Sad Sports Drink News

I didn't really want to start the after-Thanksgiving posts with sad news, but Gatorade inventor Robert Cade died today at the age of 80. The drink that he and his researchers developed back in 1965 started a whole new industry that breaks sales records every year.

This story at SI.com has some good background on the development of the now ubiquitous sports drink, including how it tasted at first:

"It sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner," said Dana Shires, one of the researchers.

"I guzzled it and I vomited," Cade said.

Dr. Cade was featured in this recent commercial starring sportscaster Keith Jackson:



"Naturally, we called our stuff Gatorade."