When European explorers first came to Ontario, Canada, they found the Indians there playing a peculiar game called baggataway. It was played with a kind of ball, and a net made of strips of animal skin on a stick. Because the stick looked like a bishop’s cross, the French explorers called the sport lacrosse.
In a way baggataway wasn’t a game at all, but a way to prepare for future hand-to-hand combat. Teams sometimes consisted of all the young men of a tribe. Sometimes they even wore war paint. Goals were various kinds of markers, and could be any distance apart. Occasionally, the game was played on horseback. The referees were medicine men whose decisions were final.
Soldiers watching the Indians play thought the tribesmen were slightly crazy, because they suffered painful injuries and broken bones playing that violent game. But it turned out to be the soldiers who were foolish, because baggataway helped the Indians win an important battle.
In 1763, Chief Pontiac of the Ottawas schemed to capture Fort Michilimackinac (now called Fort Mackinac). But the French garrison was too strong. However, Pontiac knew that the French soldiers liked to watch the Indians play baggataway. He asked permission to play a game on a large open field near the fort, and invited the French soldiers to watch.
As the game got underway, the soldiers opened the gates so that they could see the Indians better. During the wild play, the ball was thrown near the gates of the fort and some of the Indians chased after it. That was the secret signal!
The older Indians were sitting at the edge of the field quietly watching the game. But they were concealing tomahawks under their blankets. The young Ottawa braves grabbed the weapons and stormed the fort.
Historians do not agree on the final outcome of the battle. Some versions state that the garrison was overwhelmed, beaten by an early sporting event. Others say the attack was beaten off. But no matter which ending is true, the fort soon fell into the hands of Chief Pontiac and the Ottawas. And two hundred years later, the game of the Ottawas is still played.
One day Bob Hope was playing golf with Sam Goldwyn, the movie producer. On one hole Goldwyn missed an easy two-foot putt. He became so angry that he threw his putter in disgust and walked away. When nobody was looking, Hope picked up the club and stuck it into his own golf bag.
On the next hole, Hope, who was a fine golfer, used the putter Goldwyn had thrown away, and sank a 20-footer.
“That’s very good,” Goldwyn said. “Let me see that putter for a minute.”
Goldwyn examined the club, took a few practice swings with it and said, “I like this club very much. Will you sell it to me?”
“Sure,” Hope agreed. “It’ll cost you fifty dollars.”
Years later Sam Goldwyn found out that he had paid $50 for a club he had just thrown away.
From The Giant Book of Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
Lacrosse players are crazy. It is known.
Carsson, Connar, and Kodee all disagree. They’re just lax, bro.