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Odd Ball · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grim & Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: In just four years, it will be a century since
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  Speaker 1: the dawn of the Great Depression, that moment when the
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  Speaker 1: high-flying spirit of the 1920s crashed hard into economic disaster.
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  Speaker 1: While the number of people who have living memory of
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  Speaker 1: the Depression are few, it still looms large in our
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  Speaker 1: cultural memory. Describing it to people today who weren't alive
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  Speaker 1: to experience it evokes images of bread lines, sepia-tinted photographs
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  Speaker 1: of poverty, and vagabonds hopping trains to make it to
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  Speaker 1: the next town. These images are, of course, accurate, but
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  Speaker 1: there's something that always gets left out of the story
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  Speaker 1: of the Great Depression. Really, of the story of any
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  Speaker 1: major economic tragedy. People still want to have fun, in
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  Speaker 1: whatever way they can. So today, let's walk through a
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  Speaker 1: couple of American pastimes that grew out of the Great Depression.
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  Speaker 1: They're mere shadows of their former glory now, but at
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  Speaker 1: the time, they were quite an event. And I'm referring,
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  Speaker 1: of course, to a sport known as donkey ball. No,
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  Speaker 1: the name was not misleading. It's not a euphemism either.
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  Speaker 1: It's a way of playing sports that arose from rural
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  Speaker 1: communities in the 1930s involving live donkeys. We don't really
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  Speaker 1: know which came first, but we have a number of
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  Speaker 1: written records of both donkey basketball and donkey baseball. Donkey
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  Speaker 1: basketball is played with four players on each team, all
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  Speaker 1: of whom have to be on the back of a donkey.
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  Speaker 1: Some versions have a pair of players on foot in
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  Speaker 1: the very center of the court who have to fight
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  Speaker 1: over the ball to begin the game, but in all versions,
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  Speaker 1: the rules remain the same. You must be holding your
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  Speaker 1: donkey at all points in the game. You can only
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  Speaker 1: shoot baskets from the back of your donkey, but you're
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  Speaker 1: allowed to dismount your donkey in order to get the
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  Speaker 1: ball so long as you always have a hand holding
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  Speaker 1: onto the bridle. Most modern games have helmets, but it's
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  Speaker 1: safe to assume that the earliest games weren't so cautious. Now,
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  Speaker 1: donkeys might be dangerous animals when provoked, but ideally games
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  Speaker 1: would be played with calmer donkeys, which makes the game
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  Speaker 1: flow at a very deliberate pace. But that doesn't mean
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  Speaker 1: that the games are slow, per se. Stubborn donkeys often
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  Speaker 1: threw their players or refused to cooperate with the rules
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  Speaker 1: of the game, something that lends the game its own
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  Speaker 1: particular entertainment value. Donkey baseball follows a similar set of guidelines.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone besides the pitcher, batter, and catcher is on a donkey.
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  Speaker 1: When the batter hits the ball, they have to mount
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  Speaker 1: a donkey to run the bases. The main challenge of
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  Speaker 1: the game is to make sure that the donkeys are
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  Speaker 1: on the same page and not wandering off on their
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  Speaker 1: own while the humans are trying to catch a grounder
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  Speaker 1: or throw the ball into home. The leagues for both
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  Speaker 1: donkey basketball and donkey baseball were amateur, usually run by
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  Speaker 1: local civics groups raising money for charitable projects. But as
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  Speaker 1: is often the case, business-minded Americans took the concept and
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  Speaker 1: ran with it. Certain donkeyball businesses toured the country, providing
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  Speaker 1: trained donkeys to whoever wanted to play the sport. The
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  Speaker 1: only requirement for participation was that all players must be
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  Speaker 1: over 18, for the risk of injury was not, um, insignificant. Donkeyball,
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  Speaker 1: in all its forms, was at the peak of its
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  Speaker 1: popularity in the 1930s and 40s, but it did persist
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  Speaker 1: past the middle of the century, even as it became
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  Speaker 1: more of a niche sport. In the late 20th century,
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  Speaker 1: there were even a couple of Amish donkey baseball leagues
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  Speaker 1: who played alongside local police and fire departments. It's all
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  Speaker 1: very quaint, but of course nothing that involves this much
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  Speaker 1: animal use is without controversy. For decades now, animal rights
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  Speaker 1: groups have been attempting to make donkeyball illegal for animal
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  Speaker 1: cruelty reasons, and this has led to several state-level restrictions
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  Speaker 1: of the sport. It's relatively obscure now, but it's certainly
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  Speaker 1: not forgotten. And you still might catch a game of
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  Speaker 1: donkey ball in some Midwest fall fairs, depending on where
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  Speaker 1: you live, every now and then. It's perhaps unsurprising that
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  Speaker 1: this tradition would be a difficult one to snuff out.
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  Speaker 1: If there's one thing that we know about Americans, it's
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  Speaker 1: that we love sports that are both dangerous and have
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  Speaker 1: a tendency to make an ass out of the players.
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  Speaker 1: Music One of the most important inventions of the 20th
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  Speaker 1: century was discovered by complete accident, and it was all
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  Speaker 1: thanks to a candy bar. In 1945, an engineer named
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  Speaker 1: Percy Spencer walked into work at Raytheon, one of the
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  Speaker 1: world's leading defense technology companies. Percy had worked there for
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  Speaker 1: 20 years and was highly respected in his field, but
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  Speaker 1: he didn't have the background of a typical engineer. He
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  Speaker 1: was an orphan who had quit school in the 5th
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  Speaker 1: grade to work in a factory. As a teenager, he
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  Speaker 1: had taught himself about electricity so he could take a
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  Speaker 1: job installing an electric system at a local paper mill,
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  Speaker 1: and it had sparked, no pun intended, I promise, a
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  Speaker 1: lifelong passion that led him to a job at Raytheon.
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  Speaker 1: Percy's bosses saw his lack of formal education as an asset.
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  Speaker 1: He had a natural curiosity and a creative approach to problem-solving,
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  Speaker 1: which led him to notice things that other trained engineers
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  Speaker 1: might overlook. At that moment in 1945, though, Percy was
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  Speaker 1: working with magnetrons, which might sound like a transformer, but
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  Speaker 1: are actually high-powered vacuum tubes used in military radar systems.
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  Speaker 1: He walked through the laboratory to one of the active magnetrons,
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  Speaker 1: spent a while fiddling with it, and then stopped to
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  Speaker 1: chat with a co-worker. And before he knew it, it
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  Speaker 1: was lunchtime, and so he went back to his desk
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  Speaker 1: to take a break. Now, Percy had a snack in
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  Speaker 1: his pocket, the same thing that he brought to work
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  Speaker 1: every single day— a candy bar. He'd been looking forward
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  Speaker 1: to it all morning, but when he pulled it out
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  Speaker 1: of his pocket, he realized that it had melted. While
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  Speaker 1: many people would have just thrown the candy bar away
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  Speaker 1: and dismissed it as bad luck, Percy's mind started turning.
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  Speaker 1: He was curious as to why the candy bar had
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  Speaker 1: suddenly melted that day, when the laboratory was the same
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  Speaker 1: temperature that it had always been. He wondered if it
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  Speaker 1: had to do with the energy emanating from the magnetron
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  Speaker 1: that he had been standing next to all morning. And
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  Speaker 1: there was only one way to find out. The following day,
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  Speaker 1: Percy brought a different snack to work. Unpopped popcorn. He
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  Speaker 1: stood next to the magnetron with the kernels in a bowl,
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  Speaker 1: ignoring the baffling stares of his co-workers until the kernels
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  Speaker 1: began to pop. Percy's theory seemed to be correct. The
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  Speaker 1: magnetron was emitting enough energy to heat objects placed nearby,
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  Speaker 1: even though it didn't actually feel hot. After a few
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  Speaker 1: more experiments, Percy understood how this was happening, and he realized,
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  Speaker 1: that there was a very important application for this discovery.
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  Speaker 1: Two years later, Raytheon released the first model of Percy's
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  Speaker 1: new invention, the Radarange. These massive six-foot-tall machines harnessed the
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  Speaker 1: radiation emitted by magnetrons for high-powered heating. The original models
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  Speaker 1: were so bulky and expensive they were only sold to businesses,
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  Speaker 1: but as technology improved over the following decades, smaller models
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  Speaker 1: were marketed to the public. At first, household consumers were
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  Speaker 1: a bit wary of this strange, newfangled technology, but it
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  Speaker 1: was so convenient and time-saving, it quickly caught on. And
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  Speaker 1: by the 1980s, the machines could be found in over
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  Speaker 1: half of all U.S. houses. You almost certainly have one
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  Speaker 1: of them in your kitchen right now. The energy produced
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  Speaker 1: by the magnetrons is called microwave radiation, and Percy's world-changing
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  Speaker 1: invention was the microwave oven. I hope you enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was
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  Speaker 1: created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: researched and written by the Grim & Mild team, and
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  Speaker 1: produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
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  Speaker 1: the people who make it over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well
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  Speaker 1: as ebook and audiobooks. And if you're looking for an
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  Speaker 1: ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories,
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  Speaker 1: but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn
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  Speaker 1: more and sign up over at patreon.com slash grim and mild.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.