Image via Complex Original
Yesterday, we published The Oral History of MTV's Rock N' Jock, a piece chronicling much of what happened behind-the-scenes at some of the greatest celebrity sports events ever held. So much amazing '90s nostalgia was unearthed in the process. We learned about Keanu Reeves' Canadian baseball handicap, the basketball exploits of a skinny kid named Leo DiCaprio, and Mark Wahlberg's undying desire to take off his pants.
But not everything made the cut.
Below are 10 stories that came up during the interview process that, for one reason or another, didn't end up in the original post. From Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dissing Pearl Jam to Vlade Divac's lack of deodorant, this is Overtime: 10 MTV Rock N' Jock Moments That Didn't Make the Oral History.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dissed Pearl Jam bass player Jeff Ament.
Patrick Byrnes: Jeff Ament was like, "Oh my God Kareem, I’m your biggest fan.” And then Kareem just shut him down. It’s a really horrible funny interesting story, and then Jeff wrote a song about it called “Sweet Lew.” [Writer’s note: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born Lew Alcindor.]
Mitch Kozuchowski: Kareem was not the warmest guy out there.
Jeff Ament (to ESPN the Magazine): I couldn't have been more excited. So I built up my courage and went up to him and said, "Hey Kareem, I just want to say that you've been a huge inspiration to me." And he just kind of looked down at my hand and said ‘That's great,’ and did a 180 and walked away. Left me ice cold. When I started to write that song, I was pissed. And then as I wrote the song out, and got into what it was probably like to be Kareem, I felt bad for him. And I started to think, “Wow, somebody's probably felt that way being around me. I probably wasn't in the mood, or somebody was a little bit too excited, and I was like, 'Oh that's great, kid.'" So at the end of it I felt for Kareem. He's 7'2". He can't hide.
Randy Wolf plunked Ken Griffey Jr.
Mitchell Kozuchowski: One of the most nervous moments in the history of Rock N' Jock was when Ken Griffey got hit by Randy Wolf. We had restructured the game to make it celebrities vs. pros. I used my bookers to ask for a kid who could throw heat who the other players wouldn’t know.
Patrick Byrnes: We booked a young Triple-A player named Randy Wolf.
Mitchell Kozuchowski: I think we said he was the star of a new MTV show called Air Wolf. The MLB guys screwed around and were down 5-3 and Wolf came in. Now, Griffey is up to bat. First pitch from Wolf, I guess because he is so nervous, he drills Griffey right in the shoulder blade. Griffey is livid. You could hear a pin drop. Randy had an ear piece on. I said, "Let Griff get to first base, cool down a bit, then go over there, drop to your knees and say, 'I beg for humble forgiveness from the great Griff.'" Griff chuckled and said, "That’s okay." Wolf struck out like five of the next six guys and the MLB guys were pissed. Afterwards Robin Ventura, who had played in that game, grabbed me and said, "You owe me a thank you. I’m on to your shtick. I have seen that kid pitch. I know there was an angle but I kept my mouth shut. I could have spilled the beans." I wonder what happened the next time Randy and Griffey faced each other. Randy was humming at 95 miles an hour. I’m sure it stung. We did show seven angles of it in the replay though.
Roger Clemens liked the sound of his voice.
Dan Cortese: They mic’d Roger Clemens for one of the softball games one year but ended up having to shut his mic off because he would not shut up. He was talking over everybody.
Tommy Lasorda was a cranky old man.
Mitchell Kozuchowski: Tommy Lasorda was the manager one year, and oh my God he was terrible. He didn’t want to be there. He was miserable. Him and I got into it. He just did not want to be there.
Patrick Byrnes:Lasorda decided to get himself thrown out of the game so he could go home. When I ran out of the truck he said, "Kid, I’m too old for this shit." And left.
Mr. Roper was a cranky old man with a beer.
Patrick Byrnes: Norman Fell—Mr. Roper—like Lasorda before him, was cranky all day.
Mitchell Kozuchowski: After realizing it was going to be a long afternoon, Norman left the field, went to a local liquor store and got a tall boy. He sat in the dugout of an alcohol free venue and drank.
Pras couldn’t play his position.
Dan Cortese: One time when I was coaching the softball game, I had Pras from The Fugees on my team and I was telling everyone what position to play. I put him in center field. Pras was like, "What? I don’t know what that is." I was like, "Yeah, I think Bill got the better squad this year. I have a guy on the team who doesn’t even know what center field is."
Carson Daly and Tyra Banks were terrible sports announcers.
Rick Austin: In 1998 we used Carson Daly, who was the TRL guy so he was getting a lot of buzz, and decided to pair him with a pop culture person to make it loose. So we paired him up with Tyra Banks. That made it very difficult. As good as Tyra was, she had no idea about sports, no way of commenting on sports, and was just sort of flirting with the players and stepping on the plays and going off on tangents. Carson was trying to rein her in and then he was trying to do play-by-play but he wasn’t a play-by-play guy himself.
Vlade Divac did not wear deodorant.
Kay Gee: Vlade Divac was playing with us one year. Vlade was really, really musky. They had something going crazy and Flava got under his shirt and was hiding. I was saying to myself, "How is Flava Flav under this shirt? I know he must be like, 'Dag,' it must be crazy under there." It wasn’t just me. All of us were laughing about it like, "Yo, Flava Flav must be dying right now." I’m sure Flav had to smell it. He had to.
The "Rock N Jock" theme song that wasn’t.
Mitch Kozuchowski: Naughty did one of them. Actually, Latifah was our first one. OutKast did one. Coolio did one. Tony Bennett did one that never aired. What happened was it was the Irving Berlin song, “Stepping Out With My Baby.” We shot 16 mm film, beautiful, he was on the pitcher's mound at night. We had rewritten the song to “Rock N Jock Baby,” and we cut it, it was ready to go in the song. Something told me, "We should really check with legal to see if this is going to fly." We got back, in Berlin’s will it says, not one lyric of his songs could be changed. I thought, "This could be a problem." I talked to Tony’s son who managed him. Tony’s son talked to the Berlin estate. He sent them the tape. They said, "It’s beautiful, it’s lovely but what dad wants, dad gets, sorry can’t do it." So we spent a lot of money shooting this open that sits in the MTV archives somewhere.
The Bill Bellamy vs. Dan Cortese rivalry was a work.
Bill Bellamy: We went hard. Dan owned one half of MTV and I owned the other half. Dan and I created the rivalry on our own. We started talking trash. People were like, "Oh man, Bill Bellamy is going after Dan Cortese."
Dan Cortese: You know what was amazing about Bill and I’s relationship? We were good buddies but people always thought we disliked each other because we always coached against each other. People would approach me on the street like, "Are you upset he beat you?" Bill and I would always try to stir the pot with each other to make for better TV.
Bill Bellamy: We were both very competitive. We were both alpha males. He was an athlete. I was an athlete. He was a football guy. I was more of a basketball guy. He had the crazy cool personality. He was like a white version of me and I was a black version of him. We were like the same dude—fun, crazy, talking trash, the whole nine.
