Is it just me or is everybody obsessed with sports right now. The NFL’s leading the pack, but Caitlin Clark and the WNBA is running a close second. A few weeks ago, I posted a trivia quiz, and the response was excellent. Today’s post will be another quiz but totally dedicated to sports, sports fans, and trivia nerds like me. Let’s see how you do . . .
Sachel Paige
What pitcher made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame with a 28-31 major league win-loss record? The legendary Satchel Page, who played pro ball for 22 years reportedly winning more than 2000 of the 2500 games he pitched – before joining the majors in 1949 at the age of 42.
Who was the famous great-great-great-grandfather of San Francisco 49er quarterback Steve Young? Mormon leader Brigham Young.
What was Babe Ruth’s won-loss record as a big-league pitcher? 94-46
Why did the Cincinnati Reds baseball team send an autographed second-base bag to cowboy movie star Roy Rogers? The redbrick tenement that was his boyhood home once stood on the site of second base at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium.
Babe Ruth
To boost his chances of retrieving a home-run ball, what baseball loving movie star paid $6537 for several hundred seats behind the left-field fence for a 1996 game at Anaheim Stadium? Charlie Sheen, who attended the game with three friends. They came up empty-handed when no homers were hit their way.
What Olympic requirement was waived for Princess Anne when she competed as an equestrian in the 1976 Summer games in Montréal? She was the only female competitor not given a chromosome DNA test.
Princess Anne 1976
How many field goals and how many free throws did basketball great Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain make in his famous 100-point game in 1962? Chamberlain, playing for the Philadelphia Warriors, scored 36 field goals and 28 free throws against the New York Knickerbockers in that historic game.
In 1927, when Babe Ruth hit his 60 home runs, two of those home runs were hit off a pitcher who was later elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Who was this multitalented individual? Ernie Nevers, who played baseball for the St. Louis Browns in 1926, 27 and 28 and football for the Duluth Eskimos in 1926 and 27, and then the Chicago Cardinals in 1929, 30 and 31.
Who was the first major league pitcher to be selected Most Valuable Player and also win the Cy Young Award in the same year? Don Newcomb, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1956
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Well, how did you do? I have to admit these were some difficult trivia questions. I was disappointed with myself when I only scored two correct answers.
For many years I’ve considered myself a true “foodie”. I’ve always made a point to try damn near anything called food. Of course, that has changed dramatically as I’ve aged. Truthfully, I don’t really miss my entrees of “dog soup” and “cat spring rolls” I once tried in Korea. So, when I started collecting odd facts and trivia, food always seems to be mentioned in some fashion. Here are a few little-known facts about food I’ve collected. How many have your heard before?
What is the name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box? Bingo.
What is the American name for the British delicacy known as trotters? Pig’s feet.
Under US government regulations, what percentage of peanut butter has to be peanuts? 90%.
Who originally coined the phrase that has been appropriated as the slogan for Maxwell House coffee; “Good to the last drop”? President Theodore Roosevelt
What recipe did Texas ice cream maker Elmer Doolin buy for a $100 from the owner of a San Antonio café in 1933 and later used to make a fortune? The recipe for tasty corn chips that was later marketed as Fritos. He made them at night in his mother’s kitchen and peddled them from his Model-T Ford.
A California winemaker from Napa Valley once named a wine in honor of Marilyn Monroe. What was it called? Marilyn Merlot.
What food product was discovered because of a long camel ride? Cottage cheese. An Arab trader found that milk he was carrying in a goatskin bag had turned into a tasty solid white curd.
Peter Cooper, best known for inventing the locomotive “Tom Thumb”, patented a dessert in 1845. What was it? A gelatin treat that eventually became known as Jell-O when it was marketed in 1897.
In 1867 Emperor Napoleon III had a chemist develop a food product “for the army, navy, and the needy classes of the population.” What was it? Margarine.
What was the drink we know as the Bloody Mary originally called? The Red Snapper, which was it’s name when it crossed the Atlantic from Harry’s New York Bar in Paris.
I’m quietly sitting here trying to decide what football team I should post about. I won’t post about the Pittsburgh Steelers because they’re just too awesome for this website. But unfortunately, Fall is football time and I’m starting to get the bug in a big way. In recent weeks I watched some good games, some bad games, and some ridiculously bad games. I thought I’d do some research to see if I can find any games that weren’t all that good in past years. Here is what I found.
This is about the game between Georgia Tech and Cumberland college. Sometimes colleges schedule games that are complete mismatches where one of the teams has absolutely no chance of winning. This was the worst loss I could find. It was October 7, 1916, and Cumberland was in big trouble.
Georgia Tech was coached by the great Johnny Heisman, for whom the Heisman Trophy was named. Cumberland, a tiny school, was located at Lebanon, Tennessee, and had a total enrollment of only 178 students. The Cumberland team agreed to play only because Tech promised a cash guarantee for money that would help support future football at their school. But within a few minutes the Cumberland players regretted they had ever agreed.
The slaughter began almost immediately. After one quarter, Georgia Tech had scored nine touchdowns and led 63-0. At the end of the half the score was 126-0. Georgia Tech scored whenever and however they pleased. Once Ev Strupper, who scored six touchdowns in the game, ran the ball to the goal line, then stopped and put the ball down on the one-yard line. He wanted his teammate, Canty Alexander, to carry the ball over the goal line to get credit for the score. After scoring 126 points in the first half, Georgia Tech let up a little and scored only 96 points in the second half.
I’m reasonably sure that most of us are familiar with the saying “Kilroy was here.” I’m also sure that most of us (especially non-military folk) haven’t a clue where it came from and how it’s managed to survive since its creation early in World War II. Here’s part of that story . . .
The exact creation of this image has never been discovered. It began appearing early in World War II and was found on ships, railroad cars, bunkers, fences, the occasional fighter plane, bombs, and the occasional torpedo.
In 1946, just after the war ended, the American Transit Association began a search for the real Kilroy and offered a real trolley car as the prize. Approximately 40 men tried to claim the prize, which was eventually awarded to 46-year-old James J. Kilroy of Halifax, Massachusetts. The judges thought that his story was the most convincing. During the war, Kilroy was an inspector at the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, that produced ships for the military effort. Kilroy discovered that he was being asked to inspect the same ship bottoms and tanks again and again, so he devised a way to keep track of his work. He used a yellow crayon and wrote “Kilroy was here.” in big block letters on the hatches and surfaces of the ships he inspected. The same ships then made their way overseas with Kilroy’s inscriptions intact. Also, over the course of the war, 14,000 shipyard employees also enlisted, most of whom went overseas as well. No one knows who first decided to imitate the crayon scrawled words, but before long, soldiers saw them everywhere. It became common practice for the first soldier into a new area to pull out a piece of chalk and let those behind him know that Kilroy had already been there too.
True or not James J. Kilroy story convinced the judges and won the contest. What did he do with the trolley car? Kilroy had a big family, so he attached a 50 foot long, 12-ton trolley car to his house and used it as a bedroom for six of his nine children.
Just as an aside, I can’t tell you how many times when I was in the Army both here in the US and overseas, I discovered very quickly that “Kilroy was (already) here.” It was scrawled everywhere. Once while in Korea I was climbing through a deserted gun emplacement in the hills near Inchon. There was old graffiti on the walls from some Turkish soldiers which I couldn’t read and right next to them was a huge “Kilroy was here!” Most recently and most poignant was this magazine photo taken at the home of Osama bin Laden just after his capture.
TRUTHFULLY, I CONFESS TO PLACING “KILROY” ON A FEW THINGS MYSELF.
As you can imagine, I am continually on the lookout for anything humorous. Sometimes I get lucky and find a gold mine and other times I find myself severely disappointed. Recently I was out surfing sites for anything I could find, and I stumbled upon a book of 1001 one-liners, short jokes, and puns. I admit a preference for bawdy humor, but I thought I’d take a chance, and I bought this book. I’ll withhold my opinions, and you can decide whether I got taken or not.
I used to think an ocean of soda existed, but it was just a Fanta sea.
I like to drink my brandy neat but sometimes I take my tie off and leave my shirt out.
I must’ve eaten too much salmon. I just ran up an escalator that was coming down.
A sandwich walked into a bar. The bartender said, “Sorry we don’t serve food in here.”
My girlfriend told me she’s leaving me because I keep pretending to be a Transformer. I said, “No, wait! I can change.”
I heard a rumor that they were giving away horse manure at a local fair, so I went down there to check it out. It was bullshit.
I’ve been taking Viagra for my sunburn. It doesn’t cure it but during the night he keeps the sheets off my legs.
Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
My favorite exercise is a combination of a lunge and a crunch. It’s called lunch.
A man entered a local newspapers pun contest. He sent in 10 different puns in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in 10 did.
There you have ten questionable jokes. I really believe I got taken on this purchase.
Here’s one of the few that I actually enjoyed:
I just saw a large singer with a laptop. It was a Dell.
I find it amazing that the longer I live the less I seem to know. I’ve spent many years compiling and posting odd facts and there’s no end in sight. Here are two questions that most people have wondered about at one time or another but never really obtained a reasonable answer for. Here’s your reasonable answers.
HOW DID THE WORD “COCKTAIL” ORIGINATE?
A cocktail is an alcoholic drink that comprises a number of ingredients that are mixed or shaken together. There are hundreds of different concoctions and their often sweet, colorful and interestingly named, such as the Grasshopper, the Rusty Nail, Sex on the Beach and the Slippery Nipple. There seem to be hundreds of explanations for the origination of that word but many of them are utter nonsense. This is one explanation that caught my attention, and I immediately chose to believe it. In the 18th century an innkeeper named Betsy Flanigan stole chickens from her neighbors and cooked them for her patrons. After the meal, she would serve mixed drinks and place a chicken feather in each of them. At this display, one French customer yelled, “Vive le cocktail.“ I know that sounds silly but it’s no sillier than many of the others I’ve read about. This is my favorite explanation, and I hope it’s true.
WHEN AND HOW WAS TOILET PAPER INVENTED?
The Chinese invented toilet paper in the 14th century, and the Bureau of Imperial Supplies produced paper for use by the Chinese emperors. In 1857 the first factory producing toilet paper was made by American Joseph Cayetty who named his product Therapeutic Paper, and it was sold in packs of 500 sheets. Before the invention of toilet paper, different areas of the world use different things. Public toilets in ancient Rome provided a moist sponge on the end of the stick, while the Vikings who occupied England used discarded wool, and later in the Middle Ages that was replaced by a balls of hay. In Hawaii, meanwhile, coconut husks were used, while the early Eskimos used snow and tundra moss. French royalty used strips of lace and British lords used pages from books. In the United States, newspapers and telephone directories were commonly used, as were other books. The Old Farmer’s Almanac was actually printed with a hole punched through the corner of each page so that it could be hung in outhouses, and the Sears catalog was widely used until it began being printed on glossy paper. It’s use as a hygiene product became instantly unpopular as did corncobs in farm country.
Q. What’s better than a rose on your piano? A. Tulips on your organ.
A young woman goes to church to confess her sins to the priest. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” “Tell me all of your sins, my daughter.” “Oh, Father, last night my boyfriend made hot, passionate love to me seven times,” she says. The priest thinks about this long and hard and says, “Go home and take seven lemons and squeeze the juice into a tall glass and drink it.” “Will this cleanse my soul of all my sins?” “No,” the priest says, “but it will certainly wipe that smile off your face!”
A businessman boards a flight and is seated next to an absolutely gorgeous woman. He notices that she’s reading a manual about sexual statistics. He asks her about it, and she replies, “This is a very interesting book! It says that American Indians have the longest penises, and Italian men are the best in bed. By the way, my name is Jill. What’s yours?” “Tonto Tortolini, nice to meet you.”
Q. What did the two lesbian frogs say to each other? A. We do taste like chicken!
A woman enrolls in nursing school and is attending an anatomy class. The subject of the day is involuntary muscles. The instructor, hoping to perk up the students a bit, asks her if she knows what her asshole does when she’s having an orgasm. “Sure,” she says. “He’s at home taking care of the kids.”
Dominoes originated in Asia around 1100 A.D. They were, and still are, used as a divinatory tool and not just a game of numbers.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are at least 50 years old.
The egg plant is a member of the thistle family.
The first city in the United States to fluoridate its water was Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1945.
The first state in the United States to use the gas chamber was Nevada in 1924.
“Everybody loves you when you’re six feet in the ground.”
John Lennon
In Los Angeles in 1976, a woman legally married a 20 pound rock with 20 guests present.
Former United States president Gerald Ford changed his name when he was 22 – a good thing, because his birth name was Leslie Lynch King, Junior.
John Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, was a church group leader. It is said that he would lead sing-alongs to the tune of Lennon’s song “Imagine,” during which he would change the lyrics to “Imagine there’s no John Lennon.”
The Code of Hammurabi in Babylon specified that a merchant could be put to death for diluting beer.
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many
things that escape those who dream only at night.”
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