Rogue caddies, the 'ballers who killed Santa, and phoney cricket
#3: Caddy shenanigans, the doctor to the All Blacks, the bus driver who hunted the Loch Ness monster, and what it's like to lose every game you play...
Tales from the fringes of sport and society. The untold and unsung…
It’s approaching 7pm under a setting sun at the Marco Simone golf course, and there are only a handful of shots to be played until the culmination of day two at the Ryder Cup. Despite it being an hour’s trek back into central Rome, most of the 45,000 in attendance are staying put - and it’s not because Vernon Kay is DJ’ing afterwards.
They’re thronging around the 18th green in crowds 10-deep because they sense a moment. After a day and a half of European dominance, the Americans are finally fighting back.
Patrick Cantlay has endured the bird from the crowd all day, thousands jauntily waving their caps at him in response to his refusal to wear his own, a gesture some interpreted as an act of defiance over not being paid to represent his country.
Despite Peroni-fuelled chants of “hats off, for your bank account” ringing in his ears, a stern-faced Cantlay drains his clutch putt to pile the pressure back onto his opponents, Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick. And then it happens.
Occasionally in sport, the headlines aren’t made by the headliners. They’re crafted in surprise by those at the periphery, the off-field characters previously afforded little interest. They come unexpectedly, like an Eastenders extra suddenly ordering a pint of Guinness in The Queen Vic. Because of this, they're also usually controversial.
Steve Bartman was just a fan attending Wrigley Field when he tried to catch a foul ball in 2003, but would return home needing a security escort. In 2013, Charlie Morgan was a mere 17-year-old Swansea ball boy engaged in some shifty timewasting, but in stomaching a kick from a frustrated Eden Hazard, his actions resulted in a red card for the Belgian and game over for Chelsea.
On Saturday, caddy Joe LaCava was simply an experienced and consummate pro best known for an unassuming role as Tiger Woods’ caddy for over a decade. But as a resolute Cantlay clenched his fist in celebration, his caddy LaCava decided to remove his cap and waft it above his head as a clear response to the crowd’s taunts.
As gestures go, it’s pretty tame. But in a sport with higher standards of etiquette than a reception with the King, it caused a stir. Especially when his antics began to eek into the time and space McIlroy needed to take his own shot. The Northern Irishman showed his annoyance, and the initial polite chuckle from the crowd morphed into the tournament’s first flicker of animosity.
Europe missed their putts, and the Americans had secured the point that kept their faint hopes alive. More significantly, LaCava’s goading had lit a fire up a competition that was daring to become a procession. The Ryder Cup had its narrative. It was the moment the crowd must have subconsciously known was coming, and why those buses back to Rome (or a walk to the Vernon Kay gig) had to wait.
This is why nothing beats live sport. Because, no matter how marginal a figure you cut, whether staff, steward, or fan, you're entwined in the action. You're part of the theatre. There's a nervy thrill and frisson of excitement that can't be replicated in any bustling pub or comfy sofa. There's always a chance that those in the background are thrust into the spotlight.
And with that in mind, onto this month's selection, featuring more caddy shenanigans, the doctor who treated the All Blacks for 15 years, the remarkable tale of fake cricket leagues, the dark underbelly of the Northern Irish motorcycling scene, and the most notorious second fiddlers in sport. Enjoy the read.
One win, 17,000 defeats - life as a Washington General
On 5 January 1971, Louis Herman Klotz did something that no basketballer has dared repeat.
In front of a disbelieving audience in the city of Martin, Tennessee, the man known as Red broke one of the most sacred unwritten rules in sport. As player-coach for the Washington Generals, Klotz shot the winning basket against the Harlem Globetrotters.
Everybody knows the Generals aren't supposed to beat the Globetrotters.
"They looked at us like we'd just killed Santa," Klotz would claim, as jeers rang around the university gymnasium.
Over 50 years on, the Globetrotters have been ruthless in meting out their revenge. To the unmistakable melody of Sweet Georgia Brown, they've showboated their way to victory at the expense of hapless Generals who've never again beaten their illustrious opponents.
In contrast to the universal adulation enjoyed by the Globetrotters, those wearing the Generals' infamously unsuccessful green jerseys are booed, ridiculed, and dunked on during defeat, after defeat, after defeat.
They are the rarest of sporting commodities: the underdogs you're not supposed to root for. So why would anyone want to play for the Washington Generals?
In my debut for BBC Sport, I spoke to some former players to find out…
Mending the All Blacks, with Doc Mayhew
It's fair to say rugby is having a tough time of it at the minute. In England, professional clubs have been dropping quicker than a collapsing scrum, unable to fund their existence in a domestic game struggling to offer them the means by which to do so.
Then there are wider questions about the sport’s future, with recent concerns surrounding the potential long-term health impacts of playing the game, particularly at an elite level that was professionalised only as recently as 1995.
So as the tenth Rugby World Cup wrestles to take sport's centre stage, the latest episode of Unsung features someone who has witnessed first-hand the transformation of the professional game, and who is best placed to discuss its hot-button topics.
John Mayhew was the All Blacks doctor for over 200 matches, beginning in the amateur era in 1988. In our chat, Mayhew describes tending to legends like Michael Jones, Sean Fitzpatrick, Richie McCaw, and of course, Jonah Lomu - with whom he forged a close bond while treating the winger's genetic kidney disease.
He also talks about his World Cup memories - not all of them fond - and the challenges of working with players who refuse to hear that they’re hurt.
Riders on the Storm
This story from The Fence surrounds the 2022 sabotaging of the Mid-Antrim 150 motorbike race in County Antrim. It takes real skill to write about any topic touching on the sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland, given its divisive and potentially inflammatory nature.
So kudos to writer Killian Faith-Kelly for the tact and sensitivity shown here, and also for the warm portrayal of hardy organiser Davy McCartney, a real unsung hero whose passion for his sport glows from the page.
The Story Behind Golf's Most Viral Photo
A few years back, I wrote a story about football photographers for NPLH Magazine. Donning fluorescent bibs that double as their passports to the bleeding edge of sporting greatness, it’s easy to see sports photography as a glamourous industry.
But what I learned was that it's an immensely stressful job, comprising long hours and long travels, with the milliseconds of a camera shutter separating success from failure. This lovely video short from Golf Digest is one example of the former, as photographer Mark Pain reveals the combination of instinct and fortune involved in snapping one for the ages.
War of the Worlds
Given football's disposition for uncomfortable takeovers, it's not a stretch of the imagination to see a future where every top-flight club is either a walking advert for a multinational conglomerate or the PR front for a petro-state. But just how much are fans willing to trade in for success? A crest redesign? Colour changes? Or even the name of the club itself?
That was the case in Salzburg 18 years ago as Red Bull marched in, high on their own supply, and declared: "This is a new team, a new club. There is no tradition, there is no history, there is no archive.”
Admirably, the fans fought back and formed a new club. Or rather, liberated their old one from the shackles of its fizzy autocrat. As the two teams drew each other in the Austrian Cup this month, Will Magee's fantastic Kult newsletter covered the story in depth.
The Wild Quest to Create a Fake Indian Cricket League... That Was Just the Beginning
The Cricket World Cup has begun this week, hosted in the country the sport is most adored: India. But such is the pervasive nature of the game over there that this love can be, and has been, abused by nefarious types. Even in places one would least expect to have any connection with cricket.
Like Russia, whose villains appear to have gone from gulags to googlies in search of new ways to get the vulnerable and the desperate to do their bidding.
This Sports Illustrated longread from Sean Williams documents the rise of fake leagues designed to imitate the Indian Premier League, all for the purpose of swindling millions out of online bettors. It’s a tale that goes from madcap to dark quicker than a Mark Wood bouncer…
Blades, Grades and Custom-Mades: Inside the World of Cricket Batmaking
If the previous cricket story comes with the brooding despondency of a waterlogged Old Trafford, then this one has the giddy whiff of suncream and beer snakes on a blazing Headingley afternoon.
Phil Walker of Wisden Cricket Monthly (via The Guardian) guides us through the mystical world of batmaking, learning from various artisans including family-run indies and the bigger brands any cricket fan will recognise. Reassuringly, as AI sweeps the globe, this appears to be a craft that is sticking resolutely old school, and all the batter better for it.
Keep an eye out for the interesting nugget about a future replacement for the traditional willow wood. Could it soon be the sound of leather on bamboo?
The Obsessive Life and Mysterious Death of the Fisherman Who Discovered The Loch Ness Monster [paywall]
I love Paul Brown’s storytelling, as he scours the unturned pages of history books to uncover stories and characters you won’t have read about elsewhere.
Given the cinematic arcs of his stories, Paul’s new podcast - out later this month - is sure to be a great listen. Get a flavour of his work with this republished Narratively tale of the forgotten Scottish bus driver who first spotted, and then tried to catch, the Loch Ness Monster.
Four Iron in the Soul, Lawrence Donegan
“‘Who knows what went wrong?’ He shrugged. ‘I just knobbed it round.’ This is a golf professional’s way of saying he played badly: it doesn’t mean he hit the ball round the course with his penis but that he might as well have done.”
Courtesy of a friend’s recommendation (cheers Chris!) I started reading this a few weeks back with the Ryder Cup on the horizon. Given what transpired with the caddy controversy mentioned above, it’s a book that suddenly feels timely even though it was published back in 1997.
Golf’s landscape may have changed considerably in the 26 years since (with more tectonic shifts on the horizon), but the role of the caddy - part psychologist, part strategist, part dutiful bag lugger - remains as integral as it is uncelebrated.
Journalist Lawrence Donegan - whose eclectic CV includes a spell as bassist for indie rockers The Bluebells (you’ll know Young at Heart) - spends a year on the bag for journeyman Scottish pro Ross Drummond, and while some of the humour may not chime with 2023 sensibilities, it’s nonetheless a faithful, funny, and sometimes cringingly-honest account of how this Quixotic pair fared during a topsy turvy season on the European Tour.
I hope you’ve enjoyed October’s edition of Off-Field. If you know of anyone who might like any of this month’s picks, why not forward them this newsletter or hit the share button below.
And if you read, listen, or watch anything over the next month that you think fits the bill, do get in touch with me at alexisnjames@gmail.com. Until next month, ciao!