Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for day.
Speaker 1: And this is short stuff kind of sports related, but
Speaker 1: real pop culture to tell you the truth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you grew up in the seventies and
Speaker 2: eighties and you were a sports fan, in particular a
Speaker 2: baseball fan of Major League Baseball here in the United States,
Speaker 2: then no doubt at some point you either saw in
Speaker 2: the news or saw live during a game a woman
Speaker 2: run out onto the baseball field and chatted up for
Speaker 2: a moment with a professional baseball player and then kissed
Speaker 2: them on the cheek and then run back to the
Speaker 2: stands waving, at least for a while until she started
Speaker 2: getting arrested.
Speaker 3: For doing this. And that was MORGANA the Kissing Bandit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Apparently. She was born Nancy Lee Rose in Louisville, Kentucky.
Speaker 1: She started lying about her age at a very young age,
Speaker 1: as we'll see, because she had a very difficult, really
Speaker 1: rough adolescence. But she became so famous for this during
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties that at one point Pete Rose
Speaker 1: said that he considered her bigger than any one baseball
Speaker 1: player in the whole game, like she was really really
Speaker 1: famous for. She was on Letterman, she was on Carson,
Speaker 1: and she was an exotic dancer by trade, by profession.
Speaker 1: And I saw Chuck that her act. I saw it
Speaker 1: described as part nudity, part comedy, which is kind of
Speaker 1: tough to pull off, if you ask me. But one
Speaker 1: of the things in addition to running onto baseball fields
Speaker 1: that she was known for that was very attention getting
Speaker 1: was her bust. She was extraordinarily buxom. Apparently she had
Speaker 1: a sixty inch bust that required an I cup And
Speaker 1: so that combined with running onto the field that sporting
Speaker 1: events and kissing players, it really captured the attention of
Speaker 1: the American public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, that's not the kind of thing
Speaker 2: we've usually highlighted when we're talking about women on the show.
Speaker 2: But you can't ignore that with morgana the Kissing bandit
Speaker 2: most notably because it comes up later in a potential
Speaker 2: defense in court, which if you're wondering how in the
Speaker 2: world does that work, then you'll find out an act too.
Speaker 1: And I think the fact that we mentioned it just
Speaker 1: goes to show how much you can't ignore it.
Speaker 3: I hope.
Speaker 2: So she was introduced to baseball by her grandfather, who
Speaker 2: raised her. You said she had a rough childhood, which
Speaker 2: very sadly she did. She was a runaway at age thirteen.
Speaker 2: She was on house for a while. Eventually she became
Speaker 2: an exotic dancer as a teenager. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: at Crossley Field during a Cincinnata Reds game when she
Speaker 2: was seventeen, she was with a couple of friends sitting
Speaker 2: near the field level and you know, the baseball players
Speaker 2: were checking these girls out because it was nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 2: and that's what you did when you were a baseball player.
Speaker 2: You get a little bored and outfield and look to
Speaker 2: the stands at teenage curls, I guess, And everyone was
Speaker 2: sort of, you know, the players were sort of paying
Speaker 2: them some attention, except for Pete Rose, and they were like,
Speaker 2: what gives with this guy? And her friend said, hey,
Speaker 2: I bet you, I'll give you five bucks if you
Speaker 2: run out on the field and you know, confront him,
Speaker 2: which she did. Pete Rose played outfield at the time
Speaker 2: before his move to the infield.
Speaker 3: She ran out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah I didn't know that which part, the outfield part?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was an outfielder at first, but okay, he played everywhere,
Speaker 2: but I think shortstop and catcher and pitcher. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Pete Rose had a brief chat with her. He was
Speaker 2: endorsing ballpark Frank's hot dogs at the time, and she said, hey,
Speaker 2: I buy those hot dogs. Gave him a kiss on
Speaker 2: the cheek. He said, you're nuts. You're going to get
Speaker 2: in trouble, but she didn't at the time. She went
Speaker 2: back to her seat and security didn't come by, and
Speaker 2: she watched the rest of the game with her friends
Speaker 2: and a sports writer in Cincinnati the next day dubbed
Speaker 2: her the kissing Bandit yeah, and.
Speaker 1: A great example of her sense of humor. She said
Speaker 1: later that her career started with the bet from her friends,
Speaker 1: and Pete Rose's career ended with the bet because got caught.
Speaker 3: Hundreds of bets.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I say we take a break and we'll
Speaker 1: come back and talk a little more about MORGANA and
Speaker 1: her prolific career.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: As watched, why s K.
Speaker 3: Tough?
Speaker 2: You should know, all right, So MORGANA is kissing athletes
Speaker 2: all over the place.
Speaker 3: She's getting more and more fair.
Speaker 2: I mentioned that, you know she did this with most
Speaker 2: of the sports, but baseball was her number one love.
Speaker 2: But she would show up at a NASCAR race, she'd
Speaker 2: kiss an NBA player, she'd go to an NFL game,
Speaker 2: She'd went to NHL games. She I don't know if
Speaker 2: she kissed a horse or a jockey, but she did
Speaker 2: this at a horse race once.
Speaker 3: Apparently George Brett.
Speaker 2: Sort of got back at her in a playful way
Speaker 2: when he showed up at the club where she was
Speaker 2: dancing and jumped up on stage and kissed her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he got it twice, I think, right, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he might have been one of the only
Speaker 1: ones that she got twice, which is why he got
Speaker 1: her back. And like I said, she was prolific, right,
Speaker 1: I think between nineteen sixty nine and ninety nine. Pretty
Speaker 1: sure this was Sports Illustrated who came up with this
Speaker 1: stat She kissed the over fifty athletes, not to mention managers, umpires,
Speaker 1: and mascots, including the San Diego chicken who just keeps
Speaker 1: popping up again and again and stuff you should know
Speaker 1: episodes lately weirdly, and I think this one was from
Speaker 1: our friends at Grunge. They said that her presence often
Speaker 1: doubled the number of fans in the stands. Like she
Speaker 1: was really well known, and she would announce where she
Speaker 1: was going, what game she was going to attend, and
Speaker 1: people would just show up because you wanted to see
Speaker 1: that kind of thing in addition to a game. So
Speaker 1: there was, from what I can tell, correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, there was a love hate relationship with her
Speaker 1: because she would disrupt games. Yeah, but at the same
Speaker 1: time she would fill, you know, double the attendance at
Speaker 1: a stadium when she said that she was going to
Speaker 1: a game.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, it was this weird cultural moment in
Speaker 2: time where someone got really famous for doing something just
Speaker 2: sort of unusual and something that a lot of people did.
Speaker 2: Like these days, when you see somebody run down on
Speaker 2: a field, especially since the stabbing of Monica Selis on
Speaker 2: the two to score years ago, Oh yeah, this is
Speaker 2: all sort of scary stuff and you never know what
Speaker 2: someone's gonna do. You know, when Hank Aaron hit his
Speaker 2: home run, the guys ran down on the field and
Speaker 2: you know, we're patting him on the back. But that
Speaker 2: was sort of the first like, oh boy, what's happening here,
Speaker 2: Like these white guys are rushing, you know, the black
Speaker 2: man who broke the white guy's record.
Speaker 1: Oh is that what changed things? That particular incident.
Speaker 2: Well, that was what first started. I mean, Morgana came
Speaker 2: after this, so it clearly didn't change that much. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: I think Monica Selis is what really really changed it,
Speaker 2: because that was an actual act of violence.
Speaker 3: Everyone else had good intentions.
Speaker 2: But these days, when somebody rushes the field, it's usually
Speaker 2: a protester and they usually get tackled in a pretty
Speaker 2: violent manner, and they won't show it on TV. Immediately,
Speaker 2: all cameras are are directed to not show any of
Speaker 2: this stuff, so no one's incentivized to actually do this.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But not back then, man, everyone like.
Speaker 1: She was good for baseball, you know she She did
Speaker 1: have a few encounters with security that ended up pretty
Speaker 1: There was one, I think the nineteen seventy All Star
Speaker 1: Game in Cincinnati. The Reds management put a bounty on
Speaker 1: her one hundred bucks to whoever could catch her because
Speaker 1: she I guess it announced that she was coming and
Speaker 1: they did catch her, and I guess they got her
Speaker 1: on the ground and started the security started kicking her
Speaker 1: in the ribs.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Broke three of her ribs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I said, that's ridiculous because it's
Speaker 2: different these days, and it is a genuine security risk
Speaker 2: because you never know what someone's gonna do because the
Speaker 2: world is crazy now. But back then, like everyone knew
Speaker 2: who MORGANA was. Everyone knew she was gonna run out there.
Speaker 2: It would take less than a minute. She would kiss
Speaker 2: the player on the cheek, not even on the lips,
Speaker 2: because she didn't like the chewing tobacco in baseball. And
Speaker 2: there's absolutely no reason to throw this woman on the
Speaker 2: ground and kick her for sort of a minor disruption.
Speaker 3: This is a different time.
Speaker 2: So if people are like, oh, I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: you can't do something like that, Like, it's just different
Speaker 2: these days. Everyone knew her and knew she meant no
Speaker 2: ill will.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But despite that, I mean, she not just three
Speaker 1: broken ribs. She also suffered a broken kneecap once, she
Speaker 1: suffered a broken tailbone, all at the hands of security.
Speaker 1: But she just apparently shrugged it all off, because I
Speaker 1: read an interview with her from not too long ago
Speaker 1: where she chalked it up to renne cops getting carried
Speaker 1: getting a little carried away. So I think she just
Speaker 1: kind of took this as like, you know, it kind
Speaker 1: of goes along with it. It's gonna happen from time
Speaker 1: to time. And she did get arrested quite a bit,
Speaker 1: but you know, usually without incident. There was one one
Speaker 1: incident in particular, when she rushed the field at an
Speaker 1: Astro's game to kiss Nolan Ryan on the mound. He
Speaker 1: was on the pitcher's mount and she was kissing him
Speaker 1: on the cheek, and she was arrested and she had
Speaker 1: to hire an attorney because she was called to defend
Speaker 1: herself in court. Even though she didn't actually have to
Speaker 1: go through with it, it got far enough that she
Speaker 1: hired this one party killer attorney.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This guy, his name was Richard Haynes. They call him
Speaker 2: the racehorse, and he was, you know, one of those
Speaker 2: sort of show bodie would take wealthy clients accused of
Speaker 2: everything from murder to you know, embezzling and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And apparently one time in court he zapped himself with
Speaker 2: the cattle prode to prove that it wasn't the lethal weapon.
Speaker 3: So he was that kind of guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is where we mentioned that he used
Speaker 2: her bust size as part of the defense because he
Speaker 2: was going to use the gravity defense he called it,
Speaker 2: wherein he would argue that she would just lean over
Speaker 2: the railings as a sports fan, and that her the
Speaker 2: weight of her bust would drag her over the rail
Speaker 2: onto the field. And I guess the court was like,
Speaker 2: oh boy, let's just drop the charges so we don't
Speaker 2: have to go through that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the Houston Sports Association got involved there,
Speaker 1: like this is not a good look for Houston guys.
Speaker 1: Let's just drop this. So they did, and that was
Speaker 1: the one time where she had to go to court,
Speaker 1: was called to court. But that just became part of
Speaker 1: her legend too, the gravity defense. It's like, you can't
Speaker 1: read an article about morgana the kissing bandit and the
Speaker 1: gravity defense not get mentioned. It's just part of her legend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And one of the other things I saw about her
Speaker 1: that I wanted to mention Chuck was she was apparently
Speaker 1: like very crafty. I saw it put that. There was
Speaker 1: one time, in particular, I think in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: she said publicly that she was going to kiss Don
Speaker 1: Mattingly of the Yankees. She's going to go to New
Speaker 1: York for a game, and so everybody was on high
Speaker 1: alert in New York, and while they were doing that,
Speaker 1: she flew to I guess Seattle to kiss the Mari
Speaker 1: nurse catcher, Steve Yeager. So she would use a little
Speaker 1: deflection and sleight of hand. She wasn't above that, which also,
Speaker 1: I mean, this lady was pretty cool.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Scottie Pippen of the Bulls was the last player to
Speaker 2: get that kiss, and that was in the early nineties,
Speaker 2: and then she was in the movie Kingpin and I
Speaker 2: was in a cameo in ninety six. Retired officially in
Speaker 2: two thousand, even though Scottie Pippen was years before that.
Speaker 2: But I don't think we mentioned she made millions of
Speaker 2: bucks off this PERSONA. Yeah, but eventually, you know, like
Speaker 2: all entertainers, even kind of oddball pseudo entertainers, has to
Speaker 2: leave eventually and really went underground. And it's hard to
Speaker 2: find a lot of recent information about her, even though
Speaker 2: we think she is still alive, probably in her late seventies,
Speaker 2: but who knows, because she's never been very truthful about
Speaker 2: her age.
Speaker 1: You got anything else, I got nothing else? Great, Well,
Speaker 1: here's to MORGANA the Kissing Bandit one of the more
Speaker 1: interesting twentieth century figures. Ever Short Stuff Friends Did it Out?
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