Now that the NFL preseason has kicked off, I can once again turn into the fanatical Steeler fan that tends to irritate everyone in Maine or New England. I’m not as rabid as some fans but I am criminally loyal to the Pittsburgh Steelers. I swore when the season started this year I was never going to be a Steeler fan again because of their lousy record in actually playing football in playoff games.
Sorry, but I once again lied. I’ve now decided to include the Tampa Buccaneers as my backup team if the Steelers suck again this year. I’ve always been a Baker Mayfield fan and I would love to see him in the Superbowl if the Steelers don’t or can’t make it.And one additional comment: Tell T.J. Watt to get with the program. Doesn’t he realize by now he’s letting his ego send a wrong message to the fan base (my personal opinion). He sounds a little whiny for the big bruiser that he is. Also, his post seasons are nothing to brag about either.
Today’s post is a trivia quiz on sports for those crazy-ass sports fanatics that are waiting to show me how good they are. We shall see. As always the answers are at the bottom.
Where did the territorial-capture board game Go originate, 4000 years ago?
During a serve in American racquetball, what is the first surface the ball must hit after the racket?
How many unique numbers are used in Sudoku?
When did Ralph Samuelson invent waterskiing?
What is the minimum number of moves needed to achieve checkmate in chess?
Which of these sports is not represented in the Olympics? Basketball, Cricket, Dressage, or Handball
Sam Roth hit the fastest tennis serve ever recorded in 2012. How fast was it?
Who holds the record for most points (100) in a single NBA game?
Who invented the game of Scrabble
When Bingo started sometime around 1929, what was it called?
1896
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Answers
China, The front wall, 9, 1922, 2, Cricket, 163 mi./h, Wilt Chamberlain, Alfred Mosher Butts, Beano.
The Stanley Cup has a number of misspelled words engraved on it. “BOSTON BRUINS” is spelled as “BQSTQN BRUINS”. “TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS” is “TORONTO MAPLE LEAES” and a number of misspelled players names have been added over the years.
Before Babe Ruth, the MLB’s career home run record was 138. When he retired the record was 714.
Nolan Ryan had seven no-hitters in his career but never a perfect game. His 2795 career walks are almost 1,000 more than the next closet pitcher.
The credit for breaking the racial barrier was not really Jackie Robinson. In 1879, Moses Fleetwood Walker played a full season in 1884, 63 years before Robinson.
The only team in the NFL to score three TD’s in a minute was the New England Patriots and they’ve done it twice.
The very first pick in the NFL draft never played a single game in the league. Jay Berwanger never signed with any team due to salary concerns.
Major League Baseball uses approximately 900,000 balls every season.
Wilt Chamberlain once averaged over 50 points a game for an entire season.
To all of the baseball lovers out there, here’s a little trivia that goes back seventy-two years. It’s nice to know that the tradition of the game remains as frustrating and fascinating as ever.
In baseball there is no clock. A pro basketball game lasts 48 minutes while hockey and football games last 60 minutes. But as the old saying goes, a baseball game (or the inning) isn’t over until the final out. A game on May 21, 1952, between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers proved the old saying true.
The first half-inning had lasted one hour. Twenty-one batters had gotten hits and seven walks, and two batters had been hit by a pitched ball. Fifteen runs had scored, and three men were left on base. The following day the New York Times printed some of the records the Brooklyn team had broken in that that first-half inning:
Most runs scored in one inning (15)
Most runs scored in the first inning (15)
Most runs scored with two outs (12)
Most batters to bat in one inning (21)
Most batters to reach base safely in a row (19)
This last record may be the most amazing of all. Only the first batter and the last had not gotten on base safely. The 19 batters in between had all made it – even the man who was put out on the basepaths for the second out. The Times confessed it couldn’t be sure that 19 batters in a row was a record, but if any major league team ever did better, no one remembers the occasion.
I thought today I’d touch on sports again since it’s that time of the year when so many sport finals are being played. I thought I’d start off with a little tidbit on basketball, a sport that I’m not all that crazy about. I have a grandson who is absolutely nuts for basketball, so this is in his honor and anyone else that loves the sport as much he does.
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How far does a basketball player run during a game? The distance can vary greatly, but some years ago Ben Peck, a coach at Middlebury, Vermont, decided to find out. He put pedometers on the feet of all of his players. Here are the results:Overall, his team traveled a total of 24.01 miles, 11.97 in the first half and 12.04 in the second half. Forward Fred Lapham ran the farthest, 5.31 miles. The other forward, Tom Neidhart, covered 5.14 miles. Center Bob Adsit ran 4.25 miles. The guards averaged 2.66 miles each.
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Now Back to Baseball.
In 1876 a pitcher named Joe Borden of Boston Hurled the first no-hitter in the history of the National League. But Borden couldn’t leave well enough alone. Soon after the game he changed his style of pitching and began to lose his stuff. Borden went steadily downhill, and by the end of the season he was no longer a pitcher – he was the club’s groundskeeper.
Many pitchers have gone into the ninth inning working on a no-hitter, only to see it spoiled. On April 7, 1918, Odis “Doc” Crandall of the Los Angeles Angels had a perfect game going against Salt Lake City. With two out in the ninth inning, not a man had reached base. Then Doc’s brother, Karl Crandall, came to bat. He dumped a dinky base hit just over the infielders’ heads. This is the only case on record where a pitcher’s no-hitter was broken up by his own brother.
One of the most famous of all poems is “Casey at the Bat”, which was written by Ernest Thayer. It has been read by millions and recited by dozens of actors. In the poem, Casey, a great slugger, comes to bat with his team behind in the ninth inning. There are two outs and runners on base. Casey can win the game with a home run but unfortunately strikes out. A great deal is known about Casey’s team from Mudville. The poem names and describes the four batters ahead of Casey – Cooney, Barrows, Flynn and Jimmy Blake. The poet didn’t pay much attention to the other team, however. The pitcher who faced down “the Mighty Casey” and struck him out was never given a name.
Being born and raised in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania requires from an early age that you be a Steeler fan and a Pirates fan. I guess I’m kind of a fair-weather fan and have staunchly followed the Steelers passionately for decades. The Pirates not so much. They’ve had a few good years here and there from the 1960 World Championship to the years with Willie Stargel and his teammates. They’ve attempted over the years to obtain players with high expectations i.e. Dave Parker, with little or no success. Today I’ll tell you a short story about one of their outstanding choices, Dock Ellis.
In June of 1970 the Pirates finished a two-game series in San Francisco and were enroute to San Diego, and it was not Ellise’s turn to pitch. He spent the day prior in Los Angeles with friends, relaxing, and dropping acid. It wasn’t until the morning of the 12th that his friend’s girlfriend told him the Pirates had a doubleheader in San Diego that afternoon and because of the extra game, Ellis was expected to take the mound. He hopped onto a shuttle and made it to the ballpark just in time to start his game. Through the nine innings he pitched, he struck out six batters, walked eight, but gave up no hits and won the game, 2-0. He later stated “I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I was zeroed in on the catcher’s glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters, and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t.”
Ellis was known as an “odd duck” when he showed up at pregame warmups wearing hair curlers. It took an order from the Commissioner of Baseball to stop the madness. He had incredible pitching skills with a superhuman and high velocity fastball. In 1974, while pitching against the Cincinnati Reds, he hoped to motivate his team by taking aim at the other teams’ players – literally. In the first inning alone, he beaned three players (including Pete Rose) before throwing the ball behind Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench’s head, after which he was promptly removed from the game.
Since the Pirates are having a moderately successful season this year, I can only assume they’ve stopped using the same set of requirements that brought them Dock Ellis. I’m yet to be convinced like so many die-hard fans seem to be. I’ll wait and see like I’ve done for decades with my fingers crossed and my head firmly buried in the sand.
It seems that sports are on everyone’s mind currently between basketball finals, the NFL draft, and the newly published NFL season schedules for 2024. I thought I’d participate a little myself. I like some sports but not all, but I like humorous and odd stories regardless of the sport even more. Today I’m going to touch on golf and baseball for some interesting trivia and a few smiles and laughs.
Harpo Marx
George Burns
Hillcrest Country Club in California has long been a favorite of Hollywood entertainers. One August day comedians George Burns and Harpo Marx came to the club to play a round of golf. The thermometer registered over 100° and the two decided to play without their shirts. But then the course officials heard about the shirtless golfers and rushed out to find them. “Rules are rules, you can’t play without a shirt and there are no exceptions.” they exclaimed. The comedians put their shirts back on and started to play. The officials made their way back to the clubhouse. A few minutes later, someone came rushing in with the news, “Burns and Marx are playing without their pants!” Again, the committee raced out to the course and sure enough Burns and Marx had their shirts on, but they had removed her pants were playing in their undershorts. Harpo Marx reminded the committee of the rulebook. It says we can’t play without shirts. But show me the rule that says we can’t play without pants. The officials were licked, and they knew it. There and then a new rule was made: All-male players could take off their shirts, but they had to wear pants at all times. I love it when a plan comes together.
Henry Heitman
If there is a record for the shortest major league career by a pitcher, it belongs to a right-handed pitcher named Henry Heitman. On July 27, 1918, Heitmann started a game for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the St. Louis Cardinals. The first four batters all hit safely and Heitmann was sent to the showers immediately. A few days later he enlisted in the United States Navy and never played major-league baseball again. That’s what I call a short career.
Bobby Jones
Bobby Jones was one of the greatest golfers ever, winning dozens of tournaments before he retired in 1930. One day in 1920, playing in the Southern Amateur Tournament at New Orleans, Jones found himself with an unexpected problem. One of his drives landed inside an old shoe that was resting on top of a workman’s wheelbarrow. After deciding not to take a penalty for dropping the ball out of the shoe, he found a novel solution to his problem. He played the shoe. The immortal Bobby smacked the shoe which flew off the wheelbarrow and the ball flew out of the shoe and kept rolling, finally stopping only a few feet from the green. Jones chipped onto the green and holed out for a par. Professionals always find a way.
I was pleased to see that yesterday’s post on sports trivia was well received. I thought I’d expand it a little more today.
In 1994 NY Giant’s linebacker Lawrence Taylor played his last game. He took a small but poignant souvenir from that game which was the referee’s yellow flag. He felt that he deserved it because the refs “throw it against me often enough”.
Walter Payton the famous Chicago Bears running back missed only one game during his 13-year career. He carried the ball more often (3838 times) for more yards (16,726) and scored more rushing touchdowns (110) than anyone else.
In 1925 the Dartmouth football team contained 22 members of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
Golfing great Ben Hogan is also known for his famous reply when asked how someone can improve their game. It’s short and simple answer is still true today, “Hit the ball closer to the hole.”
After retiring as a player, Babe Ruth spent one year as a coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938.
Roger Bannister
In 1912, at the Stockholm Olympics, electric timing devices and a public address systems were used for the first time.
Famed fullback Jim Brown while attending Syracuse University in the mid-1950s also played lacrosse. and made All-American.
In June 1938 the Cincinnati Reds southpaw pitcher John Vandermeer pitched two no-hitters. They were the only two he ever threw, and they were consecutive. He pitched the first one against the Boston Braves and then his next game he pitched one against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Ty Cobb was the only major league baseball player to have a brand of cigarettes named after him.
In 1979 New York Yankee manager Billy Martin had a confrontation with a marshmallow salesman and lost his job.
In in 1954 Roger Bannister, was named the Sports Illustrated magazines first Sportsman of the Year for breaking the four-minute mile.
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