The Fax and the Furious: How One Screeching Machine Upended Sports — and Society as We Knew It

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Pablo Torre Finds Out
Episode: The Fax and the Furious: How One Screeching Machine Upended Sports — and Society as We Knew It
Host: Pablo Torre
Guests: J.A. Adande, Darrell Price
Date: March 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this nostalgic, story-driven “talkumentary,” Pablo Torre takes listeners on a journey retracing the revolutionary impact of the fax machine—particularly its role in sports, journalism, and memorable moments in the 1980s and '90s. Joined by acclaimed sports journalist J.A. Adande and former blue-chip recruit Darrell Price, Torre unpacks sports history’s most infamous faxes, most notably Michael Jordan’s “I’m back.” What emerges is a portrait of a squealing, screeching piece of tech that changed careers, determined fates, and now stands as a relic of a quickly receding analog era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Tactile & Auditory Nostalgia of the Fax Machine

• [00:41–04:29]
  Pablo and J.A. nostalgically handle an actual '90s Brother IntelliFax machine, delighting in the tactile and auditory memories:
  • “The haptic sensation of pressing a keypad...we don't do that enough.” (Pablo, 01:23)
  • J.A. recalls the suspenseful moment: “That sound...was always this moment of suspense before you knew the connection was gonna happen.” (J.A., 02:40)
• For younger generations, even the idea of connecting a fax via phone jack is foreign.

Fax Machines as Journalism’s Lifeline

• [05:09–09:33]
  • J.A. recounts racing through a snowstorm to find a phone jack in a Chinese restaurant so he could file his LA Times story on deadline.
  • Coverage of the Dream Team in Monte Carlo hinged on faxed credentials: “The entryway to cover anything was you would need to fax something on the company letterhead.” (J.A., 06:41)
  • He handwrites a story and faxes it from a Lyon hotel—only to have it not run for lack of print space, a very '90s journalism dilemma.

The Fax Machine in Business & Pop Culture

• [13:36–18:24]
  • Pablo outlines the evolution: 1924’s photoradiogram, the Magnifax in 1966, and Japan’s commercialization in the '80s exploding its usage.
  • “What’s your fax number?” became ubiquitous, even appearing on business cards.
  • The fax was more than business: “Americans were faxing...pizza orders, song requests, party invitations, ...vows of eternal love...” (Pablo quoting ‘Faxed: The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine’, 17:36)

The Sports Fax: National Signing Day & Unintended Consequences

• [18:59–26:07]
  • National Signing Day became “National Sports Fax Day” as American colleges obsessively waited for signed letters of intent via fax.
  • Darrell Price’s personal story: A faulty fax leads him from Ohio State to UCLA:
    • “We only got the backside of [your letter]...I looked at that as an omen...I think I need to stay home.” (Darrell, 22:46)
  • Even years later, Ohio State loses another recruit when their fax machine runs out of paper.

Challenges, Blunders, and Etiquette of Faxing

• Confirmations, cover pages, and even fax spam (the physical predecessor to email spam).
  • “You could get junk faxes.” (J.A., 25:56)
  • “Just like we have spam in the email era, there was basically fax spam.” (Pablo, 25:33)

The All-Time Most Famous Fax: "I’m Back"

• [26:21–33:22]
  • The 1995 moment when Michael Jordan announced his NBA return via a stunningly terse two-word press release:
    • “It came in a two word statement...‘I’m back.’” (Pablo, 26:32)
  • The behind-the-scenes drama:
    • MJ’s agent David Falk’s office manager Allison Sadowski sent the fax painstakingly to every news outlet, one by one.
    • “It wasn’t like sending a mass email...you had to do it individually.” (J.A., 32:01)
  • The Sports Illustrated cover simply quoted the fax, “I’m Back.”

The Pat Riley Knicks–Heat "Breakup Fax"

• [33:22–38:20]
  • In 1995, Pat Riley resigns as Knicks head coach via fax before joining Miami—infuriating New York.
    • “It’d be like breaking up with someone via text message today.” (J.A., 35:14)
    • Riley: “Didn’t make any difference whether I faxed it in, conferenced it in, phoned it in…The only reason why the fax has become fashionable is because I was ordered to send the fax by the commissioner.” (Pat Riley, 38:20)

How Sports Both Sustained and Killed the Fax Machine

• [38:36–40:38]
  • The Denver Broncos’ botched 2013 Elvis Dumervil contract, delayed past the deadline at Kinkos, led the NFLPA to adopt DocuSign.
  • With time, sports organizations finally moved on from faxing contracts.

The Final Mission: Sending a Fax in 2025 Manhattan

• [42:16–End]
  • Pablo scours the city with his fax machine, seeking a phone jack. (Starbucks and delis are empty-handed; finally, a Manhattan brewery—Torch and Crown—comes through.)
  • He faxes a tongue-in-cheek press release to David Falk:
    • “...in response to questions about the future of fax machines...‘We are so back.’” (Pablo, 46:54)
  • Playfully, the episode closes with Pablo succeeding in firing off a fax, a clattering echo of sports communication’s quirky past.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On tactile nostalgia:
  • “We don't do that enough. No, we don't dial. Like, when's the last time you pressed a button?” (Pablo & J.A., 01:34)
• Fax as global lifeline:
  • “This wasn’t just an American phenomenon. This was global.” (Pablo, 05:58)
• National Signing Day tension:
  • “...coaches...hover over the fax machine...hoping that the top recruits sign.” (J.A., 19:00)
• Darrell Price’s pivotal fax error:
  • “We only got the backside of it...I looked at that as an omen right there.” (Darrell, 22:46)
• On fax etiquette:
  • “It would be very rude to just send a fax without a cover page.” (J.A., 25:22)
• Michael Jordan’s “I’m back” fax:
  • “It came in a two word statement...‘I’m back.’” (Pablo, 26:32)
• Pat Riley’s infamous fax:
  • “It’d be like breaking up with someone via text message today.” (J.A., 35:14)
  • “Didn’t make any difference whether I faxed it in...The only reason why the fax has become fashionable is because I was ordered to send the fax by the commissioner. Otherwise I wouldn’t have sent the goddamn fax.” (Pat Riley, 38:20)
• On the absurdity of faxing in 2025:
  • “Do you have a phone jack? That’s a very clear and...understandable 0 for 2.” (Pablo, 44:44)
  • “Excuse me, do you know what this is?” ... “No.” (Pablo with New Yorkers, 44:42–45:50)
• Closing wry homage:
  • “We are so back.” (Pablo, 46:54)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:41–04:29: Nostalgia and physical experience of fax machines
• 05:09–09:33: Faxing and deadlines in journalism
• 13:36–18:24: The emergence of faxing as a business/cultural force
• 18:59–26:07: Fax machines’ centrality to sports recruitment/signing
• 26:21–33:22: Michael Jordan’s “I’m back” fax – the apex of sports faxing
• 33:22–38:20: Pat Riley’s resignation via fax and the backlash
• 38:36–40:38: Sports' final farewell to the fax machine
• 42:16–End: Pablo’s quest to send a fax in 2025 Manhattan

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Takeaways

• The fax machine is more than an obsolete technology; it was once a linchpin in global communication, journalism, sports, and culture.
• Memorable moments—Michael Jordan’s comeback, Pat Riley’s Knicks breakup, recruiting-day fortunes—were mediated by the buzz and screech of a fax machine.
• As a mode of communication, the fax offered directness, ceremony, and even suspense—qualities nearly forgotten in instant digital messaging.
• The episode closes as a love letter to technological nostalgia and the many ways society, especially sports, both accelerated and outgrew the humble fax.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is. It came in a two word statement which is now just begging to have a Nike campaign built around it, quote, unquote. I'm back right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings. This studio is a time machine. Today we are traveling back in time. Do you remember the relic on our desk here?

[B]

I do. I still technically own a fax machine. Now, is this a plain paper fax or is it the thermal paper fax?

[A]

This is a plain paper fax. Okay. This is. She is. Well, I guess he is the brother in Telefax 1570 MC from. I believe it's a mid-90s vintage.

[B]

Ooh, those beeps. It sounds like the wheel on Price is Right when it's spinning around.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Can you make this sound some more? That's so satisfying.

[A]

It is.

[B]

First of all, just the tactile nature of it touching it.

[A]

The haptic sensation of pressing a keypad on a. And again, this is. Yeah, reach over there. Yep, it feels good. We don't do that enough.

[B]

No, we don't dial. Like, when's the last time you pressed a button?

[A]

When was the last time you beheld a 15 by 158 and a half inch high gray device that was essential to your former life, was instrumental in my. In my childhood memory. And also, this is not a joke. We bought this on ebay. We had a box in this studio yesterday and the cleaning crew, our great cleaning crew here in our building, threw out the box containing like the headset because they thought it was trash.

[B]

They're like, this can, it's being disposed. This relic.

[A]

This must be a box containing like rotten fruit or something.

[B]

Now the question is, can you. Well, I'm sure it's not connected. Whoa.

[A]

I don't know what's happening.

[B]

Must I hit a preset?

[A]

The Spirit. The Spirit has now taken over.

[B]

It still has the presets in it.

[A]

Oh my God. Oh.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

The.

[B]

The sound. That's satisfactory because sound. It was always this moment of suspense before you knew the connection was gonna happen. And again, you heard those high pitched squealing and wailing from the machines making their connection. And then when you start to hear.

[A]

That scanning going through, something was about to happen. Quote for all of today's needs and tomorrow's. The brother in Telefax 1570 MC.

[B]

Whoops. They failed to anticipate the intern PDFs, email all that.

[A]

Didn't quite anticipate. Tomorrow. J Adande head of Northwestern's sports journalism program. My friend and colleague from espn, also longtime sports writer, just inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball hall of Fame last year. Congrats, by the way, on that.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

That's pretty cool.

[B]

That was pretty cool. The fax machine helped me get there.

[A]

Did you thank the fax in your speech?

[B]

I should have.

[A]

What do you feel when you're now communing at this table with this machine that I haven't seen since the 90s?

[B]

A lot of nostalgia. The sounds. I didn't anticipate how much the sounds would take me back. And I was thinking ahead of time about that modem wailing, but just the motor whirring, the buttons, the touch tone sounds, all those things that were so important. And that air of excitement. You were about to learn, you were about to find something out.

[A]

It's been 30 years this month since the world found out about the greatest facts of all time written by arguably the greatest athlete of all time. And there is nobody better, I assure you, to travel back in time with me today than Ja Adande, the journalist who not only reported the story behind that story, but the guy who also now spends his time surrounded by college kids, these journalism students at Northwestern for whom the technology in question is completely unrecognizable, as is the thing you had to connect the fax machine to in order to actually send a fax, a phone jack. All of which was essential to how.

[B]

Sports and journalism worked in New York City. Actually, there was like a snowstorm, got like a 10:30 deadline. I'm in Penn Station, can't find any phone jacks. I run out in cold. It's like desolate around Penn Station. It's huge. There's like a foot of snow on the ground. There's no taxis, no nothing anywhere. I find a Chinese restaurant and I talked to the guy in front. He has to convince his dad, who doesn't speak English and runs the place. I said, I need to use your phone jack. It was a dedicated modem line that we would send our stories in back to the LA Times toll free number. I'll buy something, you know, just please let me use your fax machine, phone jack.

[A]

And this Chinese family saved your journalistic ass that night.

[B]

They did. They came through big time.

[A]

For the kids out there, this wasn't just an American phenomenon, this was global.

[B]

So summer after I graduated College, summer of 1992, I wind up in Monte Carlo as the Dream team arrives in Monte Carlo to have their last little prep session before the Olympics in Barcelona that summer, Mike Wilbon had tipped me off to it. I was going on vacation, post graduation vacation with my buddy. So I flew over to Europe. We met up, hung out in France. And then I find out, hey, we can slip into practice. So I was getting ready to start my internship at the Miami Herald. So I called the Miami Herald. I say, can you fax over a request?

[A]

I'm in Monte Carlo.

[B]

I'm in Monte Carlo. I say, hey, you don't know me. It's all time introduction. You don't know me. My name is Jay Adana. I'm going to be the intern starting next month. I'm in Monte Carlo right now. Do you want a story on the Dream Team? They're like, yeah, is all right. You gotta fax something on letterhead. So it was so big, you understand the. The entryway to cover anything was you would need to fax something on the company letterhead.

[A]

Right. Proof of your credential.

[B]

Before that, I guess you would have had to mail in the request, Right? But by the late 80s 90s, you could fax in your request and that's how you would get access. I get credentialed. I still have that credential. I have pretty much every credential I ever had. That is my number one credential. Green construction paper, Dream team, USA Basketball, men's basketball training camp, Monte Carlo. So I go in, you walk in. Jordan Barkley, Magic Bird, they're all there. Barkley was just on this heater that day. He's talking about how they went. They went to dinner with. With the Prince of Monaco.

[A]

I think Chuck Daly was a little nervous when they had the dinner in Monte Carlo. And the prince arrived and tried to keep Charles as far away from the prince as possible.

[B]

And they had all these rules, like, when the prince is done eating, you have to stop eating. He says, well, what if I'm hungrier than him? What if he ate beforehand and he wants to stop early? But do we have to, like, hurry up? Like, hey, the prince is almost done. Hurry up, get it done. And then he announces, guys, I'm retiring from basketball. I'm gonna be a swimmer. What? Cause I was out by the pool yesterday and all these women were topless. David Robinson patting you up. This is like.

[A]

Spring break in the ghetto.

[B]

And if there's gonna be top of swimming by the pool, like they got over here. He's like, I'm going to be a swimmer. He said, y' all be thinking, I'm Mark Spitz by The end of this.

[A]

This is a dream assignment for you to write about. In other words, it was incredible.

[B]

But right afterward, I had to get back to Paris. My. I had a plane leaving from Paris the next day. So I had to take a train back to Paris and get ready to get back home. My only option was to handwrite it out on the train. You know, I'm. I'm playing the transcribing, everything off, off, off, all the interviews. I'm handwriting it. The train stopped in Lyon. I get out, I wander around. I find a hotel near the train station. Do you have a fax machine? Can I send my story in through your fax machine? And fortunately they did. And I faxed my story into the Miami Herald only to find out several weeks later that they didn't run it because they didn't have space. Very 1990s problem. Right. We didn't have space in our print edition of newspapers. So that story never saw the light.

[A]

Of day until now, 33 years later.

[B]

Now it can be told. I was really proud of that story. I was most proud I had a Monte Carlo date line, and I didn't get my Monte Carlo date line in.

[A]

The degree of difficulty when it came to filing something. It's truly unrelatable to people living in 2025 that you had to go through all these hoops and all of that Wi Fi era.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because it was not the easiest thing to make what feels now like the most automated part of this actually happen. Do you have memories of fighting this machine? Of, like, struggling with the premise of this machine?

[B]

It could be a little finicky sometimes. Right. You had to get them to match up. They talk to each other. When you hear that screeching, that was it talking to each other. You know, the other problem with the. The early editions was the. The thermal papers, it would roll, it would curl up, you know, when it came off. It's funny, that was actually a plot point. I just happened to rewatch the Firm with Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman. That that's what caught my attention was that Gene Hackman was in it. And there's a key plot point where a fax comes in that's somewhat incriminating. And because it's that thermal paper, it rolls off the tray and it curls up and it rolls under the. The desk. So it takes a while before Wilford Brimley, who's one of the bad guys.

[A]

This could not be an older sounding episode. The hell's the matter with you guys? This thing's out of paper.

[B]

Just the fact I mentioned Wilford Brimley. One other fact story. So the summer of 1989, after my freshman year of college got back to LA. Didn't really have anything lined up, so I took a job at a temp agency. They would send me out to different jobs around la. So one week I wound up working in the mailroom at United Talent. But back then there was only one or two fax machines in the building and the main one was in the mail room. So you would receive the incoming faxes and then you'd go around, you'd make your rounds and drop them off at the different agents offices at their desks. As you went around the building, you'd also pick up the outgoing faxes and you had to send those out through the mailroom fax machine, which again was the only one in the building. Maybe like the top, top agent had his own fax machine. But for the most part, everything had to come and go through the fax machine. Not a very private means of communication, right? So like you send a letter, it's in the envelope, nobody can see. But the facts is even the lowly temp mailroom person could see them. And so one time I caught this exchange of the agent and Francis Ford Coppola. So Coppola is working on a movie like in Italy, or maybe he's just over there. So the fax is the most efficient way to communicate with somebody who's on the other side of the world, right? Time zone differences and all that. So, you know, this was one way where the fax machine really helped speed up communication. And this guy had done something to piss off Francis Ford Copa to no end. And Copa just let him have it and just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I had to send the reply from the agent who was just groveling. I'm so sorry, Mr. Kova, but I never forget getting to witness this, you know, behind the scenes Hollywood stuff going on involving Francis Ford Coppola, which I owe to the fax machine.

[A]

You saw, Francis Ford Coppola, director of the Godfather, sent his agent a fax that he could not refuse. I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. This machine here, though, I mean, by the way, this is for those wondering, not watching on YouTube. This is a Chekhov's fax machine situation. We are going to fire off a fax by the end of this episode. I promise to do that. So from Francis Ford Coppola to Michael Jordan down the line, what we're here to do is tell the story of a machine that shaped the history we all know, even if we never really appreciated how good we had it. And also, I think it's going to take us back to a time that we wish we still did.

[B]

If you're nostalgic for the 90s, you have to be nostalgic for the fax.

[A]

Machine, the history of the fax machine. I don't know if you've become familiar with the deep dive that we have personally been doing here at Pablo Torre finds out, but you could trace a line back to 1924. And there's this guy, an American named Richard Ranger. And Richard Ranger invented the photo radiogram. And what he did with this photo radiogram was wirelessly send a photo from New York to London of Calvin Coolidge. That was Coolidge.

[B]

Facts, transmission.

[A]

It all starts with that. You push this button down, the paper goes in and round. Just relax, because the thermal fax does the work for you. And then 1966, to fast forward, it's Xerox, and they introduced the Magnifax telecopier. And this is the thing that connects to any telephone line within merely six minutes. And there is that.

[B]

You're willing to pay the long distance toll.

[A]

Do you remember, remember Almost Famous? There's that scene where Rolling Stone wants William, the protagonist, to send his story to the fact checker. Alison, our fact checker, needs you to transmit whatever you have in the story tonight. Now along with your notes. There's a mojo at the Daily News they'll let us use.

[B]

A mojo?

[A]

A mojo. It's a very modern machine that transmits pages over the telephone. It only takes 18 minutes a page. It only takes 18 minutes a page.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

That is now the mark that people are trying to improve on. So 1974, we're down to three minutes a page by 1980. And this is, I think, the biggest globalized revolution. The Japanese make this commercially viable. And at this point, by 1980, there are approximately 250,000 fax machines in the US and they're being advertised. There are commercials with Sharp's choice of fax machines.

[B]

You can send documents in as little as 12 seconds to any place in.

[A]

The world you can phone. The photo goes round and round. Whoa. And it comes out here.

[B]

And that will change the way you do business forever.

[A]

By 85, that number had doubled. Now half a million fax machines. And now it's journalists, it's doctors, it's lawyers. It's that scene in Back to the Future, too, where old Marty Mcfly gets fired via fax. I was. I was read my. Please, no, I cannot be fired. I'm fired. Ah. And so in the era before the Internet, before DocuSign, before all of this, there was this question which I did not appreciate because I was a little kid at the time, but everyone seemed to be asking, which was, what's your fax number? What's your fax number? Has become one of the most frequently asked questions in the business community.

[B]

Your business card would have your office number and your fax number. I used it so much, I had my own at home in the mid-1990s, and I had a separate line at home for my fax modem. When I would go online, I would use that line to access the Internet and. Or I would use that line for incoming faxes. One of the cases for why you can't get. Like here in New York, for example. Right. Why we no longer have the 212 area code. Some people blame the fax machine.

[A]

Wait, I don't know this because.

[B]

Yeah, because there was.

[A]

I had a 212 growing up. That was our home number.

[B]

Right. And you know, the 212 was covered. There's a whole Seinfeld episode.

[A]

Right. Absolutely. Hello.

[B]

Or a subplot about it. Right. The lack of the 212.

[A]

646. It's a new area code. What area? New Jersey? No, no, it's right here in the city. It's the same as 212. They just multiplied it by three, and then they added one to the middle number. According to this book, faxed the rise and fall of the Fax machine. Americans were faxing, quote, pizza orders, song requests, party invitations, greeting cards, ski reports, amniocentesis results, baby footprints, children's drawings, vows of eternal love. I had forgotten that this was not merely a business machine. This was people enjoying the novelty of communication. It is magical. You send a piece of paper in one room and across the world, it shows up in another. It is pretty cool.

[B]

I only use it for business. There's something cold about it and impersonal. So I never sent a love letter by fax or anything like that. Your love interest wasn't likely to have their own fax machine.

[A]

You've Got facts is very different. Romcom. Agreed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Wouldn't work at all.

[A]

Now, in sports, though, the business that you worked in, there was one national holiday that to me, is the encapsulation of the centrality of the fax machine.

[B]

Signing day.

[A]

National signing day.

[B]

Letters of intent, the first Wednesday in February Always marks the national signing day for high school players to sign their college grant nades coaches and hover over the fax machine.

[A]

If you can believe it, somebody still.

[B]

Uses fax machines hoping that the top recruits sign. That is the first day in which college recruits can formally notify their schools, send their letter of intent. And again, schools weren't even allowed to talk about these players, even if everyone knew they were recruiting them and everyone knew that they had their heart set on bringing this player to good old state. Uh, you weren't allowed to talk to them until you had the signed letter of intent in hand. Even if they had, you know, made an announcement at their high school where they're going to go, until you had that signed letter of intent in hand, they were not yours.

[A]

And so national sports Facts day was a thing where Phil Knight, co founder of Nike, would sit in the football office at Oregon, his alma material on signing day, and just stare at the fax machine. So deliver us, Deliver us our next great star. It got to the point, I mean, Ole Miss, they were obsessed with this. They had a Canon IR C3080 and they had a play in their playbook called fax. The Wall Street Journal reported that at the University of Miami, the fax technician, this is a quote, didn't show up until the morning of signing day. Sure enough, the machine broke down after the first couple of letters, causing the staff to scramble to get recruits to send their letters elsewhere. End quote. It was not merely ceremonial. This was actually like the legal procedure to actually register your commitment and to build your team. And if you didn't have it, if the machine was broken, you got. And to be very clear, this is not a hypothetical scenario because our journey into the history of faxes and letters of intent and led us to this guy.

[C]

My name is Darrell Price and who I was three decades ago was running back out of Sylmar High School in the San Fernando Valley and in California in 1996.

[A]

Darrell Price was a blue chip running back who had verbally committed to the Ohio State University. And all he had to do was fax his letter of intent to from his home in California to Ohio.

[C]

I want to say that it was cvs. I don't know if it was Sprouts Ritz, one of those kind of stores, you know, and this is when the fax machine was literally behind the counter. So if you had to go into that store, you would give the clerk your paperwork and she would fax it for you and then you would pay for it like that. So my mom and I, we go to the. To the local convenience store to. To fax off my letter of intent to Ohio State Buckeyes. And I handed it to the lady. She turns around, faxed it. Boom, gives it back to us. We get our receipt, we pay for it. That's fine.

[A]

Faxed, delivered, paid, done. That lady at that convenience store had officially turned the page on Durrell's life. But after he left the convenience store, something felt kind of off. Ohio State's coach John Cooper, at the time, had personally recruited Durrell. And by the way, osu, a powerhouse, had finished top three in the nation five years in a row, which was awesome. But now, as Dirrell headed home, he was thinking about how far Columbus was from his neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. He started thinking about how nearby UCLA had also been recruiting him.

[C]

And then we get back to the house, and on our answering machine, John Cooper says, hey, this is John Cooper. We did not get your signature side of the. Of your intent letter. We need that letter. So we officially have you here at our school. We only got the backside of it. And I go, well, coach, I mean, I went to the store. The lady sent it off. Well, we didn't get that. And I looked at that as an omen right there. I looked at that as, you know what? Maybe this isn't the move for me. I think that I need to stay home, and I'm going to be a UCLA Bruin.

[A]

And that is how Darrell Price wound up at ucla.

[B]

Wow, Faulty fax machine. I also like the fact that he mentioned another RELIC of the 80s and 90s, the answering machine.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

That's a whole other episode. Probably a whole other answering machine.

[A]

A whole other episode in our ongoing series of technology. Can you imagine losing out on that prospect because you're the fax machine? He couldn't figure it out.

[B]

There were ways that things could get lost in the transmission.

[C]

Ohio State was not pleased with me, and. And they expressed that multiple times. John Cooper, he got on the phone and he had some choice words with me as far as, hey, you don't do this. Don't mess around, and, hey, we're, you know, we're Ohio State, and. And things like that. I was really upset. You know, I'm like, mom, you know, the coaches are mad at me and this and that. She goes, it's not the first time that it's happened to him, and it won't be the last one.

[A]

Addendum to that story, Jay, as we both are laughing at. At John Cooper. In Ohio State is that his mom was right. Apparently it was not the last time this happened to Ohio State because 20 years later, National Signing Day 2016, coaches were waiting on their final commitment. This was a big time recruit, a wide receiver. And, and the Buckeyes fax machine ran out of paper.

[B]

Wow. So one thing that, that was big was that be because things could get lost because you couldn't be sure when you had the successful connection and you successfully transmitted, right. It would send a, it would, your thing would print out a confirmation. Right. The other thing was that you had to do this cover page, right. That was a big thing and it was very formal. Right. So you'd, you'd print out, you know, two fax number from, from this fax number. Right. It would be very rude to just send a fax without sending the fax cover page because you could just get something and you would have no idea who it was coming from.

[A]

Right. Etiquette, facts, etiquette, communications, etiquette back. And now it's just like here's a, here's a jpeg out of nowhere, right into your brain that I didn't ask for.

[B]

The other thing though could get stuff you didn't ask for. So just like we have spam. In the email era, there was basically fax spam because it would auto dial, right. So sometimes you would pick up the phone and you would just hear that and it was just some random, you know, junk mailer basically hoping that they, that you were a fax machine.

[A]

I didn't know that.

[B]

Yeah, you could get junk faxes. Yeah, there was, there was, there was junk faxes.

[A]

Was a big thing like someone just faxed me an ASCII picture of a dick. Just showed up in my kitchen.

[B]

Low res.

[A]

The reason I brought you here really is because of the most famous facts in the history of faxes. Certainly sports faxes. I would argue faxes in general. And it happened 30 years ago this month.

[B]

Hey Mikey.

[A]

We like it. Not a huge surprise, but clearly one of the great comebacks since Burt Reynolds hairline. It came in a two word statement which is now just begging to have a Nike campaign built around it. Quote, unquote. I'm back.

[B]

So he had retired after the 1993 championship, his first three peat in the wake of the death of his father shortly thereafter as well. And so on the eve of training camp that next year, the 93, 94 season, he announces that he's going to retire from basketball. I just feel that at this particular time in my career I'VE reached the pinnacle of my career. I've achieved a lot in that short amount of time, if you want to call it short. But I just feel that I don't have anything else for myself to prove. A few months after that, he decides he wants to give baseball a shot. It happened that the owner of the Bulls, Jerry Reinsdorf, also owned the Chicago White Sox organization. And so he facilitates the opportunity for Michael to play AA baseball. And so that's throughout the 1994 baseball season. And then Michael intends to keep playing baseball and he's at Winter League in Arizona and baseball goes on strike.

[A]

Well, it is now official. No more regular season, no extended version of the playoffs. And for the first time since 1904, no World Series.

[B]

Brendan and so he says, well, kind of miss basketball.

[A]

This was the same thought that everybody from Bulls fans to Bill Clinton in the White House was talking about and thinking about aloud. As of today, the economy has produced 6.1 million jobs since I became president. And if Michael Jordan goes back to the bulls, it'll be 6,100,001 new jobs. And there's just this one clip from the Last Dance, of course, the the docu series made by our friend Jason Harrer, which was about 500 minutes long. But there's this 30 second chunk of this specific moment in which we hear from David Falk, Michael Jordan's longtime age. Finally, after all this stuff, he called me and he said, I think I'm ready to come back. So I wrote three or four different versions, you know, press release for him to announce that he was coming back, but he just didn't feel comfortable that it captured what he wanted to say. So I said, why don't you freaking write one? So the behind the scenes of just the crafting of this document, when it comes to the call that David Fox office is going to make, paint the picture there, what's happening from their side of the transmission.

[B]

The funny thing is I'd wanted to write about the facts, capital letters, for a long time. I put in a call to David Falk and I figured he would be able to tell me everything that I wanted and needed to know about the facts. But what he actually told me was, well, you really need to talk to Allison Sadowski, who ran his office and was the one that really sent it out there. So remember, it's a Saturday, right? So people aren't in offices. You know, the news media never takes a day off. So, so they're there and Allison Sadowski runs his office at home just Worked out, gets out of the shower. There's seven messages on her machine. They're all from Falk, and they're all with increasing urgency. Call me back. You got to call me. You know, you got to get in the office. And so she guessed the word. We got to put out. Michael Jordan's coming back. And they had two fax machines, very fancy. They had one that they used for incoming faxes, one that they used for outgoing faxes. But because they had such a high volume of faxes that they needed to churn out, she uses both. But first, she preps them in what's become now the famous introductory setup paragraph. Really, it was just her standard boilerplate language that they used every time they had an announcement to fax out.

[A]

Yes. The following statement was released today by Michael Jordan through his personal attorney and business manager, David B. Falk, chairman of Falk Associates Management Enterprises, Incorporated. Fame in parentheses, located in Washington, D.C. in response to questions about his future career plans.

[B]

You know, I spoke to Allison for the story, and then in the years since, almost every year, someone imitates that exact format. Jimmy Butler most recently did.

[A]

He and his agent, Bernie Lee, just did it as their whole squabble with the heat was unfolding.

[B]

This year, when Colorado came back to the Big 12, the. The Big 12 set something up, Right? And, you know, imitated the same setup. They're back. So every time we come across one of them, I'll. I'll send a message to Allison, like, look, it's. And she cannot believe that this has endured so long. Three decades now.

[A]

Basically, this is one of those historical sports stories to quote Now, Marshall McLuhan, where the medium was the message, like, these are pale imitations, J. Because what Allison had to do, individually sending it to every outlet, one at a time, that arrived in their offices unbidden. Shockingly.

[B]

Right. So she spent her whole Saturday afternoon in the office sending out facts after facts after facts.

[A]

The quote that she gave you in your reporting, it wasn't like sending a mass email.

[B]

Yeah. You can't just copy and send it all out at once.

[A]

There's no bcc. It sounds like a horse in carriage is what Allison Sadowski told you about her memory of what happened when she got out of the shower to realize, oh, my God, I'm about to become a historical character. They talk about 30 years later this month.

[B]

And I remember for years at the Washington Post, they had a copy of that. I'm sure they'd copied it off the thermal fax, and it was hanging up on the wall by the fax machine was the Jordan I'm back facts. It was like, you know, an artifact that, that was a part of the Washington Post sports section for a long time when I was there. And artifacts, the sports illustrator cover that week. Oh yeah, I'm back Jordan, you know, in the number 45 in Market Square arena going in for a layup. The COVID of Sports Illustrated was quoting from the facts. And this is the time when the COVID Sports Illustrated is the most precious real estate in sports. How many other people got to write their own cover headline? You worked there for a long time. Do you remember?

[A]

I cannot remember. But what happens on Sunday? Again, you said it was Saturday. Setting the scene. Again, it's Sunday, March 19, 1995 and conveniently it's the NBA on NBC. Today it's the Chicago Bulls versus the Indiana Pacers. God, I missed this.

[B]

Because it was March. All the leading sports columnists were scattered around the country covering the NCAA tournament.

[A]

Oh right.

[B]

And so they all had to flock to Indianapolis.

[A]

The avengers of sports columnists.

[B]

Mike Wilbon, I think he was out at Denver actually at the, the regional out there. I was covering Georgetown at that point. So I was in Tallahassee, Florida with Allen Iverson. That was his first foray into the NCAA tournament. And so I remember going in the back and watching this game.

[A]

Today an artist returns to his true canvas, the George Courts of the NBA. Michael Jordan is back. But it wasn't even the end like the lesser the undercard Jay which is the story that I didn't remember until we hear a Pablo Tori finds out relived this and this is a story that you are personally you were around covering because it wasn't just Michael Jordan saying I'm back, it was who Pat.

[B]

Riley saying I'm gone.

[A]

This is June 95, end of that postseason Knicks lose to the Pacers. A bunch of this coming from Chris Herring's really good book Blood in the Garden. But Riley had been meeting in secret with the Heat. He had a whole list of demands in real time.

[B]

There was a feeling, there was a sense from people in the know that Pipe Riley was going to be gone for the Knicks that season. They, they had an offer on the table for him. He had yet to sign it. I remember someone whose opinion I valued very highly telling me he's gone, he's going to the Miami Heat. So it was an open secret. And it was so open that the Heat, the Heat wound up paying a million dollar fine and sending a first round draft pick to the Knicks because they had been tampering to get Pat Riley while he was still under contract.

[A]

There was never, ever any contact on my behalf or anybody who represented me legally to make a deal with anybody until after I resigned and backed is.

[B]

Pat Riley was lying. There was contact, the Knicks say, as early as February. $1 million. And a draft pick tells you tampering was committed. And the fact was that he announced his separation to them via fax, not via face to face meeting. The equivalent I can draw from today that I think people can relate to and how it went over in New York. It'd be like breaking up with someone via text message today, right?

[A]

Oh, we talked to the former head lawyer at MSG at the time, this guy, Ken Munoz, because his office had the fax mach that received the resignation, the breakup fax.

[B]

So it didn't go to msg, it went to the legal offices.

[A]

Yeah, it was a fax machine at his office, apparently. And what he remembers most clearly, quote, is that we were very upset with that. I was frankly shocked. End quote.

[B]

And Pat Riley claimed that the league mandated that there had to be some sort of formal notification. Right. And so the easiest, most efficient way to get a formal notification done is, again, at the time was the fax machine. But New York went crazy.

[A]

Billy's a turncoat and a traitor. He's a traitor. He went for the money, went for the bucks. I think he should be in jail.

[B]

All the columnists called him Pat the Rat, all this stuff. And so his return, he goes out into Miami. When he comes back to play his first game in the Garden.

[A]

Pat Riley has returned to New York as coach of the NBA's Miami Heat. Wasn't welcomed by everyone.

[B]

I was up there covering it from the Washington Post. The boos, you know, the. Just the animosity, the taunting was furious. I don't know, I just think that.

[A]

Maybe he should have just stood up and faced the fire instead of doing it by facts. They're gonna be kind of hard on Pat Riley. He's gonna get me for a rough night.

[B]

People chanting, pat the Rat. Pat the Rat.

[A]

A very interesting scene unfolding here at Madison Square Garden.

[B]

He really milked it. He basically walks out onto the court when they announce him, he's egging on the crowd. Let me hear it. And he blows them a kiss. And then the post game scene is something I'll never forget.

[A]

I've always embraced the fan in New York as being one of the very best. And what they had to offer to me, I would just take it for what it is. But I wanted to show my appreciation back to them, regardless of what is being said. Part of the key thing here is that Pat Riley had not addressed the public. It was only via facts that he said anything.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so everyone's waiting for this.

[B]

He has to face the New York media. Right. And so they're just badgering him and pestering him about, why'd you do the facts? Why did you send in the facts? And so finally, he. As close as you're going to come to seeing Pat Riley lose his cool in a situation like that, he just unloads this quote. Didn't make any difference whether I faxed it in, conferenced it in, phoned it in, had a satellite delivery of it in. I resigned two weeks before the fax. The only reason why the fax has become fashionable is because I was ordered to send the fax by the commissioner. Otherwise I wouldn't have sent the goddamn fax.

[A]

He's basically saying, I'm not the guy who made everybody fax this.

[B]

But also he's like, why the hell are you so damn fixated on the facts? But you're right, Pablo. The medium was the message.

[A]

I have this theory that I'm developing the more that we dive into the rabbit hole of the fax machine, and it's that not only did sports have the greatest facts of all time, maybe two of the greatest in the stories we just shared, but I think sports may have also killed the fax machine. And I want to explain just some of the math here, J. Because we were kind of tracking the trajectory of the facts. And apparently around the time of Pat Riley's return to the garden, fall of 95, there were 80 fax machines for every thousand Americans. But the sports world, of course, it was clinging to the machine to the point where in 2013, there was a story about NFL free agency now, and it's the story of defensive end Elvis Dumerville, if you recall this gentleman. So Pro Bowler three times, Denver Broncos. Exactly right. Five man pressure. Brady's gonna be hit hard and sacked. He took a wicked shot from Elvis Dumerville. He was going to take a pay cut in order to resign with the Broncos for another super bowl run. They had just lost to the Ravens in the playoffs. NFL extension deadline 4pm Elvis Dumerville is in Miami looking around. Needs a fax machine, as is a recurring theme in this story, to send back his signed contract. He did not hit send at Kinkos until 4:06pm and the Denver Broncos, faced with a $13 million salary cap hit cut. Elvis Dumer.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Who then signs with the Ravens, the aforementioned team that had just knocked them out of the playoffs. And you could argue, some have argued that this fax gate made the Broncos lose the super bowl, that this was a key. Just sliding doors, maybe literally Kinko's sliding doors moment that cost them a trophy. And so a month later, the NFLPA, the players association, signs a deal with DocuSign.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Quote. Enabling them to sign anything, anywhere, end quote. Bringing us, I believe, to the end of faxing contracts in sports. I mean, Jay, again, you teach at Northwestern, you speak and are around young people way more than me at this point. What do you think their reaction to this whole thing would be?

[B]

A lot of times I just talk about the evolution of how LeBron James told the world of his free agency decisions. Yeah, right. From going on ESPN and having a show to the next time he gave an exclusive to Sports Illustrated, which seems even more antiquated than going on espn. End. But then when he went from Cleveland to the Lakers, it was an Instagram post from his agency.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And just. Just seeing that evolution from 2010 to 2018, I think it was, you know, just in eight years, how much that changed. So we're looking back into the 1990s, and so it's an exponential amount of change.

[A]

Right, right. I think they're going to be listening to this episode and thinking to themselves, God, these two mother are so old.

[B]

Thanks for having me. Very old school to do it in person. And I can't believe I get to see a fax again. This is awesome. Who are you going to send a fax to?

[A]

So I suppose this is where your reporting here has revealed a problem. I don't know if we have a phone jack here in this fancy studio we built for podcasting. There are so many jacks and ports and wires and cords and cameras and all sorts of things. I think we have some finding out to do. And I think I got to take our Intellifax and hit the streets.

[B]

Good luck. Hope you found a Chinese restaurant that accommodates you.

[A]

All right, so you may remember that reference I made earlier to Chekhov's gun, which was in honor of Russian playwright Anton Chekov, the guy who once said something along the lines of, quote, if a gun is shown in Act 1, by the last act, it must be fired, end approximate, quote. Well, we're now in the last act of the show, and I suppose it is time for me to admit that I started this entire adventure actually by Trying to acquire someone else's gun. Because in February, I had asked Michael Jordan's agent, David Falk, if there was any chance he still had the fax machine, the same one used to send the fax. Because of course, it's a museum piece to me, a genuine treasure. And what David Falk wrote me back was this quote, hey, Pablo, do you still have your phone from 1995? End quote. And then three crying, laughing emojis. And then David Falk refused to elaborate any further, which, you know, seemed unnecessary to me. But now we here at Pablo Torre finds out have our own fax machine. Our own brother in Telefax 1570 MC from 1995ish. And all I gotta do now, if you're not yet watching on our YouTube channel, which you obviously should, is make like J ahedande did in that snowstorm, searching around Penn Station in order to finally fire off a message, a message on behalf of the fax machine itself. So I think the plan is to find a phone jack for our fax machine in Manhattan in 2025. Let's go this way. Do you guys have any idea what this is? I think it's a printer. Excuse me, do you know what this is? No. Fair enough. Do you guys recognize this? No.

[B]

It's a fax machine.

[A]

Right? A fax machine. It's a fax machine. Trying to figure out where to find a phone jack. I'm guessing I'll try, like a deli or something.

[B]

Go to, like, a Starbucks or something.

[A]

Maybe that's a good idea. All right, here's Starbucks. Let's see. Hi, you guys don't have a phone jack, do you? At Starbucks? A phone jack? No. In case you were wondering how heavy this fax machine is, the answer is it is extremely heavy. So I know this deli, this deli knows me. How's it going? I'm. Good question. Do you guys have a phone jack? That's a very clear and again, understandable 0 for 2. Another stop is a hair salon. You're not alone. Nobody has a phone jack anymore. I'm trying to plug in a fax machine. Does anyone know where I can find a phone jack for this fax machine? A landline. So far, it's zero. Zero takers. Hi. Hello. My name is Pablo. I host a show called Pablo Torre Finds Out. I'm a Neighbor. This is a fax machine. We are looking for a phone jack. Do you guys have a phone jack that we could just borrow from for a minute? Yeah, depending on but it's downstairs, below ground. Okay, Below ground? Yeah, absolutely. What was your name?

[B]

Nikki.

[A]

Nikki Pablo. Okay, great. Do I just follow you below ground? Yeah. Amazing. This is Manhattan's only brewery. It is. We are into our brewer cellar. You'll be able to see our tanks over here. Just like the visuals on this. We are inside of. Of the underbelly of a brewery. There's a giant. Is that. What kind of metal is this? Just like very big aluminum sounding. Hi, I'm Pablo. We have a fax machine. That your name again?

[B]

Nikki.

[A]

Nikki said we could plug into a phone jack here.

[B]

What's some fax?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Who are we faxing to?

[A]

We're faxing a guy named David Falk. Okay. This incredible hospitality from Torch and Crown Brewery. Holy John, you're a mensch. The machine is telling me to please wait. Just in case you were wondering what this fact said. Quote for immediate Release, contact Pablo Estore 51385 Pablo New York, NY, March 27, 2025 the following statement was released today by Pablo S. Torre through his personal friend and business manager. Pablo S. Torre, host of Pablo Torre Finds out, also known as ptfo, located in New York, New York, in response to questions about the future of fax machines. I think it's working. Oh, it's working. It's alive. It's alive. It's beautiful. God. Quote, we are so back. End quote. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time Sat.