The Championship Marriage of Ray Knight and Nancy Lopez

One of the most popular sports marriages of the 80s involved this couple, who both won championships during their time together.

by Rich Watson

In modern World Series history, third baseman Ray Knight will forever be remembered as the player who scored the winning run in one of the most improbable comebacks ever: Game 6 of the 1986 Fall Classic. 

The Mets came back from within one strike of losing the Series to the Red Sox and not only won the game but the Series as well. Knight was named MVP for his efforts: a .391 batting average with five RBI.

It was the highlight of a fourteen-year career in which he was named an All-Star twice. For a longer span, though, Knight was also known as the husband of a golf legend: Nancy Lopez.

When Burger Barons Joan & Ray Kroc Ran the San Diego Padres

He was the head of a fast food empire. She was a philanthropist. Between them they led the Padres to their first pennant.

by Rich Watson

McDonald’s is a burger restaurant universally known because of businessman Ray Kroc. Though it was created by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald, it was Kroc who developed their concept of assembly line-made hamburgers and french fries and shakes and turned it into a model for the food services industry worldwide.

After retiring from McDonald’s in 1974, Kroc chose to get into baseball, his favorite sport. He bought the Padres that same year for $12 million, when it was in danger of leaving San Diego. It was a passion he clung to until his death in 1984–and then passed on to his third wife, Joan Kroc.

Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon in “Fever Pitch,” an Ode to Red Sox Fandom

A memoir about soccer was transformed into a romcom about baseball and spawned a life of its own.

by Rich Watson

In 1992, Nick Hornby, the English novelist and screenwriter, released a memoir called Fever Pitch, a love letter to his favorite sport, soccer. GQ called it “tears-running down-your-face, read-bits-out-loud-to-complete-strangers funny, but also highly perceptive and honest.” Time Out said it “transcends the mundane and the sporty to say something about the way we live.” 

One might not have suspected Hollywood to have taken interest in a highly personal volume about a sport that never quite caught on in America the way it has in other countries. Hornby, however, was hot, and often, that’s enough.

So how did the movie version get turned into a romantic comedy about baseball?