30 Rock treated sports like only 30 Rock could.
The show’s sports jokes were wonderfully obscure. Liz Lemon had a theory on the Phillie Phanatic’s gender. Tracy Jordan made the short-sighted decision to sign an endorsement deal with Wade Boggs’ Carpet World. And there were multiple Scottie Pippen mentions.
Like many 30 Rock fans, I wept when Netflix announced was dropping the show for joy when Hulu announced it was picking up the show. As 30 Rock transitions to its new streaming home, it seems to be a good time to honor the hilariously unique way the show mingled with the sports world.
Here is 30 Rock’s full encyclopedia of sports jokes. (This isn’t quite every single sports reference on the show, but every sports joke that was fleshed out a bit). Enjoy, you apple-faced goons.
S1E1: Pilot
Liz Lemon: I moved from Chicago for this.
Tracy Jordan: From Chicago? I was in Scottie Pippen’s wedding.
S1E6: Jack Meets Dennis
Dennis Duffy: I wish I had burned this place down. There’s no reason to live anymore.
Liz: What happened?
Dennis: The Islanders lost tonight.
Liz: Doesn’t that happen a lot?
Dennis: I knew you wouldn’t understand.
S1E7: Tracy Does Conan
Dennis: Look at this ski jumping idiot, Bode Miller. What kind of a fruity name is Bode?
S1E8: The Break-Up
Dennis: When I saw you getting ready to go out and get nailed by a bunch of guys last night, I knew for sure it was over between us. And for the first time since the ‘86 World Series, I cried. I cried like a big dumb homo.
S1E13: Up All Night
Jack Donaghy: Food poisoning? That isn’t possible. That seafood was a gift from my friend, the owner of the Cleveland Browns. They’re very expensive freshwater clams from the… Cuyahoga River.
S1E16: The Source Awards
Frank Rossitano: Ridikolus, the hip-hop producer? Isn’t that the guy that bit Suge Knight?
Tracy: Yeah, yeah. He bit Suge Knight. Held Raven-Symone over a balcony. Made Rasheed Wallace cry. Dude is crazy!
Liz to Floyd DeBarber, who is holding a basketball: What do you got there? The ol’ leather pumpkin?
S1E17: The Fighting Irish
Eddie Donaghy: This is about dad.
Jack: What’d you two dirtbags do now? Fix the Cotton Bowl?
S1E20: Cleveland
Tracy: What have I ever done to embarrass black people?
(Flashback to Tracy stealing a TV)
Dot Com: Why are we doing this?
Tracy: Because the Jets lost!
S2E3: The Collection
Len Wozniak: What about your family? Any skeletons there?
Jack: My brother Eddie sells faulty sprinkler systems to elementary schools. My cousin Tim (Donaghy) fixes NBA games.
S2E5: Greenzo
Tracy: Foxy boxing? I love foxy boxing. It combines my two favorite things: boxing and referees!
Kenneth, while berating people for their ugly behavior at his party: Harlem Globetrotter, does that name mean nothing to you?
S2E7: Cougars
Jack: All you need is someone to point you in the right direction. A role model.
Kid on Tracy’s little league baseball team: Like R. Kelly? And Michael Vick?
Jack: Phil Jackson likes to give books to his players to inspire them. So which biography of Winston Churchill do you think would improve Rashid’s bunting?
S2E8: Secrets and Lies
Tracy: It’s not fair, Liz Lemon. Everyone wins awards except me. Even Shaquille O’Neal got a Kid’s Choice Award for that animated movie we did.
(Tracy and Shaq as cartoon sea creatures)
Tracy: Boy, I hope we rescue the starfish king on this adventure.
Shaq: It would be a slam dunk.
Tracy: Would you call what we did last night sex?
S2E12: Subway Hero
Cerie Xerox: What’s with the trophy?
Dennis: It’s the Stanley Cup, honey, hockey’s ultimate prize. And me and it, we’re teaming up to fight illiteracy.
Dennis, later in the episode: I am a loser. My mall appearance got canceled. The Mighty Ducks are mad at me for leaving the Stanley Cup on a water taxi.
Dennis, describing saving someone from being hit by a subway: My mind, it was so clear. All I could think about was Derek Jeter. And I was like check this out, Jeter. You think you’re better than me?
Dennis: Oh, I’m the loser? Yeah, I’m the one who totally missed catching that puck at the Islanders game. You suck.
Liz: No, you suck. And so do all New York-based sports teams!
Dennis: Liz, don’t say anything you can’t take back.
S3E2: Believe in the Stars
Olympic tetherball, a sport faked to boost U.S. morale.
As was Synchronized Running.
And Tennis Octuplets.
S3E3: The One with the Cast of Night Court
Jack, trying to break things off with Claire: I’ve gotta get out of this. What do other guys do?
Liz: One guy died. Scottie Pippen requested a trade to Houston.
Jack: Houston is too humid. What about this died thing?
S3E9: Retreat to Move Forward
Tracy: There’s no link between diabetes and diet. That’s a white myth, Ken. Like Larry Bird or Colorado.
S3E10: Generalissimo
Tracy, after going out with a bunch of interns: Those white boys are not kidding around. Have you ever tasted scotch? It’s terrible. And this thing they call “box seats at the Rangers game?” it’s so cold!
S3E13: Goodbye, My Friend
Tracy: I don’t have a birth certificate ‘cause I was born in Yankee Stadium.
S3E14: The Funcooker
Dr. Leo Spaceman: We’re currently working on a pill that keeps people awake under any circumstances. It’s being funded by the U.S. military and the WNBA.
S3E18: Jackie Jormp-Jomp
Frank: Has anyone looked at this sexual harassment stuff they gave us?
Tracy: I don’t need to read it. The whole thing is loosely based on the evening I spent with Isiah Thomas.
S3E19: The Ones
Jack, at a club: This is decadent. And I once went to Miami with Darryl Strawberry.
S3E21: Mamma Mia
Jenna: If he wears an Atlanta Falcons jersey to your sister’s wedding, that’s a deal breaker, ladies.
S3E22: Kidney Now!
Jack: We can go to a Yankee game. I have great seats in the section between the players’ wives and the players’ mistresses. But I don’t go on bat day.
Milton Greene: So my son likes baseball. There’s a great sports memorabilia store on Third Avenue. Remember Carlton Fisk’s home run in the ‘75 series?
Jack: That’s this ball?
Milton: No, that’s a ball he fouled off in the third inning.
S4E1: Season Four
Jack: Do you know the song Are You Ready For Some Football?
Jenna: Do I? That’s what plays whenever Ray Lewis calls me.
Jenna recorded the new intro music for Tennis Night in America
S4E4: Audition Day
Jack: Human empathy. It’s as useless as the Winter Olympics. This February on NBC.
S4E5: The Problem Solvers
Danny Baker starred in a movie about Canadian football. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPOS786qBsI
Tracy: When I was first starting out, I made bad business decisions, too. Which is how I got stuck having to plug Wade Boggs’ Carpet World five times whenever I appear on screen.
Liz: You have to plug what?
Tracy: Wade Boggs’ Carpet World. Wade Boggs’ Carpet World. Wade Boggs’ Carpet World.
(Later in the conversation)
Tracy: And one last piece of advice, Liz Lemon, from someone that’s been on this side of the business for a long time: Wade Boggs’ Carpet World.
Sports Shouting.
S4E6: Sun Tea
Dot Com, pretending to be Liz’s boyfriend: I feel angry! Like Warren Moon must’ve felt back in 1995.
Liz: As I have told you many times during our relationship, no one gets that reference.
S4E7: Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001
Jack: There’s a lot of history in Studio 4C: To Catch a Predator, the XFL Halftime Show, storage for broken copier equipment.
S4E8: Secret Santa
A bowl of meat cubes and a photo of Jimmy Connors is how Verdukians celebrate the holidays.
Jack: What do you say I take you and the boys out to dinner? I know a lot of terrific places.
Nancy Donovan: I don’t know. They have their heart set on the ESPN Zone. They’ve been talking about the Hideki Matsui caliente fajitas all week.
S4E10: Black Light Attack!
Danny: I want to be TGS’ Steve Nash. Come down from Canada, work hard, make the black guy look good.
S4E11: Winter Madness
Jack, after reading a text: It’s from Nancy. She said she’s in line behind the female Larry Bird.
Liz: Come on. How is female Larry Bird holding hands with a guy? What am I doing wrong?
(Jack takes picture of Liz)
Liz: What’s that for?
Jack: I’m telling Nancy that I’m with female Kevin McHale.
Tracy, arguing with a John Hancock impersonator in Boston: Don’t let this time-traveling slave owner fool us again!
John Hancock impersonator: Excuse me, John Hancock was a patriot.
Tracy: Then Patriots are overrated.
A nearby group of Patriots fans: Hey! What’d you say about the Patriots?
Tracy: I said they suck!
(Patriots fans come after Tracy)
Tracy: Here come the punches.
Jack: Who cares what people around here think? Your neighbors named their daughter Belichick.
S4E12: Verna
Verna Maroney: I’m throwing her a surprise party, and it’s at a fancy restaurant. So wear something nice, like a pair of white jeans and a Dan Marino jersey.
Jenna, showing up at a restaurant: Hi, I was told I’d get paid if I came here and danced while the Atlanta Hawks eat dinner.
Jack: My mother once won a radio contest to announce the starting lineups at a Red Sox game, and used the opportunity to get me to promise to never put her in a home. What could I do? Carl Yastrzemski was looking right at me.
S4E15: Don Giess, America and Hope
Jack: Kabletown is a great company, even if it is from … (shakes head) Philadelphia.
Liz: Go Eagles! (Throws a snowball at Jack)
Dot Com: Yet another black superstar brought down by his personal life.
Jenna: Just like my favorite golfer, O.J. Simpson.
Jenna: I wish I could help you, but I can’t sleep with a black guy. I’d lose my endorsement deal with Nascar.
S4E16: Floyd
Jenna: That’s amazing, what you said worked. Okay universe, send me a white football player — no kickers or linemen.
S4E17: Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter
Avery Jessup, at a party at Derek Jeter’s apartment: We’re playing beer pong. It’s New York Yankees vs. former mayors. I got 10 grand on the mayors.
S4E19: Argus
Liz: We can’t do her Kardashian sketch because Jack is “bros” with Lamar Odom.
S4E20: The Moms
Margaret Lemon: We met when the girls lived in Chicago.
Verna: You must have me confused with someone else. I have never been to Chicago. (whispers) I sexually assaulted Scottie Pippen in 1997.
S4E21: Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land
Dennis: This is a scientific facility, Liz.
Liz: This is a public park named after Ron Artest.
Liz: I’ve been through every guy, there’s no one left.
Jenna: Come on, you sound like me at the Olympic Village.
S4E22: I Do Do
Carol Burnett: I don’t know what’s going on in this country.
Liz: I know. People wear flip-flops to church. And the NBA tattoo situation is out of control.
S5E1: The Fabian Strategy
Liz: The next time you hallucinate, just tell yourself, “this is not real, I am in control of this.”
Tracy: Like the World Cup.
S5E4: Live Show
Kenneth: A Mr. Brett Fav-re stopped by and dropped off this picture of a hot dog.
Jenna: Finally.
S5E5: Reaganing
Jack: Lemon, please come in. When you’re pitching a perfect game, you don’t walk Albert Pujols. And you are the Albert Pujols of having problems.
Liz, describing a flashback to when she was 9: I was on top of the world with my new skates and my new haircut, which everybody thought was a Dorothy Hamill, but was actually a Pete Rose.
S5E6: Gentleman’s Intermission
Jack: Tracy owns the world’s only giraffe basketball team, the New York Necks.
S5E7: Brooklyn Without Limits
Steve Austin: The government shouldn’t interfere with anything. What happens inside a man’s own rain poncho at a minor league baseball game is his business.
S5E11: Mrs. Donaghy
Danny: What happened to my Montreal Alouettes poster? It’s signed by Marc Trestman!
S5E15: It’s Never Too Late For Now
Jenna: I’m taking you out to rebound sexually.
Liz: What? No.
Jenna: When I’m rebounding, I like to do it with an NBA player, because it’s fun wordplay and they’re mean.
S5E17: Queen of Jordan
Angie Jordan: Are you giving me orders? Am I the waiter? Is this the restaurant I’m opening up with Dennis Rodman and Webster?
Jack: There is nothing gay about the Princeton fight song. (Singing) ?Oh, the merry men of Princeton are charging up the rear, holding all the balls?
S5E18: Plan B
Gay SportsCenter
S5E20: 100
Dennis: Hands off the jacket. It’s from Amar’e Stoudemire evening wear collection.
S5E22: Respawn
Jenna: Remember when I performed at halftime of the Wool Bowl? It was on ESPN34.
S6E1: Dance Like Nobody’s Watching
Liz: I came across the following quote on the side of a tampon box this Christmas: “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching. Enjoy these Satchel Paige brand tampons.”
S6E2: Idiots Are People Two
Jenna: Picking a lock is like riding a bike. They’re both skills you need to escape the Atlanta Falcons’ equipment room.
Criss Cross: Which totally supports your theory that the Phillie Phanatic is biologically a female.
Liz: If you watch those games, that thing totally has a menstrual cycle.
S6E4: The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell
Dot Com: You already have everything. I mean, you just bought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s bones, and he’s not even dead yet.
Jenna: It’s like I’m in a cage, and not the fun kind where you dance while USC football recruits throw hot coins at you.
The Phillie Phanatic showed up and made a cry for help.
S6E6: Hey Baby, What’s Wrong?
Diana Jessup, trying to make things not sexual: Let’s talk about baseball.
Jack: I love baseball. Abner Doubleday.
Diana: The bats are long and hard.
Jack: The gloves are girls.
Diana: Balls!
Jack: Jeter’s thighs in those pants.
Pete: The yips is something that happens to athletes. They get in their heads and stop being able to do stuff they’ve done a million times.
Jenna: Like bet me during a poker game at Tony Romo’s house?
S6E9: Alexis Goodlooking and the Case of the Missing Whiskey
Henry Warren: I can see you’re doing very well for yourself.
Jack: That couch is made from Seabiscuit.
S6E11: St. Patrick’s Day
Dennis: Irish Pride. Go Celtics! Celtics suck! Go Knicks!
S6E12: Grandmentor
Jenna: I want you to hire a giant to stand in the background of every scene I’m in to make me look daintier. It works. It’s why Lamar Odom married that giant Kardashian girl.
Jenna: You think I’m stupid just because my college got tipped over by those Miami Heat fans.
S6E14: The Shower Principle
Tracy, doing his taxes: I forgot I sponsored the dude who won the Tour de France. Add another zero.
S6E16: Meet the Woggles!
Jack: There was no need for us to start jabbering our feelings and sobbing like Bill Belichick listening to Adele.
S6E17: Murphy Brown Lied to Us
Liz: Has anyone ever known a good person named Kevin?
Jack: Kevin Garnett helped me move once.
S6E20: The Return of Avery Jessup
Scott Scottsman: It’s a funny story really. I was working for KSCT in Scottsdale. They sent me to South Korea to do a “where are they now?” on the pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim. Turns out he’s still living in America, and I get kidnapped.
Jack: What do people not want to talk about? Soccer. Jazz. Infidelity.
S6E21: What Will Happen To the Gang Next Year?
Liz: If I’m doing that for you, then I get your Yankees tickets on A-Rod bobblehead day. And I’m going to throw that thing in front of a train. Go Phillies.
S7E1: The Beginning of the End
Jack, discussing the new NBC show God Cop: Watch the pilot, Lemon. It’s all explained in the end by the wise black man played by Karl Malone.
Kenneth: I’ve been living with Hazel for the past few months, and while we haven’t gotten to second base…
Tracy: You mean a threesome with Robinson Cano?
Kenneth: No. I mean sharing a yogurt.
S7E2: Governor Dunston
Liz: How’s tanking NBC going? Is Hank ready to sell?
Jack: Soon he’ll have no choice. Sunday Night Football is just Cleveland Browns games.
Jenna: If you’re only in New York for a few days, find a way to see Amar’e Stoudemire’s penis. It’s worth it.
S7E3: Stride of Pride
Ryan Lochte is Pizzarina Sbarro’s “sex idiot.”
S7E5: There’s No I in America
Liz: I stopped you when you tried to drive us into Lake Michigan because Scottie Pippen got married.
Jack: Miss Lemon, I know Scottie Pippen. I own a Fuddruckers with Scottie Pippen. And you, sir, look like Scottie Pippen.
Jack: When I was a boy, I used to go to Fenway and sell my urine for fans to throw at Mickey Mantle.
S7E6: Aunt Phatso vs. Jack Donaghy
Jack: Lemon, do you think I’m a villain?
Liz: Well I have heard you say “guards, seize him.”
Jack: That was during a Knicks game.
S7E9: Game Over
Octavia Spencer, playing Harriet Tubman in one of Tracy’s movies: This movie cannot take place in Maryland because of my ongoing feud with Cal Ripken.
S7E10: Florida
Jack: Listen to what you’re saying. Colleen Donaghy was gay? She stopped watching the Bruins because Derek Sanderson’s mustache made him look like “he takes his sandwich with a pickle.”
