Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 49

Other Stuff in the Baseball Hall of Fame

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, isn’t just for players, managers, and other people who made baseball great.

“Centerfield”

The playing of John Fogerty’s 1985 baseball-themed hit “Centerfield” is as much a part of a baseball game as peanuts and the seventh-inning stretch. In 2010, the Baseball Hall of Fame formally recognized this musical contribution to the national pastime by enshrining the song in 2010.

“Talkin’ Baseball”

Here’s another baseball-mythologizing song recognized by the Hall. In 1981, singer-songwriter Terry Cashman had a hit with the folky, soft rock song “Talkin’ Baseball.” With lyrics mentioning the greats of baseball past (such as Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle), the song’s nostalgic feel helped propel it up the charts in a year that baseball was tainted by a strike that canceled baseball for most of the summer.

Homer Simpson

Earlier this year, the Simpsons patriarch got his own plaque in the Hall of Fame, just like real players do. The HOF commissioned it in honor of The Simpsons’ many baseball-themed episodes, such as when Homer’s work softball team is stacked with Major League ringers like Roger Clemens and Ken Griffey, Jr., and when Homer tries to prevent the local Springfield Isotopes from moving to Albuquerque.

“Who’s on First”

Abbott and Costello debuted their incredibly famous baseball/wordplay routine “Who’s on First” in 1938. The Hall of Fame recognized the importance of the sketch in baseball history by officially giving it an exhibit in 1956. It now plays on a constant loop at the Hall of Fame museum. (And just so you remember: Who is playing first, What is at second, and I Don’t Know is on third.)

Umpires

The Baseball Hall of Fame hasn’t left out anybody involved, it would seem. Since 1953, ten umps have been enshrined in Cooperstown. The most recent inductee, in 2013: late 19th-century and early 20th-century referee Hank O’Day.

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The Origins of Doughnuts

Doughnuts (or donuts) have been around for ages. But where did they come from?

Oily Cake

When Dutch settlers arrived in what’s now New York in the 17th century, they brought with them something called olykoek, or “oily cake.” They were much like today’s doughnuts in that they were fried balls or discs of sweetened dough…but they weren’t ring-shaped with a hole in the middle. A man named Hanson Gregory claims to have turned olykoeks into that more familiar shape when he was working on a lime-trading ship in 1849.

What’s the name mean?

The dough part is obvious, but what’s with the nut? In his 1809 book A History of New York, Washington Irving says that nuts were sometimes added to the dough for flavor, or that the nut was placed in the middle to help the pastry maintain its shape. Another more likely theory is that the treats were tied together at the end, in a knot. Over time, and into English, “knot” evolved into “nut.”

Bear Claw

The Bear Claw is an especially large glazed doughnut. It was created in the U.S. in 1920. There’s so much yeast in it that it makes the slits cut into it rise and puff out, looking like the toes on a bear’s claw.

Old Fashioned doughnut

It’s not just a clever name. The Old Fashioned doughnut has been around since the 1820s. It’s made in the shape of a ring with tapered edges and gets some its distinctive texture from added sour cream or buttermilk.

Long Johns

Long Johns, also called “chocolate bars” or “maple bars” because of their most popular frosting toppers, are a non-cream-filled version of a French éclair.

“I am a jelly doughnut!”

There’s a misconception that at a speech in Germany in 1963, President John F. Kennedy uttered the phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner!” which the local audience laughed at, because JFK had just said “I am a jelly doughnut!” But the jelly doughnut, also called a Berliner, really did originated in Germany. The jam- (or custard-) filled pastry dates to 15th century Nuremburg.

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Random Facts About This Year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees

Here’s a little bit about a bunch of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of acts that may be officially enshrined early next year. 

The Moody Blues

Before they picked “The Moody Blues,” the group was called the M&B Five, named after Mitchell and Butler, the Birmingham, England, pub that sponsored them.

Radiohead

The British band released their first album, Pablo Honey, in 1993 — which they waited two years to record after signing a recording contract because members of the band wanted to finish college first.

The Cars

For kickstarting the New Wave movement in the late ‘70s with songs like “Just What I Needed” and “My Best Friend’s Girl,” Rolling Stone and Creem named the Cars the best new artist of 1978. They were nominated for the Grammy for Best New Artist but lost to disco flash-in-the-plan A Taste of Honey.

Linda Wray

The late guitarist is credited with introducing two very iconic elements of rock n’ roll in the 1950s: distortion and the power chord.

Eurythmics

Members Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox were romantically involved, but not while they were in the Eurythmics. They were together while playing in a prior band called the Tourists. Shortly after they left that band, they formed the Eurythmics, and then they split up (as a couple).

Kate Bush

With her debut single “Wuthering Heights” in 1978, Bush became the first woman in British history to score a #1 hit with a song she wrote herself.

Depeche Mode

The synth-pop band’s first primary songwriter was Vince Clark, but he left the band in 1982. He went on to form a few more important ‘80s synth-driven bands: Erasure and Yaz.

The MC5

The Detroit based band have been called the inventors of punk rock. The name stands for “Motor City 5” as a nod to their hometown, but they came up with the acronym first, because a band member though that it sounded like the name of a car part.

LL Cool J

What do all those initials stand for? “Ladies Love Cool James.”

Bon Jovi

How did the band get the name for its 12 million-selling album Slippery When Wet? They got the idea after visiting at a strip club that had a shower on stage, which made things “slippery when wet” for the performers.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

The name might not be as familiar as some of the others on this list, but she had a huge influence on early rock n’ roll. Her mixture of gospel, jazz, and R&B in the 1930s and 1940s influenced the first rock stars, such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Geils Band

It’s one of the few bands in rock history that bears the name of and individual, and that individual is not the lead singer. J. Geils was the group’s guitarist.

Judas Priest

After lead singer Rob Halford left the British heavy metal band in the mid-1990s, the band hired Tim “Ripper” Owens as his replacement. Owens main performing experience to that point was fronting a Judas Priest cover band.

Rage Against the Machine

In 1996, they performed their politically charged hit “Bulls on Parade,” on Saturday Night Live. The band decorated their amps with upside-down American flags, and SNL producers asked them to remove them, afraid it would upset the episode’s host, presidential candidate Steve Forbes. Rather than comply, they played one song instead of the customary two and left the studio.

The Zombies

Keyboardist Rod Argent wrote the band’s song “The Way I Feel Inside” during a pit stop on a 1964 tour. Quite literally — he wrote it while he was in the bathroom.

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That Movie is Banned Because…Wha?

Yes, movies still get banned by cities, countries, and movie theater chains. And it ’s usually for a very particular reason.

Gone with the Wind

Gone With the Wind is one of the most acclaimed movies of all time, and, adjusted for inflation, it’s still the highest-grossing movie of all time. It is, however, a little dated, particularly with its depictions of race relations. It takes place before and during the Civil War, and heroine Scarlett O’Hara employs the use of slaves, portrayed by Butterfly McQueen and Hattie McDaniel. McDaniel even won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but nevertheless The Orpheum, a movie theater in Memphis, decided to cancel a planned 2018 screening of the film. It received several complaints after an August 2017 showing that the movie’s sympathetic portrayal of the slavery era was insensitive to modern audiences.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman delighted and inspired millions of people across the world this year and made a superstar out of star Gal Gadot. But she’s precisely why nobody living in Lebanon will see the movie anytime soon. Lebanon and Israel are officially at war and engage in the occasional deadly skirmish. Acting under a law that bans contact between Lebanese residents and Israeli residents, the country banned the movie because Gadot was born in Israel.

Beasts of No Nation

With its watch-now platform and production of original content, Netflix has thoroughly shaken up the film industry in the last few years. A little too much for the film industry’s liking. In 2015, Netflix produced Beasts of No Nation, a harrowing drama about an African child soldier. Idris Elba earned an Academy Award nomination for his role as the terrifying Commandant. Netflix planned to screen the movie at theaters nationwide, and then its online service, but America’s four biggest theater chains (AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Carmike) refused to screen it. Why? Because Netflix didn’t respect the traditional “90-day window” between a theatrical release and home video availability designed to give movie theaters a chance to earn as much money as possible on a film.

 

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What in the Heck is a “Nittany Lion”?

If you ’re from the area near a college or went there, you probably know why your quirky team name is what it is, but for the rest of us, let the truth be told.

Stanford Cardinal

Look closely — the prestigious California university’s team name is the Cardinal, not cardinals. That refers to the shade of red, not the bird (that’s also that shade of red). It’s similar to the Cincinnati Reds, or other color-based team names. The actual mascot of the team is the Stanford Tree, based on a redwood near the school’s campus called the El Palo Alto, which appears in the university’s seal.

Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Those two things seem to cancel each other out — a demon who also helps lead a church service? It’s all thanks to a clever but of writing on the part of the Baptist college’s student newspaper. In 1923, Wake Forest beat Duke University in a football game, which Old Gold & Black editor Mayon Parker attributed to the teams “devilish” play, wryly nicknaming them the Demon Deacons. College brass like it so much that they adopted it as the official mascot name.

Purdue Boilermakers

No, they’re not referring to the alcoholic drink — a shot of whiskey dropped in a beer and consumed quickly. In the 1890s, the Indiana college had a reputation as a working class college, and after playing a game against Wabash College, a newspaper referred to the unnamed Purdue squad as “burly boiler makers.” In other words, it was a disparaging remark about how its students and their parents were the kind of people who would work in a boiler room in a building or ship. Instead, the Purdue community “owned” the insult with pride and took on it as their nickname.

Akron Zips

The Ohio college is located in Akron, of course, also where the B.F. Goodrich Company was founded in 1870. One of the company’s major products in the early 20th century were rubber boots nicknamed “zippers” because they had zippers on them. Those overshoes were such a part of Akron life that when the college held a contest to name the athletic teams in 1925, freshman Margaret Hamlin’s suggestion of “Zippers” won. In 1950, it was officially shortened to the zippier “Zips.

Penn State Nittany Lions

There is no such animal as the Nittany Lion. However, in the 19th century, mountain lions were a common sight on Mount Nittany in Pennsylvania. (It got its name from Nit-A-Nee, an Algonquian word meaning “mountain.”) In 1907, a Penn State senior named Joe Mason put the two local references together to create the school’s mascot: the Nittany Lion.

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What’s a ‘Snickers,’ Anyway?

How your favorite candies got their names.

Kit Kat

The current and most famous form of Kit Kat consists of a bar of four “fingers” of cookie wafers covered in chocolate. That’s a bit different from the first iteration of food sold under the name. The Kit-Cat Club was a place where late 1800s London politicians met, where they were served Kit-Cats—which were mutton pies. That place (and the pies) were named after an abbreviation of the club’s owner and pastry chef, Christopher Catling. The Kit-Cat and its food became so famous that English candy company Rowntree’s trademarked the name “Kit Kat” and started selling the Kit Kat Chocolate Crisp in 1937.

Snickers

Like a lot of other famous candies, such as M&M’s and the Mars Bar, the packed-with-peanuts Snickers bar was a creation of Mars, Inc., a giant of the candy industry. Company founder Frank Mars invented the Snickers bar in 1930. He named it after  one of the racehorses he owned: Snickers.

Three Musketeers

This is arguably the strangest named candy. What does whipped chocolate covered in milk chocolate have to do with Alexandre Dumas’ beloved adventure novel anyway? And if it’s going to be named anything, it should be named Two Musketeers, as there are only two elements to the candy bar. The name has nothing to do with French literature or its current composition, but it makes perfect sense when we go back to the candy’s original formulation. When Mar’s introduced it in 1932, there were three flavors of candy in one package: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Those other two, less popular flavors were phased out.

Baby Ruth

Two stories about how the nougat-peanut-chocolate concoction got its name have floated around for years. One says that it’s named after Ruth Cleveland, daughter of President Grover Cleveland. The other story holds that it’s named after legendary baseball slugger Babe Ruth. So which one is true? The Babe Ruth one…sort of. The Baby Ruth bar hit stores in 1921, more than 20 years after Cleveland, a not particularly popular president, had left office…and 17 years after Ruth Cleveland had died. But it was around the time that Babe Ruth was getting more and more famous, and the Curtiss Candy Company wanted to cash in. Neglecting to actually contract (and pay) Babe Ruth for an endorsement deal, the chocolatier named their product Baby Ruth — just barely skirting the law — and then coming up with the fake Ruth Cleveland story to cover its tracks.

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Longest, Shortest, Youngest, Oldest NBA Coaches

We love making these lists of the tallest, smallest, oldest, and youngest players to ever play professional sports. Here are similarly interesting facts about some all-time record-breaking coaches from the NBA.

Longest-serving coach with one team.

In 1996, former San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors assistant coach Gregg Popovich got his first professional coaching gig as head coach of the Spurs. And he’s still head coach of the Spurs. This fall, he’ll start his 22nd season with the team, the longest any NBA coach has ever stayed with one team. (One can count on job security when they win five NBA championships.) Popovich has been coaching the Spurs longer than some NBA players have even been alive. Ike Anigbogu of the Indiana Pacers was born in 1998—two years into Popovich’s tenure.

Coach who coached the shortest amount of time (not counting interim coaches).

The Spurs also hold the record for the coach with the briefest tenure. In 1992, UNLV men’s basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian made the jump to the pros. Tarkanian, famous for sitting on the sidelines and biting through towels during tense moments, led the Runnin’ Rebels to four final Fours and one national title. Tarkanian wasn’t exactly poached by the NBA—he resigned from his gig at UNLV due to allegations of game fixing. It didn’t work out with the Spurs, either. He was fired after just 20 games, in which the Spurs won 9 games and lost 11.

Coach who coached the most games.

Lenny Wilkens has coached more NBA games than any other coach in league history. He started leading teams in 1969 with the Seattle SuperSonics and then the Portland Trail Blazers…while he was still an active player. He retired in 2005 after a total of coaching for 32 seasons and a grand total of 2,487 games. He’s one of a handful of people in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.

Oldest coach in NBA history.

In 2002, the Memphis Grizzlies hired 69-year-old Hubie Brown as head coach. He hadn’t led a team in more than a decade. In his second season with the team (2003-2004), Brown led the Grizzlies to its first-ever playoffs. A few months later he resigned, citing health issues. At that point, he was 71 years old.

Youngest coach in NBA history.

Dave DeBusschere did more by his mid-20s than many athletes do in their whole lives. At age 22, he was a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox and pitched a shutout. By age 24, he was playing basketball for the Detroit Pistons while also playing in the Chicago White Sox’s farm system. After the White Sox cut him in 1963, he used that extra time and energy to become a coach as well as a player for the Pistons. By then he was the ripe old age of 25.

 

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My Shoes Just Ordered a Pizza

Today’s consumers are more sophisticated than ever, and they’re hip to the often wily ways of advertising. That means in order to get noticed and sell their wares, companies have to get a lot more creative…and strange. Here are some companies that promoted their products by making other, bizarre products.

Pizza Shoes

Are $300 basketball shoes just too much for your budget? Do you also like pizza and are too lazy to pick up a phone and order one? Then Pizza Hut’s “Pie Tops” are just what you need. They’re shoes enabled with Wi-Fi — at the press of a button, the shoes connect to a smartphone app that automatically orders your favorite, pre-arranged pizza. They look great with a Pizza Parka, another jokey Pizza Hut offering. It’s a winter jacket made out of the same insulating material that delivery workers use to keep pizzas warm on the drive over.

Kentucky Fried Candles

In recent years, KFC has thrown out its down-home comfort food image in favor of a sillier aesthetic. They’ve got a different comedian playing founder Colonel Sanders every few weeks, and they’ve released promotional comic books, records, paintings, sunscreen, and “Finger-Lickin’ Nail Polish.” Their most recent offering: a candle with the scent of their famous fried chicken. KFC released the candle only as a social media giveaway, reserved for KFC fans who enter a contest to come up with new KFC products.

Cheetos Bronzer

Cheetos are delicious, of course, but what makes them so tasty is what also makes them a bother to eat: All that Cheeto dust that stays on your hands…which turns into a goopy paste if you try to lick it off, and then that takes forever to wash off. Cheetos’ marketing department has decided to finally acknowledge the problem with Colour de Cheetos. For only $11.99, the stuff will temporarily turn your skin the same color of Cheetos, so you don’t need to dispose of the dust.

Musical Doritos

Part of the charm of the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was a soundtrack of ‘70s pop chestnuts. The second film, released earlier this year, was similarly propelled by a classic pop “mixtape.” Fans could download the tracks, buy the soundtrack album…or just find a specially-marked bag of Doritos. A tiny digital music player was built into the packaging, which included control buttons and a handy headphone jack.

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Inside the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Here’s a look at a Thanksgiving tradition as much a part of the holiday as football, eating way too much, and naps.

Christmas Parade?

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has always been affiliated with the Macy’s department store chain, but it wasn’t always affiliated with Christmas. The first parade was held on Thanksgiving Day 1924, but it was designed explicitly to drive holiday shopping traffic to Macy’s Herald Square flagship store. It was called the Macy’s Christmas Parade.

It was a Zoo!

Some other differences: There were not balloons at first. But there were monkeys, elephants, camels, and bears in the parade, all loaned by the Central Park Zoo.

Television Rights

The parade has been broadcast on TV since 1948, when not very many people even owned a TV set. NBC aired it then, and has held onto the official broadcast rights ever since. However, CBS can and does air the parade as well. Because the parade is a public event that takes place on the public streets of New York City, it’s technically a news event…so that means anybody can show it. Only NBC can call it the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. CBS just calls it the “Thanksgiving Day Parade.” 

Bloopers

Even when high winds and other X-factors threaten the parade, things usually go off without a hitch. The 1986 Macy’s parade is probably the most disastrous of all time. Several balloons crashed or deflated along the route, including a Raggedy Ann ballon, which crashed into a lamppost, which then toppled to the ground. Then a Superman balloon got caught in a tree and it came loose from its tethers. Toward the end of the parade, a Betty Boop balloon fell to the earth. The Garfield balloon lost two legs, and the Olive Oil balloon was reduced to just two parts of an arm but the time the parade mercifully finished.

On Broadway

Performances from Broadway musicals are a part of the parade, too, which both promotes New York City and provides a glimpse of the Great White Way for musical fans who live far away. That commitment to musical theater is probably why in 2009, parade organizers invited the cast of Fox’s hit musical series Glee to perform. But then executives at NBC forced Macy’s to uninvite those singin’ teens, because Glee aired on a different network. 

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Random Facts About Thanksgiving Trimmings

The turkey (or ham) is usually the star of the show, but we think that the other foods that make up the traditional Thanksgiving dinner are all something to give thanks for.

Stuffing

Sure, you could make your own stuffing, or you could buy a box, add it some butter and hot water and be done. One of the first (and still bestselling) stuffing brands is Stove Top. The secret to their success: the near-uniform size of the breadcrumbs is the perfect size. If the crumbs are any bigger, the mixture was too coarse and wouldn’t cook up correctly; any smaller, and things got wet and soggy.

Cranberries

Cranberries and cranberry juice are frequently used for their homeopathic medical qualities. For example, it’s a well-known treatment for a urinary tract infection. Nearly 80 studies over the years have demonstrated that compounds in cranberries really do help reduce and shorten a UTI, both instead of or in addition to antibiotics.

Brussels Sprouts

You’ve got to put something healthy on the table, right? Millions of families choose to serve a dish of these tiny cabbage clones, roasted or boiled. It’s a good choice — they’re loaded with fiber, folic acid, vitamin A, and vitamin C. In fact, a single serving packs four times as much vitamin C as an orange. A hybrid vegetable of Brussels sprouts and kale called the Flowersprout has eight times as much vitamin C as an orange.

Green Bean Casserole

People seem to either really love or really hate this baked dish that combines canned or frozen green beans, canned mushroom soup, and those crispy fried onion things. It originated as one of those recipes you see on the side of a package and never make…but this one caught on in a big way. In 1955, an employee in the Campbell’s Soup test kitchen named Dorcas Reilly perfected the recipe. She needed to find a use for her employer’s Cream of Mushroom soup, and she took inspiration from its most common use: as a filler and binder in Midwestern casseroles, also called “hot dish.” (The onions were to add texture and color to a dish that’s otherwise grey and gloopy.”

Pumpkin Pie

The most widely used recipes for the Thanksgiving finisher don’t differ too much from the first one, published in 1796. “Pumpkin Pudding” (as “pudding” is a British umbrella term for any dessert) was an entry in Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery. It was the first cookbook ever published that focused exclusively on native North American foods — such as pumpkin.

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