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Trivia ~ Very Sporting
The steeplechase originated from an eighteenth-century hunting club bet. After a bad day of fox hunting, one of the chaps suggested that the group not allow the day to become a complete failure. Instead, he suggested a race. He bet that he could ride in a straight line to a steeple that was visible in the distance and be the first to hit it with his whip. The straight line meant that the racers would have to overcome many obstacles. The acceptance of the bet created the first steeplechase.
After the successful running of the first race, the idea became quite popular. Soon there were overland races between several steeples. Today, the sport has become much more refined and is more of a designed obstacle course.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
Zero scores in tennis are called "love"?
In France, where tennis first became popular, a big, round zero on scoreboard looked like an egg and was called l'oeuf, which is French for "egg". When tennis was introduced in the US, Americans pronounced it "love".
A football match resulted in a 3 day war between two nations, namely: El Salvador and Honduras.
The origin of the expression "saved by the bell" comes from the sound of the bell at the end of a round in boxing.
So, you think the 2000 Bengals are bad? You think a team that is 0-6 and has been outscored 143-37 is about as bad as it could get? Think again.
In 1934 a team in the NFL was even worse. They were shut out six times, and scored an NFL season-record low 37 points. They were named after the city's longtime baseball franchise
Know who they were?
The Cincinnati Reds (Cincinnati again, maybe it's something in the water)
Headlines from 1934 show a familiar despair with the city's NFL team.
Hardly anybody came out to watch. Apparently there were no seatlicenses locking them in. Only 2,200 people attended a game at Cincinnati's Corcoran Field on Oct. 7, 1934. They probably wished they hadn't. The Reds were beaten 13-0 by the Chicago Cardinals.
"The Reds were completely outclassed in every department with the exception of Jim Mooney's punting," wrote the Enquirer's Lou Smith. Hey, at least the '34 team had a good punter.
In another game, Cincinnati's offense mustered only a drop-kick
field goal in a 21-3 loss to the Chicago Bears in a game at Crosley Field
watched by 5,500 fans. Other things haven't changed at all.
"The Reds looked well on the defense in the first half of the game,
but were woefully weak on the offense, especially when it came to the gentle art of blocking for the Reds ball-carriers," Mr. Smith reported.
In a dispatch dated Oct. 28 from Portsmouth - presumably the Reds had traveled there in search of a crowd - the team's inexorable march into oblivion was thusly noted: "The luckless Cincinnati Reds lost another National Professional football game today, this time to the Detroit Lions, 38-0 ... The Reds never threatened the Detroit goal line."
The haplessness gained in degree and description as the season wore on. After the Reds were beaten 41-0 by their hosts in Green Bay, an
Associated Press reporter wrote: "At no time was the result in doubt as the Ohio team floundered around ..." ( Has to be something in the water)
One is still left to wonder how history will regard the 2000
Cincinnati Bengals. They could still win a game. (Couldn't they?)
On Nov. 6 - the day after the Cincinnati team was sold to a St. Louis group that ran a strong, independent pro team there - the '34 team
finally achieved rock-bottom. "The Reds ... faded into history with a 64-0 humiliation at the hands of the Eagles. On the next Sunday, the St. Louis Gunners took the Reds' place in the schedule and the standings."
In their first game, the St. Louis Gunners "broke into the NFL with a 6-0 victory over the (Pittsburgh) Pirates."
Well, why wouldn't they?
They didn't use any of Cincinnati's players. (Or drink any of Cincinnati's water)
The great figure skaters can make as many as six revolutions per second. Since that would make most of us decorate the ice with our dinner, these folks must know something that we
don't. Indeed, they do. Skating instructors can teach even amateurs not to get dizzy in a spin, but they must have apt pupils. Actually it's the pupils who must have apt pupils because the trick is in the eyes. Dizziness results from rapid eye movement as skaters focus on objects flying by. The trick is to keep the eyes still by imagining a fixed blurred line and focusing on it. Sounds like the way some people drive.
When someone scores three goals in a game (such as soccer) it is called a hat trick. Why oh why?
No, it has nothing to do with the rabbit thing. The term comes from English cricket. In cricket it is a tremendous feat for a bowler to take three wickets on successive balls. The reward for this at many cricket clubs was a new hat. Other clubs honored their heroes by passing a hat around the fans and giving the scorer the proceeds.
Camel wrestling is a very popular sport in Turkey, and the annual Camel Wrestling Tournament draws thousands of spectators to Selcuk. Specially trained and raised camels do battle in an outdoor arena. The camels' mouths are bound shut, and 14 rope-bearers stand by to separate the animals before they do any real damage to one another.
Tug - of - war was a Modern Olympic event until 1 9 2 0
Physical education instructor James Naismith who invented a game that eventually became an Olympic sport, basketball. To while away the winter months, Naismith attached peach baskets to the gymnasium wall at Springfield College. Naismith attended the 1936 Olympics, where his game was officially designated an Olympic sport.
What is the cost for T.V advertising during the 2002 Super Bowl ?
The average price of a 30-second commercial in the game is just under $2 million. An expected 130 million viewers will be watching. In comparison, to advertise on a top-rated television show is around $400,000. The Super Bowl is the most heavily viewed program of the year, and some people will watch just for the ads. Anheuser-Busch will be the biggest sponsor this year with five minutes of ads, and Pepsi has three minutes.
The League pays for up to 125 Super Bowl rings at $5,000 per ring (plus adjustments for increases in gold and diamonds). League also pays for 125 pieces of jewelry for the losing team, which may not cost more than one-half the price set for the Super Bowl ring.
The first Olympic Torch Relay, held during the 1936 Berlin Games when the flame traveled from Olympia, Greece to Berlin, lasted 12 days and covered 1,910 miles across seven countries.
The flame of the Olympic torch is ignited by the sun's rays in Olympia, Greece and is kept in a lantern that travels with the relay.
More than 11,500 torchbearers will travel more than 13,500 miles from December 4, 2001 until February 8, 2002.
The Olympic Torch relay will pass through 46 states, with the exception of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Hawaii.
The relay begins at 7:00 a.m. daily with an average of 180 torchbearers carrying the flame about 208 miles over the course of 12 hours.
When a torchbearer comes within three to six inches of another torchbearer, the flame jumps to the other torch.
It takes each torchbearer an average of eight minutes to carry the torch their 0.2 miles, but there is no time limit.
The Olympic Torch, made of silver, copper, and glass, was designed by Sam Shelton, a mechanical engineering professor at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Five Olympics have been cancelled due to war. The 1916 Summer Games was cancelled due to World War I. The 1940 and 1944 Summer and Winter Olympics were called off during World War II.
The skeleton event will be included in the 2002 Winter Olympics for the first time since1948
The skeleton event, which is similar to the luge. Competitors travel on their stomach, head first, down the track on a sled. The origins of this sport can be traced back to the late 19th century. The sport derives its name from one of the first sleds, which was made by an Englishman. The sled was a rack of metal that some would say resembled a skeleton. The men's skeleton event is being held for the first time since the 1948 Games in St Moritz. Women's skeleton is making its Olympic debut.
Why is the guy who leads the football team called a "quarterback?"
Because on the first day of training camp he put a dollar bill in the $.75 Coke machine, didn't get change, and compulsively complained about it ever afterward, earning this derisive nickname?
Of course not. The name comes from the way football teams lined up when the game was just catching on over a hundred years ago. In the backfield, the furthest behind the offensive line, was a lone fullback. In front of him, closer to the line, were the two running backs, known as the halfbacks. The guy in the backfield to whom the center snapped the ball was closer yet to the offensive line. I guess this is like a Scholastic Aptitude Test question, but given what you've been told so far, what would YOU call him?
Whaddaya you mean, you'll pass?
Michael Jordan made more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
The Cleveland Indians was the only team besides the Yankees to win the American League pennant between 1949 & 1958?
Why do matadors wave a red cape at the bull?
Maybe it's because they're nuts. Isn't life hard enough? Why go looking for trouble?
The conventional explanation, of course, is that they are trying to provoke the bull to charge, to literally make him see red, the color that drives bulls bonkers. Then the matador can do his thing, showing the bull who's boss.
The only trouble with this is that bulls don't know red from your Uncle Herman. Toro is colorblind. It's the movement of the cape that gets his attention. The color red is really meant to provoke the audience--a hot, blood-like color to work them into a frenzy. It's show biz and it helps fill the arena seats. If the matador can't do that, he's really caught on the horns of a dilemma, and that's no bull.
The first inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 were Ty Cobb (center field), Walter Johnson (pitcher), Christy Mathewson (pitcher), Babe Ruth (right field), and Honus Wagner (short stop). They were selected by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Tennis balls fuzzy for two reasons. The fuzz is there, for one thing, to slow it down. You might find that hard to believe had you ever had to receive a cannonball serve from someone like John McEnroe, but there you are. It facilitates rallies by increasing wind resistance and preventing the ball from leaving the stadium on one bounce.
The fuzz also increases racket control by holding the ball against the strings for just a fraction of a second longer than would happen with a smooth ball.
Of course, if you visit the bar in the clubhouse before the match, the balls aren't the only things that are fuzzy.
Paul Anderson, one of America's greatest weightlifters, once did three consecutive deep knee bends carrying a 900-pound barbell on his shoulders.
On the professional golf tour, players are allotted 45 seconds per shot.
In the 1920s, deaf players on the football team at Gallaudet College invented the football huddle to prevent opposing teams from being able to read their signals.
Get Off the Field
Meet some British kings who had a real problem with sports!In 1389 English King Richard the Second issued a royal edict banning the game of soccer.
In 1457, King James II of Scotland banned soccer AND golf.
Later, Scottish King James the IV issued his own decree: "It is statute and ordained that in no place of the Realme there be used Fute-ball, Golf, or uther unprofitable sports."
The kings considered those sports "unprofitable' because they were distracting men from archery practice... key to the defense of their countries.
But King's edicts ultimately proved no match for men's passion for sport and warriors became weekend warriors once again.
In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry said: "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." Only a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, Perry hit the first and only home run of his career
The number of holes was established at the famous St. Andrews course in Scotland in the 18th century. With precious little 'fore'-thought, the club first settled on nine holes. At the 9th hole, you turned around and played your way back to number one for an actual total of 18. This was a mess, with long waits to tee off and golf balls flying every which way. Then some linear-thinking fellow figured out it was better to have 18 separate holes bringing you back to the first on the 18th. The club was so prestigious that everyone copied what they did.
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