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Crap
About Sports
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The following
are all of the Weekly Droppings that have appeared on
Mindless Crap, dating back to the first one posted on
October 1, 2000.
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A modern archer is called a toxophilite, which come from
the Greek word "toxon," meaning bow. |
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The official distance of a marathon is 26 miles, 385
yards. |
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Baseball legend Connie Mack's real name was
Cornelius McGillicuddy. |
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In 1910 a football team was penalized 15 yards for an
incomplete forward pass. |
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There is a contest called foot-bow archery which
requires a person to lie on your back, string the bow
and push out the wooden part of the bow with your feet.
The record arrow for this event traveled one mile, 304
feet and nine inches. |
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The first World Series played entirely on artificial
turf was the 1980 match-up between the Philadelphia
Phillies and the Kansas City Royals. |
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O.J. Simpson had a severe case of rickets and wore leg
braces when he was a child. |
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There has never been an NCAA Basketball Tournament in
which all four No. 3 seeds have advanced to the Sweet
Sixteen. |
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There are 108
stitches on an official major league baseball. |
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Heavyweight
boxing champion Gene Tunney lectured on Shakespeare at
Yale University. |
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During the 1905
football season at least nineteen players died in
college and high school games. |
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Volleyball was
invented in a YMCA in Holyoke, MA in 1895. William
George Morgan, its inventor originally called the game "mintonette,"
and the game was played by hitting a basketball over a
rope. |
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Golf
clubs today are referred to by their numbers, but they
once had names:
Woods: 1 - driver; 2 - brassie; 3 - spoon; 4 - cleek.
Irons: 1 - driving iron; 2 - midiron; 3 - mid mashie;
4 - mashie iron; 5 - mashie; 6 - spade mashie; 7 -
mashie niblick; 8 - lofter or pitcher; 9 - niblick; 10
- wedge.
The putter has always been the putter. |
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| A
jai-alai ball is harder and heavier than a golf
ball, about three-quarters the size of a baseball, and
made out of pure rubber covered by goat skin. |
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| Basketball
is the only major sport entirely of American origin. |
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| In
Thailand, kite flying is a professional sport with
established teams, umpires, official rules and a
national championship. The competition involves
fighting between kites controlled by teams of up to 20
men. |
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| Tommy
McDonald, a receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, was
the last NFL player to wear a helmet without a face
mask. |
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| No
high jumper has ever been able to stay off the ground
for more than one second. |
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| The
fuzz on a tennis ball is intentionally included as a
way to give the ball some definite action when it hits
the court. It also slows the flight of the ball
through the air. |
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| The
symbols used on playing cards were supposed to
represent the four classes of men: hearts represented
the clergy; spades (from the Spanish word espada, or
sword) represented the warriors; clubs were originally
leaves and represented the peasants; and citizens and
merchants were recognized in the diamonds. |
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| 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. |
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| Houston's
Bob Watson scored Major League Baseball's
1,000,000th run on May 4, 1975. |
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| In
the 1905 football season, 18 men were killed in
college games in the United States, and 159 more were
permanently injured. |
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| The
oldest tennis court in the world is the one built at
Hampton Court in 1530 for Henry VIII. |
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| The
five interlocking Olympic rings are black, blue, red,
green, and yellow because at least one of these colors
appears on every national flag. |
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| During
the baseball rivalries between the two major leagues
in the 1890s, the Pittsburgh Nationals took advantage
of a technicality and signed a player away from another
club. The Nationals' president, J. Palmer O'Neill, was
called J. "Pirate" O'Neill, and his club became
the Pittsburgh Pirates. |
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| It
wasn't until 1913 that sports teams started using numbers
on players' jerseys for identfication. It first happened
during a football game between the University of Chicago
and the University of Wisconsin. |
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| Fuzzy
Zoeller defeated Tom Watson and Ed Sneed in the first
sudden-death playoff at The Masters in 1979. |
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| The
first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 was
Janet Guthrie in 1977. |
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| Aristedes
won the first Kentucky Derby in 1875. |
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| The
final score in the game that Wilt Chamberlain scored
100 points was Warriors 169 - Knicks 147. |
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| Man
O' War lost only one race in his career. It happened
in 1919 to a horse named Upset. |
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| In
1985, Pete Rose became the first professional athlete
to appear on the front of a Wheaties box. |
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| Jerry
West was the model for the official NBA logo.
His silhouette appears dribbling a basketball. |
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| The
Montreal Canadians of the mid-1950s are the only team
to win five straight Stanley Cup championships. |
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| Bowlers
are allowed to have a maximum of five finger grip
holes on a regulation bowling ball. |
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| The
1932 Olympics in Los Angeles was the first time the
three-level winner's stand was used for the medal ceremony. |
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| The
maximum length allowed for a baseball bat in the major
leagues is 42 inches. |
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| Muhammad
Ali won his heavyweight championships on three continents:
North America, Asia and Africa. |
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| Moses
Malone was the first basketball player to go directly
from high school to a professional American team. |
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| In
July 1934, Babe Ruth paid the fan who caught his 700th
career home run ball $20 to get it back. |
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| Only
six baseball teams remain from the original National
League, which was founded in 1876. |
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| The
first perfect game in baseball history was achieved
by John Lee Richmond on June 12, 1880. |
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| The
earliest recorded Olympic Games result was from
the 180 meter sprint in the 776 B.C. The winner was
a man named Coroebus. |
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| The
most common injury in bowling is a sore thumb. |
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| Roger
Bannister of Great Britain was the first man to run
a mile in under four minutes. On May 6, 1954, he ran
the mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. |
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| A
soccer ball has 32 panels. |
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| The
first reference to a monetary prize in a horse race
was offered by Richard
I in 1195. |
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| The
board game Monopoly was originally rejected by Parker
Brothers, who claimed it had 52 fundamental errors. |
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| Bullfrog
Dietrich of the Chicago White Sox was the first pitcher
to throw a no-hitter while wearing eyeglasses.
He did it in 1937. |
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| The
motto for the Olympic Games is Citius - Altius - Fortius.
Translated, it means Faster - Higher - Stronger. |
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| Reggie
Jackson holds
the major league record for most strikeouts with 2,597. |
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| Paul
Hornung holds
the NFL record for the most points in a single season.
He scored 176 points in 1960. |
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| The
Iditarod Dogsled
Race got its name from Iditarod, a small mining village
along the race's route. The race commemorates an emergency
operation in 1925 to get medical supplies to Nome, Alaska
following a diphtheria epidemic. |
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| NASCAR
stands for
National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. |
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| The
Stanley Cup
came from the Governor General of Canada from 1888 to
1893, Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley. Stanley was a fan
of hockey and presented a trophy to be contested by
the best amateur hockey team in Canada. The amateur
HNA would later become to NHL in 1917. |
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| Lou
Gehrig earned
a total of $316,000 during his 17 year career with the
New York Yankees. In 1992, a fan paid $363,000 for a
Yankee jersey that Gehrig wore during the 1927 season. |
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| 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. |
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| Only
three horses who had never previously won a race earned
their first victories at the Kentucky Derby. They
were Buchanan in 1884, Sir Barton in 1919 and Brokers
Tip in 1933. |
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| 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. |
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| The
first formal rules for playing baseball required the
winning team to score 21 runs. |
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| The
song Take Me Out to the Ballgame was written
by Jack Norworth and Albert von Tilzer. |
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| 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. |
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| The
first Super Bowl was broadcasted by two networks: CBS
and NBC. |
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| In
1987, Ron Hextall of the Philadelphia Flyers became
the first NHL goalie to score a goal. Actually, Ron Hextall was the first NHL goalie to
score a goal by shooting the puck towards the opposing
team's net in 1987. Billy Smith was the first goalie
credited with a goal in 1979 when his clearing pass
hit an opposing skater and went into the other team's
goal.
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| Before
1850, golf balls were made of leather and were stuffed
with feathers. |
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| George
Hancock invented a new game on November 30, 1887.
It was played like baseball, except a broomstick was
used for a bat and a boxing glove was the ball.
Since the game was played indoors, it was originally
called "indoor." Walter Hakanson later
renamed it "softball." |
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| Lacrosse
was invented by American Indians. |
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| A
total of 63 errors were made in the 1886 World Series. |
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| Seven
thousand years ago, the ancient Egyptians bowled on
alleys similar to the ones in use today. |
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| The
longest recorded gloved boxing match took place in 1893.
Andy Bowen and Jack Burke fought for more than 7 hours.
After 110 rounds, the fight was declared a draw because
both Bowen and Burke were too exhausted to continue. |
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| Sometime
around 1050 some English boys looking for a diversion
blew up an old cow bladder and began to kick it around.
The new game would go on to be called soccer. |
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| The
only
loss Packers' coach Vince Lombardi ever suffered in
the postseason was to the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-13,
in the 1960 NFL championship game. |
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| Sandy
Koufax threw a no-hitter in four consecutive seasons
between1962-65. He's the only player to throw no-hitters
in more than two straight seasons. |
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| Five
NFL teams have bird nicknames: Arizona Cardinals, Philadelphia
Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens and Seattle
Seahawks. |
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| Rutgers
beat Princeton 6-4 in the first ever college football
game. At the time, a touchdown was worth only two points. |
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| Chris
Ford of the the Boston Celtics sank the NBA's first
three-point shot in 1979. |
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| The
minimum number of darts that need to be thrown to complete
a single in, double out game of 501 is nine. |
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| It's
a diverse world we live in. In the U.S., football, basketball
and baseball are the three most watched sports on TV.
In England, the top three most viewed are soccer, Formula
One auto racing and boxing. In Russia, it's soccer,
ice hockey and boxing. And in China, it's soccer, table
tennis and swimming. |
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| Including
the 2000 World Series, there have been only three meetings
between teams from the same city: 1906 (Cubs vs. White
Sox), 1944 (Cardinals vs. Browns) and 2000 (Mets vs.
Yankees). |
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| In
1908, figure skating became the first winter sport to
be included in the Olympics. |
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| The
first place winners at the first modern Olympics were
awarded an olive branch and a silver medal. The runners-up
received laurel sprigs and copper medals. |
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| Greece
and Australia are the only countries to participate
in all of the modern Olympics. |
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