EARTH DAY: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GREEN IN SPORTS

1604: The word "leprechaun," which will eventually become the most renowned green-linked mascot in America , debuts in the book The Honest Whore (WOW!) by Middleton and Dekker.

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"Dance for me, boy!"

1744: British publication A Little Pretty Pocket Book (note: not authored by Reese Witherspoon) shows boys playing "base-ball" on grass fields, with a set-up roughly similar to the modern game. Green baseball is born!

1892: Walter Camp, known as the "Father of American Football," is seen to have single-handedly fashioned the game of modern American football — played on green surfaces, with men bashing each other's skulls in. Green American football now born!

1892: Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads is published, containing the first noted use of the word "rookie." (Y'er green!)

1906: Ty Cobb receives "lucrative" $1,500 rookie contract for the season. (After the 1908 season, he racked $5,000 a year.) That's a lot of green. Er, for then anyway.

1919: Babe Ruth demands a raise to $20,000 per, which would have been double his previous salary. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee had two offers on the table: the White Sox were offering Shoeless Joe Jackson and $60,000 (Ken Williams just read that sentence and guffawed loudly), and the Yankees were offering $100,000. We all know what happened there. You saw Fever Pitch, right? ("Green" correlation: some websites claim Drew Barrymore pulled down $10 million for that flick)

1946: The Boston Celtics, arguably the most successful pro franchise to incorporate green into their unis, are formed.

1949: Augusta National awards its first green jacket, to Mr. Sam Snead.

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"Were you born in that color, brah?"

1957: Norman Rockwell's famed Saturday Evening Post cover of "The Rookie" hits newsstands.

1964: James Paterson, an employee of Monsanto, decides to invent AstroTurf, which, while destroying the purity of baseball's greenness, certainly makes Houston a more relevant sporting city. The first place to ever use AstroTurf, by the way? The Moses Brown School in Providence.

1969: Joe Namath proves the predictive power of green as he leads the Jets over the Colts in Super Bowl III.

1974: Rasheed Wallace born! (Sorry, we had to!)

1975: Alex Rodriguez born! He will completely redefine normal accumulation of green things within 30 years.

1991: The Minnesota North Stars , which had a losing record (!) during the regular season and are on the verge of being contracted, reach the Stanley Cup Finals in improbable fashion, ultimately losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games. Still, the power of green is on display for all!

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These seats will set you back a dime or two.

1998: The Tulane Green Wave, quarterbacked by current ESPN feller Shaun King, finish the season undefeated by defeating BYU in the Liberty Bowl.

2005: Average cost for a family of four to hit Fenway Park? $276.24, the most ever on Fan Cost Index. Green Monster, indeed.

2007: The Dartmouth Big Green capture their first NCAA team championship in 21 years by grabbing the Men's Skiing brass ring.

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