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

Summary

Summary of "PTFO - The Fax and the Furious: How One Screeching Machine Upended Sports — and Society as We Knew It"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
• Host/Author: Dan Le Batard, Stugotz
• Episode: PTFO - The Fax and the Furious: How One Screeching Machine Upended Sports — and Society as We Knew It
• Release Date: March 27, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Fax Machine's Legacy

The episode kicks off with Dan Le Batard and J.A. Adande reminiscing about the fax machine, a relic from the 1990s that once played a pivotal role in communication within various industries, including sports journalism.

Notable Quote:

• Pablo Torre: “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.” [00:54]

2. The Nostalgia of Fax Machines

The hosts delve into the tactile and auditory nostalgia associated with fax machines. They discuss the distinct sounds of fax machines—the beeps and screeches—that once symbolized imminent communication and action.

Notable Quote:

• J.A. Adande: “When you hear that screeching, that was it talking to each other. You know, the other problem with the... thermal papers. It would roll. It would curl up, you know...” [03:13]

3. Fax Machines in Sports Journalism

J.A. Adande, a distinguished sports journalist and Hall of Fame inductee, shares personal anecdotes illustrating the integral role fax machines played in his career. From sending urgent stories to navigating technological limitations during critical moments, the fax machine was indispensable.

Notable Quotes:

• J.A. Adande: “Actually, there was like a snowstorm, got like a 10:30 deadline. I'm in Penn Station, can't find any phone jacks...” [05:43]
• Pablo Torre: “...33 years later.” [10:04]

4. Notable Fax-Related Events in Sports

a. Darrell Price and Ohio State Mishap

The episode recounts the story of Darrell Price, a high school running back whose commitment to Ohio State was mishandled due to a faulty fax transmission. This incident not only altered his collegiate future but also highlighted the fragility of reliance on fax technology.

Notable Quotes:

• J.A. Adande: “My mom and I, we go to the... and I got our receipt, we pay for it. That's fine. Faxed, delivered, paid, done.” [22:18]
• Darrell Price's Mishap: “Coach, I mean, I went to the store. The lady sent it off. Well, we didn't get that.” [23:48]

b. Pat Riley's Resignation via Fax

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on Pat Riley's controversial resignation from the New York Knicks, which was communicated solely through a fax machine. This method of resignation sparked outrage among fans and the media, cementing the fax machine's role in pivotal sports moments.

Notable Quotes:

• J.A. Adande: “...Pat Riley's return to New York as coach of the NBA's Miami Heat wasn't welcomed by everyone.” [36:42]
• Pat Riley: “...the only way I sent it was by fax...” [40:43]
• Pablo Torre: “The medium was the message.” [40:59]

c. The Decline of Fax Machines in Sports Contracts

The episode transitions to the gradual obsolescence of fax machines in the sports industry, culminating in the rise of digital signing platforms like DocuSign. The anecdote about Elvis Dumerville missing a contract deadline due to a delayed fax underscores the transition's impact.

Notable Quotes:

• Pablo Torre: “I think sports may have also killed the fax machine.” [35:02]
• Elvis Dumerville Incident: “...he did not hit send at Kinkos until 4:06pm...” [42:01]
• Transition to Digital: “A month later, the NFLPA, the players association, signs a deal with DocuSign.” [43:00]

5. The Cultural and Societal Impact of Fax Machines

Beyond sports, the hosts touch upon the broader societal implications of fax technology. They highlight how fax machines influenced communication norms, business practices, and even personal interactions during their peak usage.

Notable Quotes:

• Pablo Torre: “Americans were faxing, quote, pizza orders, song requests, party invitations, greeting cards...” [18:22]
• J.A. Adande: “There were ways that things could get lost because you couldn't be sure when you had the successful connection...” [25:41]

6. Conclusion: A Comedic Nod to the Past

In a light-hearted finale, Pablo and J.A. attempt to send a fax in 2025, humorously navigating the lack of available phone jacks. This segment serves as a playful homage to the bygone era of fax communication, illustrating its enduring legacy despite technological advancements.

Notable Quotes:

• Pablo Torre: “So I think the plan is to find a phone jack for our fax machine in Manhattan in 2025.” [48:08]
• Pablo Torre: “We are here at Pablo Torre finds out have our own fax machine. Our own brother. Intellifax 1570 MC from 1995ish.” [52:02]

7. Reflections and Final Thoughts

The episode wraps up with reflections on how fax machines not only shaped sports but also represented a significant chapter in the evolution of communication technology. The hosts ponder whether the fax machine's influence was so profound that it inadvertently led to its own demise, as newer technologies surpassed its functionalities.

Notable Quote:

• Pablo Torre: “I have this theory that... sports may have also killed the fax machine.” [35:02]

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Conclusion:

"PTFO - The Fax and the Furious" serves as an in-depth exploration of the fax machine's pivotal role in sports and society. Through a blend of personal anecdotes, historical events, and cultural analysis, Dan Le Batard and J.A. Adande illuminate how a seemingly mundane office device left an indelible mark on the fabric of sports journalism and beyond. The episode masterfully balances nostalgia with critical insights, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the fax machine's legacy.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

A Nike campaign built around it, quote unquote.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm back right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings.

[J. A. Adande]

Yeah, sure thing.

[Pablo Torre]

Hey, you sold that car yet?

[J. A. Adande]

Yeah, sold it to Carvana. Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy. The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency, no interest over 36 months. Yeah, no.

[Pablo Torre]

Carvana gave me an offer in minutes.

[J. A. Adande]

Picked it up and paid me on the spot. It was so convenient. Just like that.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. No hassle.

[J. A. Adande]

None.

[Pablo Torre]

That is super convenient. Sell your car to Carvana and swap hassle.

[J. A. Adande]

For convenience, pick up.

[Pablo Torre]

These may apply. This studio is a time machine Today.

[J. A. Adande]

Ja. Adopted.

[Pablo Torre]

We are traveling back in time. Do you remember the relic on our desk here?

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[J. A. Adande]

You make this sound some more. That's so satisfying.

[Pablo Torre]

It is.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

No, as. When's the last time you pressed a button?

[Pablo Torre]

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. They're like this can.

[J. A. Adande]

It's being disposed. This relic.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

I don't know what's happening.

[J. A. Adande]

Let's hit a preset.

[Pablo Torre]

The Spirit. The spirit has now taken over.

[J. A. Adande]

It still has the presets in it.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh my God.

[J. A. Adande]

Oh, oh, oh.

[Pablo Torre]

The.

[J. A. Adande]

The sound that satisfactory.

[Pablo Torre]

Because sound.

[J. A. Adande]

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 that scanning, going through, something was about to happen.

[Pablo Torre]

Quote, for all of today's needs and tomorrow's, the brother in Telefax 1570 MC Whoops.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

Thank you.

[Pablo Torre]

That's pretty cool.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

Did you thank the fax in your speech?

[J. A. Adande]

I should have.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 sports and journalism worked in New York City.

[J. A. Adande]

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 the 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 talk 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.

[Pablo Torre]

And this Chinese family saved your journalistic ass that night.

[J. A. Adande]

They did. They came through big time.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

So summer after I graduated college, summer 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, maybe 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?

[Pablo Torre]

I'm in Monte Carlo.

[J. A. Adande]

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, Right?

[Pablo Torre]

Proof of your credential.

[J. A. Adande]

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, 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 B, they're all there. Barkley was just on this heater that day. He talk about how they went. They went to dinner with, with the Prince of Monaco.

[Pablo Torre]

I think Chuck Daly was a little.

[J. A. Adande]

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. 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 pat you up. This is like spring break in the ghetto. And if there's gonna be top of swimming by the pool, like they got over here, he's like, I'm gonna be a swimmer. He says, y'all be thinking, I'm Mark Spitz by the end of this.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

But right afterward, I had to get back to Paris. 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 hand ride it out on the train. You know, 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.

[Pablo Torre]

Of day until now, 33 years later.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

In 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.

[J. A. Adande]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

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?

[J. A. Adande]

It. 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 desk. So it takes a while before Wilford Brimley, who's one of the bad guys.

[Pablo Torre]

This could not be an older sounding episode.

[J. A. Adande]

The hell's the matter with you guys? This thing's out of paper. Just the fact I mentioned Wilford Brimley. One other fact story. The 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 mail room at United Talent. But back then there was only one or two fax machines in the building and the main one was in the mailroom. 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 Coppola to no end. And Coppola just let him have it and just blah, blah. And then I had to send the reply from the agent who was just groveling. I'm so sorry, Mr. Coppola, 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

If you're nostalgic for the 90s, you have to be nostalgic for the fax machine. What is Dax, are you tracking all our cars on Carvana Value Tracker on all our devices? Yes, Kristen, Yes, I am. Well, I've been looking for my phone for. In Dax's domain, we see all. So we always know what our cars are worth.

[Pablo Torre]

All of them? All of them.

[J. A. Adande]

Value surge trucks up 3.9%. That's a great offer. I know. Sell. Sell. Track your car's value with Carvana Value Tracker. Today.

[Pablo Torre]

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 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.

[J. A. Adande]

Facts, transmission.

[Pablo Torre]

It all starts with that. You push this button down, the paper.

[J. A. Adande]

Goes in and round. Relax. Cause the thermal fax does the work for you.

[Pablo Torre]

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, if you're willing.

[J. A. Adande]

To pay the long distance toll.

[Pablo Torre]

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. Allison, our fact checker needs you to transmit whatever you have in tonight. Now along with your notes. There's a mojo at the Daily News they'll let us use.

[J. A. Adande]

A mojo?

[Pablo Torre]

A mojo. It's a very modern machine that transmits.

[J. A. Adande]

Pages over the telephone. It only takes 18 minutes a page.

[Pablo Torre]

It only takes 18 minutes a page.

[J. A. Adande]

Oh, my God.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

You can send documents in as little as 12 seconds to any place in the world. You can phone. The photo goes round and round.

[Pablo Torre]

Whoa.

[J. A. Adande]

And it comes out here. And that will change the way you do business forever.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

I was. I was.

[Pablo Torre]

Read my f. Please.

[J. A. Adande]

No, I cannot be fired.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm fired.

[J. A. Adande]

Ah.

[Pablo Torre]

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?

[J. A. Adande]

Has become one of the most frequently asked questions in the business community. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

Wait, I don't know this because.

[J. A. Adande]

Yeah, because there was.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

Right, Absolutely. Hello.

[J. A. Adande]

Or a subplot about it. Right. The lack of the 212. 646. It's a new area code.

[Pablo Torre]

What area? New Jersey?

[J. A. Adande]

No, no, it's right here in the city. It's the same as two. One, two. They just multiplied it by three, and then they added one to the middle number.

[Pablo Torre]

According to this book, faxed the Rise and Fall of 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.

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

Wouldn't work at all.

[Pablo Torre]

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. Signing day, national signing Day.

[J. A. Adande]

Letters of intent.

[Pablo Torre]

The first Wednesday in February always marks.

[J. A. Adande]

The national signing day for high school.

[Pablo Torre]

Players to sign their college grant aids.

[J. A. Adande]

Coaches hover over the fax machine.

[Pablo Torre]

If you can believe it, somebody still uses fax machines, hoping that the top recruits sign.

[J. A. Adande]

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, on bringing this player to good old State U. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 mater, on signing day, and just stare at the fax machine. So deliver us. No, 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.

[J. A. Adande]

To actually register your commitment and to build your team.

[Pablo Torre]

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 led us to this guy.

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 from his home in California to Ohio.

[J. A. Adande]

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 fax off my letter of intent to Ohio State Buckeyes. And I handed it to the lady. She turns around, fax it, boom, gives it back to us. We get our receipt, we pay for it. That's fine.

[Pablo Torre]

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. And then we get back to the.

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

And that is how Darell Price wound up at ucla.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, God.

[J. A. Adande]

That's a whole other episode, probably a whole other answering machine.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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 the Buckeyes fax machine ran out of paper.

[J. A. Adande]

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, so you, you'd, you, you 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 a fax cover page because you could just get something and you would have no idea who was coming from, right?

[Pablo Torre]

Etiquette, fax 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.

[J. A. Adande]

For the 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.

[Pablo Torre]

I didn't know that.

[J. A. Adande]

Yeah, you could get junk faxes. Yeah, there was, there was, there was junk faxes was a big thing.

[Pablo Torre]

Like someone just faxed me an ASCII picture of a dick just showed up in my kitchen.

[J. A. Adande]

Low res.

[Pablo Torre]

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[J. A. Adande]

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[Pablo Torre]

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[J. A. Adande]

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[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

Hey Mikey.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

Quote, unquote, I'm back. 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 9394 season, he announces that he's going to retire from basketball. I just feel that at this particular time, 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 Double A 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

This was the same thought that everybody from Bulls fans to Bill Clinton in the White House was talking about and thinking about aloud.

[J. A. Adande]

As of today, the economy has produced 6.1 million jobs since I became president.

[Pablo Torre]

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 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 agent. So 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.

[J. A. Adande]

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 Sadosky, who ran his office and was the one that really send 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 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

This year when Colorado came back to the Big 12, the. The Big 12 set something up.

[Pablo Torre]

That's right.

[J. A. Adande]

And, you know, imitated the. The same setup. They're back. So every time we come across one of them, I'll. 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

There's no bcc. It sounds like a horse and 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.

[J. A. Adande]

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 on 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.

[Pablo Torre]

And artifacts.

[J. A. Adande]

The Sports Illustrated 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?

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

God, I missed this because it was March. All the leading sports columnists were scattered around the country covering the NCAA tournament.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh right.

[J. A. Adande]

And so they all had to flock.

[Pablo Torre]

To Indianapolis, the avengers of sports columnists.

[J. A. Adande]

Mike Wilbon, I think he was out at Denver actually at 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, I remember going in the back and watching this game.

[Pablo Torre]

Today an artist returns to his true canvas, the hardboard courts of the NBA. Michael Jordan is back. But it wasn't even the end like the lesser like the undercard Jay which is the story that I didn't remember until we here at 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.

[J. A. Adande]

Pat Riley saying I'm gone.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

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 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

The fact is 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

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 again at the time was the fax machine. But New York went crazy. Billy's a turncoat and a trader. He's a traitor. He went for the money, went for the bucks.

[Pablo Torre]

I think he should be in jail.

[J. A. Adande]

All the columnist 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. Pat Riley's return to New York as coach of the NBA's Miami Heat wasn't welcomed by everyone. I was up there covering it from the Washington Post. The booze, you know, the. Just the animosity, the taunting was furious. I don't know. I just think that 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. People chanting pat the Rat. Pat the Rat.

[Pablo Torre]

A very interesting scene unfolding here at Madison Square Garden.

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

I've always embraced the fan in New York as being one of the very best. And of what they had to offer to me, I would just take it.

[J. A. Adande]

For what it is.

[Pablo Torre]

But I wanted to show my appreciation back to them, regardless of what was 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.

[J. A. Adande]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so everyone's waiting for this.

[J. A. Adande]

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 gonna 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.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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 fax, 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.

[J. A. Adande]

Five man pressure.

[Pablo Torre]

Brady's gonna be hit hard and sacked.

[J. A. Adande]

He took a win. Wicked shot from Elvis Dume.

[Pablo Torre]

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 4:00pm 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 Dummer.

[J. A. Adande]

Oh, no.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

Wow.

[Pablo Torre]

Quote. Enabling them to sign anything, anywhere, end quote. Bringing us, I believe, to the end of faxing contracts in sports. I mean, Jay, you 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?

[J. A. Adande]

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. But then when he went from Cleveland to the Lakers, it was an Instagram post from his agency.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[J. A. Adande]

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.

[Pablo Torre]

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

[J. A. Adande]

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

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

Good luck. Hope you found a Chinese restaurant that accommodates you. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is their. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the.

[Pablo Torre]

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[J. A. Adande]

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[Pablo Torre]

And even reach a real person when.

[J. A. Adande]

You need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is.

[Pablo Torre]

There.

[J. A. Adande]

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[Pablo Torre]

Or the Ryobi one 18 volt cordeless.

[J. A. Adande]

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[Pablo Torre]

All right, so you may remember that reference I made earlier to Chekhov's gun, which was in honor of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, 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. Intellifax 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?

[J. A. Adande]

No. It's a fax machine. Right, A fax machine.

[Pablo Torre]

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.

[J. A. Adande]

Go to, like, a Starbucks or something.

[Pablo Torre]

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. O for two other 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? Nikki. Nikki Pablo. Okay, great. Do I just follow you below ground?

[J. A. Adande]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Amazing. This is Manhattan's only brewery. It is. And 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?

[J. A. Adande]

Nikki.

[Pablo Torre]

Nikki said we could plug into a phone jack here.

[J. A. Adande]

What's some fax?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[J. A. Adande]

Who were we faxing to?

[Pablo Torre]

We're faxing a guy named David Falk.

[J. A. Adande]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

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 S. Torre 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.

[J. A. Adande]

Sa.