL World Championship Game, later renamed as the Super Bowl. The AFL was sort of like a wealthy little brother to the NFL. It had significantly wealthier owners, yet lagged in popularity. As such, the NFL generally had a deeper pool of talented players than the AFL, and the first two World Championship games made that clear. As the NFL's Green Bay Packers won the first two with ease. Super Bowl three was set to take place in January of nineteen sixty nine, and it pitted the AFL's champion, the New York Jets, against the NFL's champion, the Baltimore Colts. At the time, the results seemed like a foregone conclusion. The Colts were favored by nineteen and a half points over the Jets, but the Jets had a not so secret weapon. Broadway Joe aka Joe Namath, a twenty five year old charismatic star quarterback who knew he was a star. He frequented nightclubs, pumped out dozens of TV commercials, and loved a flashy fur coat. Three days before Super Bowl three, Joe Namath attended a banquet at the Miami Touchdown Club to accept his award as Pro Football's Player of the Year. As he walked up on stage to accept the award, a Colts fan in the audience hackled him, shouting that the fifteen and one Colts would crush the eleven and three Jets. Namath, not one to back down from a challenge and not known for his humble nature, replied to the fan saying quote I've got news for you. We're going to win the game. I guarantee it. End quote. Most in attendants would have rolled their eyes or scoffed at such a bold claim, Yet only a few days later, Joe was the one who was laughing. 00:08:21 Speaker 2: Yet four seconds remaining in the ballgame, New York sixteen, Baltimore seven. This will be the first time that American Football League team has defeated a National Football League team in the Super Bowl, Green Bay winning the first two, the New York Jets winning the third. Answering all the questions of the future of the Super. 00:08:40 Speaker 1: Bowl Broadway, Joe and the New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts sixteen to seven, a pretty damn good showing considering they were a nineteen and a half point underdog and the Colts scored less than half that amount. Namath capped off the upset, one of the greatest in Super Bowl history, by taking home the Most Valuable Player of the Game award, becoming the first and still the only quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl MVP without throwing a touchdown pass. He completed seventeen of twenty eight passes for two hundred and six yards. Some call his performance overrated, but I disagree because he was the leader of the Jets team and his bold claim gave them the confidence and spark they needed to beat the Juggernaut Cults that day. Name of this guarantee cemented his legacy as one of the game's greatest characters, showing that stats alone don't define a player. It's also about how you carry yourself, your confidence, and how you follow through with your claims. Joe's super Bowl promise was first received as a laughably irrational claim and later immortalized as a legendary prediction when it all came true. Pistol Pete Maravich. Similarly to Broadway, Joe revolutionized his sport. He was one of basketball's first showmen, hitting deep pull up jumpers, no look passes, and behind the back dribbles in an era when a simple between the legs dribble was considered borderline witchcraft. Playing college basketball for LSU from nineteen sixty seven to nineteen seventy, he quickly established himself as one of the greatest college athletes of all time, averaging an absurd forty four point two points per game over three seasons. An NCAA record, and even more mind boggling when you realize he played before three pointers or shot clocks existed. By some estimates, he would have averaged around fifty seven points per game if there was a three point line. A magician on the court. Marevich, who was six foot five, was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks with the third in the nineteen seventy NBA Draft. He hit the ground running, earning NBA All Rookie Team honors and becoming the second leading scorer in the league by his fourth season. Unfortunately, the Hawks regularly struggled to make any playoff runs, and both the fans and some players took issue with pistol Pete's lucrative salary of nearly two million dollars. During his fourth and final season with the Hawks, certain fans took to insultingly calling him a hot dog, with one fan even holding up a sign out a game that said, pistol Pete, why do hot dogs cost two million dollars in Atlanta and fifty cents in Philadelphia. Soon after that incident, in nineteen seventy four, pistol Pete was interviewed by a sportswriter named Andy and Nuzzo of the Beaver County Times, the writer was asked to write a feature about Pete being unhappy with these negative fan reactions. When describing how he felt like he didn't need basketball in his life, Pistol Pete said, quote, I don't want to play ten years in the NBA and die of a heart attack at age forty. As expected, the interview in that specific quote went largely unnoticed at the time. It was just another boring, uneventful athlete interview. The following season, Maravich was traded to the New Orleans Jazz, a newly established expansion team in need of a star player just like him. He played most of his remaining seasons there, never finding true team success, but becoming an icon for his flashy play style and tremendous creativity on the court. He was one of those players that you watch and think, damn he was ahead of his time. He officially retired in nineteen eighty and, only seven years later, became the youngest ever player inducted into the Naysmith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, finishing with a career average of twenty four point two points and five point four assists per game, not too shabby. On January fifth, nineteen eighty eight, Marevich was playing a pickup basketball game in Pasadena, California, when he suddenly collapsed and passed away from heart failure. He was forty years old and had played exactly ten seasons in the NBA. Upon learning of his passing, Andy Nuzo, the sports reporter from that interview, recalled pistol Pete's statement fourteen years before his death, a statement that had transformed from an innocuous musing into an eerie, unquestionable truth. He said, quote, the story was laying on my desk when I got to work. I read it and read it, and read it and read it. I couldn't believe it. Everything matched unquote. The story is obviously a sad one, but it was also somewhat of a miracle that pistol Pete hadn't died years earlier. You see, an autopsy revealed that his death was due to a rare congenital defect affecting his left coronary artery. And when I say defect, I mean that the vessel meant to supply blood to the muscles in his art was missing. It didn't exist. Doctors also discovered that his right coronary artery was massive, as it had been compensating forty years for the missing left one. Predictions and prophecies exists in the peripherals of reality. For some they are absolutely true, and for others they're nothing more than fairy tales and fables. Millions of people throughout history have claimed to know what the future holds, and whether those claims were about the weather, a game winning shot, or the world itself, we can't help but stand in awe when those claims become true. The reason for the existence of these claims can range from confidence, to calculations, to things beyond comprehension to our mortal minds, and in truth, how these predictions came to be doesn't really matter. The fact that they happen is just enough to make us marvel. It's why we remember them, because they told us first. And that does it for today's episode, Thank you so much for listening to Sports Dot MP three, and I'm calling my shot right now. We'll be back next week with another story worth telling. Tune in next Thursday. Thank you again for listening, and have a wonderful week. See you next time. 00:16:03 Speaker 2: Don't I have a talk about the under the doctor. 00:16:11 Speaker 1: Don't don't. 00:16:12 Speaker 2: But it's not about the thing 00:16:21 Speaker 1: At