The only two days of the year in which there are no professional
sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day
after the Major League all-star Game.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
In 1986 Danny Heep became the first player in a World Series to be a designated hitter (DH) with the initials "D.H."
In the four major US professional sports, (Baseball, Basketball,
Football, and Hockey), there are only seven teams whose nicknames do
not end with an "S:" Basketball: The Miami Heat, The Utah Jazz, The
Orlando Magic. Baseball: The Boston Red Sox, The Chicago White Sox.
Hockey: The Colorado valanche, The Tampa Bay Lightning. Football: None.
In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on
the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after
Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first, and
only, home run.
When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers
play football at home to a sellout crowd, the full stadium becomes the
state's third largest city.
"300 million [golf] balls are lost or discarded in the United States alone, every year."
Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool! He changed it every 2 innings!
Kresimir Cosic is only non-American player in NBA Hall of Fame.
In 1986 Danny Heep became the first player in a World Series to be a designated hitter (DH) with the initials "D.H."
Pittsburgh is the only city where all major sports teams have the same colors: Black and gold.
"Diddle for the middle" is a slang expression used for the start of a
darts game. Opposing players each throw a single dart at the bull's
eye. The person who is closest starts the game.
Fastest round of
golf (18 holes) by a team - 9 minutes and 28 seconds. Set at Tatnuck
CC in Worcester in September 9, 1996 at 10:40am.
Frank Mahovlich
played for 3 different teams during his NHL career: Toronto, Detroit,
and Montreal. For all three, he wore the number 27.
Honey was used as a center for golf balls and in antifreeze mixtures.
Before 1850, golf balls were made of leather and were stuffed with feathers.
Golfing great Ben Hogan's famous reply when asked how to improve one's game was: "Hit the ball closer to the hole."
Americans spend more than $630 million a year on golf balls.
The oldest player to score his age is C. Arthur Thompson (1869-1975) of
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, who scored 103 on the Uplands
course of 6,215 yd, age 103 in 1973.
The Tom Thumb golf course
was the first miniature golf course in the United States. It was built
it 1929 in Chattanooga, Tennessee by John Garnet Carter.
The
Chinese Nationalist Golf Association claims the game is of Chinese
origin (ch'ui wan - the ball hitting game) in the third or 2nd century
BC. There were official ordinances prohibiting a ball game with clubs
in Belgium and Holland from 1360.
Two golf clubs claim to be the
first established in the United States: the Foxberg Golf Club, Clarion
County, PA (1887) and St. Andrews Golf Club of Yonkers, NY (1888).
The youngest golfer recorded to have shot a hole-in-one is Coby Orr (5
years) of Littleton, CO on the 103 yd fifth at the Riverside Golf
Course, San Antonio, TX in 1975.
The United States Golf Association (USGA) was founded in 1894 as the governing body of golf in the United States.
Golf-great Billy Casper turned golf pro during the Korean War while
serving in the Navy. Casper was assigned to operate and build golf
driving ranges for the Navy in the San Diego area.
Before 1859, baseball umpires were seated in padded chairs behind home plate.
In 1910, A baseball with a cork center was used in a World Series game
for the first time. The Philadelphia Athletics (managed by Connie Mack)
and the Chicago Cubs (managed by P.K. Wrigley) played for the
championship.
Roger Bannister was the first man to break the
four-minute mile, however he did not break the four-minute mile in an
actual race. On May 6, 1954, he ran 3:59.4 while being carefully paced
by other runners. Bannister's quarter-mile splits were 57.5 seconds,
60.7, 62.3, and 58.9. Twenty-three days after Bannister had run the
most famous mile of all time, his fellow Briton, Diane Leather, became
the first woman to break five minutes with a 4:59.6 seconds, in
Birmingham, England, on May 29, 1954. In the forty-plus years since the
two British runners broke these significant marks, women's times have
improved by a far higher percentage than men's.
Mark McGwire's record-setting 70 home runs in the 1998 season traveled a total of 29,598 feet.
A regulation soccer games is 90 minutes.
Ten events make up the decathlon. Billiards great, Henry Lewis once sank 46 balls in a row.
Golf-great Billy Casper turned golf pro during the Korean War while
serving in the Navy. Casper was assigned to operate and build golf
driving ranges for the Navy in the San Diego area.
Four men in the history of boxing have been knocked out in the first eleven seconds of the first round.
Mark McGwire's record-setting 70 home runs in the 1998 season traveled a
total of 29,598 feet, enough to fly over Mount Everest.
Prior to 1900, prize fights lasted up to 100 rounds.
Not all Golf Balls have 360 dimples. There are some as high as 420. Thereare also all different kinds of dimple patterns.
Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.
In July 1934 Babe Ruth paid a fan $20 dollars for the return of the baseball he hit for his 700th career home run.
Horse racing is one of the most dangerous
sports. Between 2 and 3 jockeys are killed each year. That's about how
many baseball players have died in baseball's entire professional
history.
Bulgaria was the only soccer team in the 1994 World Cup in which all 11 players' last names ended with the letters "OV."
Gene Sarazen, a golfer from several generations ago, set the record for the fastest golf drive: 120 mph.
Michael Sangster, who played in the 1960s, had tennis' fastest serve, once clocked at 154 mph.
In 1964, for the 10th time in his career, Mickey Mantle hit home runs from both sides of he plate in he same game, a record
The home team must provide officials with 36 footballs for each NFL game.
The silhouette on the Major League Baseball logo is Harmon Killebrew
Superfly Jimmy Snuka was the first E.C.W. World Champ.
A regulation soccer games is 90 minutes.
Ten events make up the decathlon.
63 errors were made in the 1886 World Series.
There are 2,598,960 possible hands in 5-card poker
The official sport of Maryland is jousting.
Golfers use an estimated $800 million worth of golf balls annually.
In 1970, 127 runners ran the NY Marathon. In 1998, 32,000 did.
Until the 1870s, baseball was played without the use of gloves.
The striped billiard balls weight .1 ounces or so more than the solids.
The average lifespan of a Major League baseball is five to seven pitches. The five Olympic rings represent the continents.
The Indianapolis 500 is run on Memorial Day.
O.J. Simpson rushed for 2,003 yards in 1973.
Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Olympics.
Three consective strikes in bowling is called a turkey.
The theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters is "Sweet Georgia Brown."
Tokyo has the world's biggest bowling alley.
Canada beat Denmark 47-0 at the 1949 world hockey championships.
Six bulls are killed in a formal bullfight.
Boxing is considered the easiest sport for gamblers to fix.
In 1870, British boxing champ Jim Mace and American boxer Joe Coburn
fought for three hours and 48 minutes without landing one punch.
Professional sumo wrestlers, called rikishi, must be quick on their
feet and supple, but weight is vital to success as they hurl themselves
at their opponents, aiming to floor them or push them outside the
15-foot fighting circle.
To bulk up, rikishi eat huge portions
of protein-rich stews called chankonabe, packed with fish or meat and
vegetables, plus vast quantities of less healthful foods, including
fast food. They often force themselves to eat when they are full, and
they have a nap after lunch, thus acquiring flab on top of their strong
muscles, which helps to keep their center of gravity low.
The
average rikishi tips the scales at about 280 pounds, but in 1988 the
heaviest sumo westler ever recorded weighed in at a thundering 560
pounds.
The 1900 Olympics were held in Paris, France.
The Miami Dolphins were the last NFL team to go through a season unbeaten.
The city of Denver was chosen to host and then refused the 1976 Winter Olympics.
Baseball's home plate is 17 inches wide.
Table tennis was originally played with balls made from champagne corks
and paddles made from cigar-box lids. It was created in the 1880s by
James Gibb, a British engineer who wanted an invigorating game he could
play indoors when it was raining. Named "Gossima," the game was first
marketed with celluloid balls, which replaced Gibb's corks. After the
equipment manufacturer renamed the game "Ping-Pong" in 1901, it became a
hot seller.
Scientists have estimated a fly ball will travel
about seven feet further for every 1,000 feet of altitude. With an
approximate elevation of 1,100 feet, Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix,
Arizona is the second highest facility in the major baseball leagues;
only Coors Field in Denver, Colorado is higher.
Around the 16th century the Yo-Yo was used by Philipinos to stun prey from trees.
No high jumper has ever been able to stay off the ground for more than one second.
Brazil is the only country to have played in every World Cup soccer tournament.
Reggie Jackson holds the major league record for most strikeouts with 2,597.
Houston's Bob Watson scored Major League Baseball's 1,000,000th run on May 4, 1975.
JFK's golf clubs sold for $772,500 at a 1996 auction. The buyer was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The largest baseball card collection, 200,000 cards, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The 1900 Olympics were held in Paris, France.
The Miami Dolphins were the last NFL team to go through a season unbeaten.
The city of Denver was chosen to host and then refused the 1976 Winter Olympics.
Baseball is the only sport that looks backwards in a mirror.
Baseball rules were codified in 1846 by Alexander Cartwright of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club.
Baseball's home plate is 17 inches wide.
Baseball's National League was born in 1876. Eight competing baseball
teams met in New York City's Grand Central Hotel. The first president
of the new league was Morgan Gardner Bulkeley, who later became a US
Senator. The eight original cities with teams were: Boston, Chicago,
Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Louisville and Hartford.
Two of the original teams are now in the American League (Boston and
New York) while Louisville and Hartford are now minor-league baseball
towns.
On a bingo card of ninety numbers there are approximately 44 million ways to make B-I-N-G-O.
The first golf car was invented in the late 1940s strictly for people with disabilities.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, an avid golfer, had a putting green installed on the White House lawn.
Baseball's home plate is 17 inches wide.
Bowlers are allowed to have a maximum of five finger grip holes on a regulation bowling ball.
Tennis pro Evonne Goolagong's last name means "kangaroo's nose" in Australia's aboriginal language.
On average, 42,000 balls are used and 650 matches are played at the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament.
The motto for the Olympic Games is Citius Altius Fortius. Translated, it means Faster Higher Stronger.
Jerry West was the model for the official NBA logo. His silhouette appears dribbling a basketball.
Fuzzy Zoeller defeated Tom Watson and Ed Sneed in the first sudden-death playoff at The Masters in 1979.
Pearl Jam's first album, 10, was named in tribute of basketball player Mookie Blaylock who's number is 10
The word "coach" is derived from the village of Kocs, Hungary, where coaches were invented and first used.
Green Bay Packers backup quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, has been struck by lightning twice in his life.
There are nine rooms on a 'Clue' game board.
A forfeited baseball game is recorded as a 9-0 score.
Michael Jordan has more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Steve Young, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, is the great-great-grandson of Mormon leader Brigham Young.
When Babe Ruth played baseball, he wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool on hot days.
Golf was banned in England in 1457 because it was considered a distraction from the serious pursuit of archery.
The minimum number of darts that need to be thrown to complete a single in, double out game of 501 is nine.
Moses Malone was the first basketball player to go directly from high school to a professional American team.
Babe Ruth hit his first major-league home run on May 6, 1915. He was
playing for the Boston Red Sox at the time. 'The Sultan of Swat' went
on to smash 714 round-trippers before he retired, as a New York Yankee,
in 1935.
Babe Ruth was able to throw two baseballs in such a
way that the balls remained parallel to each other all the way from his
hand to the catcher's glove. Ruth was famous for this stunt and would
demonstrate it on request.
Olympic badminton rules say that the bird has to have exactly fourteen feathers.
Olympic pools are 50 meters long.
Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4 in the first ever college football game. At the time, a touchdown was worth only two points.
Bulgaria was the only soccer team in the 1994 World Cup in which all 11 players' last names ended with the letters "OV."
What modern day board game is based on a game called Halma invented by the Victorians in the 19th century? Chinese Checkers.
Hacky Sack was invented by a football player in the mid 1970's who used it to stregthen tendons he had torn in his knee.
A scrum in rugby is equivalent of a hockey face-off, except that it involves all playing the forward position on both teams.
Belgian driver Jenatzy was the first to reach a speed of over 100km/h
in his electrically powered car 'La Jamais Contente' in 1899.
In the 1905 football season, 18 men were killed in college games in the United States, and 159 more were permanently injured.
Bullfrog Dietrich of the Chicago White Sox was the first pitcher to
throw a no-hitter while wearing eyeglasses. He did it in 1937.
'Vaimonkanto' or 'Wife Carrying' is a sports event. The 'Carry an Old
Gel' championship games are held anually in Sonkajarvi, Finland.
Five NFL teams have bird nicknames: Arizona Cardinals, Philadelphia
Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks.
The average marathon runner's heart beats about 175 times per minute
during a race. A typical adult's heart beats 68 times a minute at rest
Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith. He set out to invent
a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons.
The New York Yankees have won the most champoinships (26 times) in
their respected sport (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL) for any professional sports
team.
The five interlocking Olympic rings are black, blue, red,
green, and yellow because at least one of these colors appears on
every national flag.
Only six baseball teams remain from the original National League, which was founded in 1876.
Over 80% of professional boxers have suffered brain damage.
Muhammad Ali won his heavyweight championships on three continents: North America, Asia and Africa.
Frederick Winthrop Thayer of Massachusetts and the captain of the
Harvard University Baseball Club received a patent for his baseball
catcher's mask on February 12, 1878.
The only two days of the
year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or
NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars
Game.
When Henry Aaron hit his 715th Home Run, breaking Babe
Ruth's record, the pitcher who served it up was Al Downing of the Los
Angeles Dodgers. They were both wearing number 44.
In 1968,
Steve McPeak traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles on a unicycle. The
trip took him six weeks, but he planned for the long bike journey. He
brought an extra tire and a spare heinie.
Before 1859, baseball umpires were seated in padded chairs behind home plate.
Before 1917, goalies (in hockey) were not allowed to fall to the ice to make saves or else they were penalized.
The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
Table tennis balls have been known to travel off a paddle at speeds up to 160 km/hr (approx. 100mph).
Tessenjutsu is a deadly martial art in Japan that is based solely on the use of a fan.
The "huddle" in football was formed due a deaf football player who used
sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition
to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.
The 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles was the first time the three-level winner's stand was used for the medal ceremony.
The State of Nevada first legalized gambling in 1931. At that same
time, the Hoover Dam was being built and the federal government did not
want its workers (who earned 50 cents an hour) to be involved with such
diversions, so they built the town of Boulder City to house the dam
workers. To this day, Boulder City is the only city in Nevada where
gambling is illegal. Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall and 660 feet thick at
its base. Enough rock was excavated in its construction to build the
Great Wall of China. Contrary to old wives' tales, no workers were
buried in the dam's cement.
Mike Greenwell of the Boston Red Sox
holds the major league record for the most RBIs that accounted for all
of his team's runs. In 1996, he batted in nine runs in a game against
the Seattle Mariners.
In gambling language, for a gambling
house a "sure-thing" is a wager that a player has little chance of
winning; "easy money" is their profit from an inexperienced bettor, an
unlucky player is called a "stiff."
The oldest tennis court in the world is the one built at Hampton Court in 1530 for Henry VIII.
The Olympic Games were held in St. Louis, MO. In 1904, the first time that the games were held in the United States.
Dr. George F. Grant received U.S. patent number 638,920 on December 12,
1899. His invention? The golf tee. He created it because he didn't
want to get his hands dirty by building a mound of dirt to place his
ball on.
The world's biggest trap (called a bunker in Europe)
is Hell's Half Acre on the 535 m 585 yd seventh hole of the Pine Valley
course, Clementon, NJ, built in 1912 and generally regarded as the
world's most trying course.
The original name for basketball,
as invented by Dr. James Naismith, was indoor rugby. It was one of the
game's first players that started calling it basketball because of the
peach baskets that acted as the original goals.
The Vince Lombardi Trophy is awarded to the winners of the Super Bowl.
The word "checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "The King Is Dead."
The word "karate" means "empty hand."
In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on
the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after
Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first, and
only, home run.
The Four Horsemen of the Fighting Irish of
Notre Dame played together for the last time in 1925, as the Irish
downed Stanford in the Rose Bowl, 27-10. The Four Horsemen were Jim
Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher.
Olympic testing of athletes for anabolic steroids began in 1976.
A pole vaulter, when he lands, may absorb up to 20,000 pounds of
pressure per square inch on the joints of his tubular thigh bones.
A Portsmouth, Ohio law ranks baseball players with "vagrants, thieves and other suspicious characters."
At Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Florida, on June 26, 1985,
organist Wilbur Snapp played "Three Blind Mice" following a call by
umpire Keith O'Connor.
The umpire was not amused, and saw to it that Mr. Snapp was ejected from the game.
On May 25, 1957, two men with the same name scored holes in one on the
same golf course. Edward Chapman got a hole in one on the eighth hole
at Richmond, Surrey in England. Later that day, Edward Chapman hit one
from from the sixth tee.
Pitcher Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati
Reds hurled his first major-league game in 1944. Nuxhall, the youngest
pitcher in major league baseball, was only 15 years, 10 months and 11
days old when he pitched that game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The first formal rules for playing baseball required the winning team to score 21 runs.
The first Kentucky Derby was run at Churchill Downs in 1875 with Aristides as winner.
The first modern Olympiad was held in Athens in 1896. 484 contestants from 13 nations participated.
In the opening procession of the Olympics, the team representing the host nation always marches last.
Arnold Palmer was the first player to win $1 million on the PGA Tour.
The
name of the popular sports drink Gatorade was named for
the University of Florida Gators where it was developed.
The ancient Greeks awarded celery to winners of sports events.
On average, 42,000 balls are used and 650 matches are played at the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament.
In the game of craps, the slang term "Little Phoebe" refers to a roll of 5 on the dice.
Left-handed
people are better at sports that require good
spatial judgment and fast reaction, compared to right-handed
individuals.
Soccer legend Pele's real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento.
No high jumper has ever been able to stay off the ground for more than one second.
The national sport of Japan is sumo wrestling.
Racecar driver Lee Petty once left a pitstop and did a full lap with a pit crew member still on the hood.
Soccer gave us the term "melee." It means a "confused mass".
Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, once pinned an opponent using only a single finger.
Tiger
Woods is the first athlete to have been named
"Sportsman of the Year" by magazine Sports Illustrated two
times.
According to manufacturer Spalding, the average lifespan of an NBA basketball is 10,000 bounces.
The average height of an NBA basketball player is 6 feet 7 inches.
A pro volleyball player can spike the ball at 80 miles per hour.
Three consecutive strikes in bowling is called a turkey.
Sharunas Marchulenis was the first Soviet basketball player to join the NBA.
