Sports History This Week

July 2, 1997. Atlanta Braves ace Greg Maddux takes the mound for a regular-season start against the defending champion New York Yankees. And in typical Maddux fashion, he starts making quick work of the Yankees lineup. In fact, he gets through the game so quickly, that Major League Baseball would eventually add a new stat into its official glossary to commemorate this, and other performances like it. 

Today, Greg Maddux inspires a baseball writer named Jason Lukehart to create a statistic called “The Maddux.” So what exactly is a “Maddux”? And how did coaching and strategizing in the sport of baseball eventually lead to the abandonment of the techniques that made Maddux so successful?

Special thanks to our guests: Anthony Castrovince, writer for MLB.com; Jason Lukehart, baseball writer and inventor of “The Maddux” baseball statistic; Greg Maddux, four-time Cy Young Award winner, Hall of Famer, and namesake of “The Maddux”; and Jameson Taillon, pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.

June 19, 2005. Formula 1 is hosting its U.S. Grand Prix at the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For years, F1 has desperately tried to establish a foothold in America, and heading into this race, there’s real momentum — until there’s a major problem.

Today, F1’s nightmare at the U.S. Grand Prix. More than a 100,000 spectators show up to a race that becomes a disaster. How do things go so wrong? And how will this race affect F1’s future in America?

Special thanks to our guests: Herbie Blash, former deputy race director of the FIA; Tony Dodgins, F1 journalist; John Howett, former president of Toyota Motorsport Germany; and Joe Saward, F1 journalist.

June 16, 1996. Michael Jordan leads the Chicago Bulls to their fourth NBA Championship. Many basketball fans consider 1995-96 to be Jordan’s best individual season, and that Bulls squad as perhaps the greatest in the history of team sports.

But behind the scenes, Jordan is still grieving over the death of his father, a traumatic event that led to him stepping away from basketball for over a year to pursue professional baseball. Without him, the Bulls fall into chaos. Today, a look back at one of darkest and most difficult chapters in Jordan’s incredible career: Why he stepped away from the game he loved so much, and how he was able to return, triumphant.

Special thanks to our guests: Terry Francona, two-time World Series champion manager; Sam Smith, writer for Bulls.com and author of “The Jordan Rules”; and Roland Lazenby, author of "Michael Jordan: The Life," and whose biography of Magic Johnson will be out in October 2023. 

June 11, 1999. Inside Madison Square Garden, Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals tips off between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers. Hardly anyone expected this Knicks squad to be here — a lockout and a roster overhaul created a season of chaos. Yet somehow, New York stands just one win away from a shot at the title.

Today, the Knicks become the first-ever No. 8 seed to make it to the NBA Finals. How do they overcome so much in-season chaos? And can they capture their first championship since 1973?

Special thanks to our guest: Paul Knepper, Knicks superfan and author of “Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers That Almost Won It All.”

May 29, 2003. Every year, a little island off the English coast is home to the world’s most dangerous race: the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. Motorcyclists zip through the course going more than 200 miles per hour, navigating hairpin turns — all on public roads.

Today, one of the greatest racers in Isle of Man TT history passes away, when nine-time champion David Jefferies becomes the event’s 206th casualty. How does the TT become such a deadly competition? And how can a race be held every year where it’s almost expected that someone will die?

Special thanks to our guests: Neil Collier, filmmaker of a short series about the Isle of Man for the New York Times; Mat Oxley, a journalist, author, and Isle of Man TT winner; and Paul Phillips, head of motorsport for the Isle of Man government's Department for Enterprise, which delivers the Isle of Man TT race.

May 23, 2003. Chris Moneymaker is the last amateur standing. The 28-year-old Tennessee accountant has defied the odds and outlasted over 800 of the best players on the planet at the World Series of Poker, but that’s not enough. He finds himself at the Final Table, going for poker immortality.

Today, Chris Moneymaker wins the $2.5 million prize at the World Series of Poker, inspiring an entire generation of online players to join the poker gold rush. How did this amateur Internet poker player even wind up in this tournament, let alone winning it all?

Special thanks to our guests: Mori Eskandani, former professional poker player and head of Poker Go; Bart Hanson, poker player, commentator, and teacher through Crush Live Poker; and Chris Moneymaker, the winner of the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event.

May 16, 2023. If you were watching TV last night, you may have seen NBA history being made. A few ping-pong balls bounced around a lottery machine, and suddenly, the San Antonio Spurs won the first pick at the 2023 NBA Draft, which they’ll almost certainly use to draft a potential superstar from France named Victor Wembanyama.

Today, a look back at some of the most electrifying prospects the NBA has ever seen – from Hakeem Olajuwon to Patrick Ewing to LeBron James to Wembanyama – as well as the wild, and at times controversial, steps that teams have taken to secure their draft rights. How did the NBA come up with the current lottery system after decades of tweaking the rules? And how has tanking -- or the process of intentionally losing games -- complete reshaped the way NBA teams compete for championships?

Special thanks to our guests: Jake Fischer, senior NBA reporter for Yahoo Sports and author of “Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever”; Rohan Nadkarni, NBA writer for Sports Illustrated; Brian Windhorst, ESPN NBA insider and author of “Return of the King” and “LeBron Inc.: The Making of a Billion Dollar Athlete”; Jeremy Woo, NBA Draft contributor for ESPN; and Dave Zarum, basketball historian and author of “NBA: 75.”

May 11th, 1997. The eyes of the world are focused on a chessboard. It's the decisive game of one of the most highly anticipated chess matches of the 20th century. The reigning world champion, Garry Kasparov, is agitated, furrowing his brow and clutching his face while he considers his next move. His opponent—unphased by the pressure—hums loudly from a nearby room. 

Today, a legendary battle between arguably the greatest chess player that ever lived and a thinking machine. How does a computer master a very human game? And when they face off, who will come out on top? 

Special thanks to our guests: Bruce Pandolfini, veteran chess teacher, author, and consultant on the Netflix series The Queens Gambit; Tom Standage, historian and editor of The Economist series The World Ahead; Murray Campbell, A.I. research scientist at IBM and co-creator of Deep Blue; and Feng Hsiung Hsu, system architect of Deep Blue and author of Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion.

May 3rd, 2007. Oracle Arena is rocking. In Oakland, 20,000 fans, all wearing mustard-yellow t-shirts with the slogan “We Believe,” are amped. It’s so loud that the opposing players can’t even hear each other in the huddle.

That’s because the 2007 Golden State Warriors are on the verge of pulling off the greatest upset in the history of the NBA playoffs.

Today, the Warriors square off against the Dallas Mavericks, a 67-win team led by league MVP Dirk Nowitzki. It’s a matchup that pretty much everyone – from the media, to the fans, to the Las Vegas sportsbooks – agrees they should lose. How are the We Believe Warriors able to take down a juggernaut? And even though they don’t come close to winning a title, how is this team more impactful on today’s NBA than most championship teams?

Special thanks to our guests: Adonal Foyle, 13-year NBA veteran, and center for the 2007 “We Believe” Warriors; Logan Murdock, writer for The Ringer and co-host of the NBA podcast “Real Ones”; Marcus Thompson, lead columnist covering the Bay Area for The Athletic, and author of “Golden: The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry”; and Tyler Puryear, Mike Guardabascio, and John Nichols, the trio behind the “Jenkins and Jonez” NBA podcast.

April 29, 1980. An upstart media company has proposed a strange idea to the NFL: broadcast the pro football draft live on TV. Nobody really paid much attention to the NFL Draft before, but with the young ESPN still finding its voice, it was a perfect opportunity.

Today, ESPN broadcasts the NFL Draft for the first time. How did a guy reading a list of names become must-see TV? And how does this experimental telecast turn the NFL into a year-round phenomenon?

Special thanks to our guests: Upton Bell, former New England Patriots general manager and son of Bert Bell, founder of the NFL Draft; Richard Deitsch, senior writer covering sports media for The Athletic; Craig Ellenport, senior editor at Sports Illustrated; Mina Kimes, ESPN NFL analyst and host of “The Mina Kimes Show Featuring Lenny”; Peter King, NBC Sports NFL columnist; and Charles McDonald, Yahoo Sports NFL columnist and host of “The Exempt List” podcast.