by Don Voorhees
In 1998, an entire soccer team was killed by lightning during a match in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The opposing team was fine.
In 1983, Dick Wertheim, a tennis official at the U.S. Open, died after player Stefan Edberg hit a ball into his crotch, causing Wertheim to fall over and hit his head on the court.
MULTIPURPOSE MAN
On September 8, 1965, Bert Campaneris of the Oakland A’s became the first major-league baseball player to play all nine positions in a single game. On the mound, he pitched ambidextrously, throwing lefty to left-handed batters and righty to right-handers. Since then, three more players have accomplished the feat.
AROUND THE HORN
Johan Santana became the first Mets pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter, in 2012. The only problem was that the umpire called a ball hit down the third base line foul, when replays clearly showed it to be fair.
In 2012, a baseball jersey worn by Babe Ruth circa 1920 sold for $4.4 million. That topped the previous record holder for sports memorabilia—the original rules for the game of basketball written by James Naismith—which sold for $4.3 million in 2010.
Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees holds the record for most home runs in World Series history with eighteen. He is followed by Babe Ruth with fifteen, Yogi Berra with twelve, Duke Snider with eleven, and Lou Gehrig and Reggie Jackson with ten.
The average major-league baseball salary in 1967 was $6,000. The average salary in 2012 was $3.2 million.
FOOTBALL RULES
About 36 percent of Americans say pro football is their favorite sport, followed by college football and pro baseball at 15 percent each, and auto racing at 8 percent.
The NFL’s online store reported that Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers had the top-selling jersey for the 2011 season, followed by Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. Teamwise, the Steelers sold the most jerseys.
Purdue quarterback Drew Brees threw the most passes in an FBS college football game—eighty-three—against Wisconsin in 1998. He completed fifty-five of them. Despite the pass-happy Brees, Purdue lost the game 31–24.
In 2012, forty-two college football coaches earned at least $2 million a year.
According to Forbes magazine, the most valuable college football program in the United States is the Texas Longhorns, followed by Notre Dame, Penn State, Louisiana State University, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Auburn, and Oklahoma.
Lehigh University and Lafayette College have the longest-running rivalry in college football, 148 games and counting, as of 2012. The series began in 1884, with the only interruption occurring in 1896.
The Michigan football team holds the record for consecutive games without being shut out—349. The next four are Florida at 297, TCU at 242, Air Force at 233, and Tennessee at 222.
Since its inception in 1935, only three teams have had back-to-back Heisman Trophy winners. Larry Kelley (end) and Clint Frank (halfback) won for Yale in 1936 and 1937. Doc Blanchard (fullback) and Glenn Davis (halfback) won for Army in 1945 and 1946. Matt Leinart (quarterback) and Reggie Bush (running back) won for USC in 2004 and 2005. (In 2010, Bush became the first winner to forfeit the award.)
ZEBRAS
Black-and-white stripes first appeared on football officials’ uniforms in the 1920s, after a quarterback in a college game tried to hand the ball off to an official in an all-white shirt.
Officials in the old American Football League wore red-and-orange-striped jerseys.
There are seven officials for an NFL game. They are the head referee, umpire, head linesman, line judge, side judge, back judge, and field judge.
The referee is the crew chief and wears a white hat, while the other officials wear black ones. He stands behind the offense and watches for penalties involving the quarterback or running back. The referee is the final authority on the field and is the one who communicates game information directly to the crowd via a wireless microphone. He also confers with the replay official in a booth above the field on instant replay challenges.
The umpire stands behind the defensive line and linebackers and watches for offensive holding and illegal forward passes. He is also responsible for making sure the players’ equipment is legal.
The head linesman stands on one side of the field at the line of scrimmage. He looks for offsides penalties and determines if a player steps out of bounds. The head linesman also is in charge of the first down chain crew and marks forward progress on the field.
The line judge stands on the opposite sideline from the head linesman and also watches for offsides and out-of-bounds. In addition, he keeps track of the time during the game as a backup to the clock operator.
The field judge stands behind the defensive secondary, on the same side of the field as the line judge. He determines pass interference, pass completions, and illegal blocks downfield, and rules on whether field goal attempts are successful.
The side judge has the same responsibilities as the line judge, but on the opposite side of the field.
The back judge works the middle of the field behind the defensive secondary. He watches for pass interference, pass completions, illegal blocks downfield, and delay of game penalties.
NFL officials first started announcing penalties to the crowd in 1975.
NFL officials make about nine thousand dollars a game.
IT TAKES A LOT OF BALLS
In an NFL football game, the home team provides thirty-six new balls for an outdoor game and twenty-four balls for one played indoors. There are an additional twelve balls supplied for the kickers. The referee checks the air pressure in the balls prior to kickoff.
KICKER’S KORNER
Statistics show that “icing” a kicker—that is, the opposing coach calling a time-out just before a kicker attempts a high-pressure field goal—makes no difference. However, when the Dallas Cowboys inexplicably iced their own kicker in a 2011 game against the Cardinals, he missed the game-winning field goal, after making it just before the time-out.
The longest high school field goal was sixty-eight yards. Dirk Borgognone of Reno, Nevada, accomplished the feat in 1985. The NFL record is only sixty-three yards.
Kickers make 99.3 percent of extra points attempted in the NFL.
BACKWARDS BARRY
Barry Sanders holds the NFL record for most carries by a running back for negative yardage—336. These plays resulted in minus 952 yards.
In a 1994 playoff game against the Green Bay Packers, Sanders had a grand total of minus one yards rushing on thirteen carries.
MANNING UP
New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning’s full name is Elisha Nelson Manning. He was named after his father, Elisha Archibald “Archie” Manning III, who was also a star NFL quarterback.
Eli’s older brother’s full name is Peyton Williams Manning.
Cooper Manning is the eldest Manning brother. He was a Mississippi all-state wide receiver who was thought to have a bright future in football, until he was diagnosed with spinal stenosis (a narrowing of the spinal column) at the age of eighteen.
As of late November 2012, the Manning family has thrown a combined 750 NFL touchdown passes—Peyton (425), Eli (200), and Archie (125).
CHEAT SHEETS
The first professional quarterback to use a wristband with the plays written on it was Tom Matte of the Baltimore Colts in 1965. Matte was actually a running back on the team, but was forced to play QB after injuries to Johnny Unitas and his backup, Gary Cuozzo.
THE WONDERLIC YEARS
The year future NFL football prospects are eligible for the draft, they are given something called the Wonderlic test to determine their intelligence. It is a fifty-question SAT-like exam that must be completed in twelve minutes. One point is awarded for each correct answer. The average score is 20.4. Historically, centers have the highest average score (26), followed by quarte
rbacks (25), offensive tackles (22.5), offensive guards and tight ends (22), safeties and linebackers (21), defensive ends (20), defensive tackles and fullbacks (19), receivers and cornerbacks (18), and running backs (17).
PASSING MUSTARD
The lowest passer efficiency rating in the NFL is 0.0. To achieve such a distinction, a quarterback must attempt at least ten passes, have a completion percentage of 30 percent or less with no touchdowns, average fewer than three yards per attempt, and have an interception percentage of 9.5 percent or higher.
Four-time Super Bowl winner Terry Bradshaw holds the record with a zero quarterback rating in a game three times. Joe Namath did it twice and Johnny Unitas once.
The highest passer rating possible in the NFL is 158.3. To achieve such a rating, a quarterback must attempt a least ten passes, have a completion percentage of at least 77.5 percent, an 11.875 touchdown percentage, a minimum of 12.5 yards per pass attempt, and no interceptions. Thirty-five different quarterbacks have achieved this rating in a game since the advent of the system in 1973. Peyton Manning has had four perfect games; Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner have thrown three.
Ex–NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb and NFL defensive end Julius Peppers are the only two people to have played in a Super Bowl and an NCAA Final Four basketball game. McNabb was a reserve on the 1996 Syracuse basketball team that lost to Kentucky in the Final. He also lost in his only Super Bowl appearance. Peppers was a reserve on the 2000 University of North Carolina basketball team that lost to Florida in the Final Four semifinals, and he lost in his only Super Bowl.
POUTY PATRIOT
Those weird-looking logos on either side of the field in Gillette Stadium, the home of the New England Patriots, are stylized representations of the bridge and tower found at the north end of the stadium.
The midfield logo in Gillette Stadium is a stylized patriot, known locally as “flying Elvis” because of his long sideburns and pouty expression.
GO SKINS
In the eighteen presidential elections that have taken place since the Washington Redskins moved to Washington in 1937, seventeen have been predicted by the team’s performance in its final home game before the election. If the Redskins win, the incumbent does also.
WHAT’S THE PUNCH LINE?
The 1944–45 Montreal Canadiens hockey lineup of Rocket Richard, Elmer Lach, and Toe Blake, known as the “Punch Line,” were 1-2-3 in the National Hockey League in scoring that season.
Carolina Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward scored a goal without touching the puck. According to NHL rules, the last player to touch the puck gets credit for the next goal scored by his team. Ward stopped a goal by the attacking New Jersey Devils near the end of a game on December 26, 2011. The Devils, who had pulled their goalie from the net to insert another attacker, inadvertently sent the puck back into their own goal on an errant pass. Ward was credited with the score since he was the last Hurricane to touch the puck.
BIRDIES OF A FEATHER
Traditional badminton shuttlecocks, or birdies, were made from about sixteen overlapping feathers from the left wing of a goose or duck.
WEARING THE YELLOW JERSEY
Professional cyclists in long races, like the Tour de France, will pee off to the side while riding their bikes. The trick is not to spray the riders to the rear while doing so.
BADSKETBALL
Kobe Bryant’s wife Vanessa got half of the couple’s $150 million assets when they divorced due to allegations of Bryant’s infidelity. She also got three mansions in the Newport Beach, California, area, one of which her mother lives in.
In more bad basketball news, a judge garnished Allen Iverson’s bank account to put toward $375,000 worth of jewelry the former star never paid for. Iverson made about $150 million in his career.
Star NBA basketball player Tony Parker cheated on his wife, actress Eva Longoria, with the wife of his San Antonio Spurs teammate Brent Barry. Both couples subsequently divorced.
In 1997, Charles Barkley was arrested for throwing a man through an Orlando, Florida, nightclub’s plate glass window after the man had thrown a glass of ice at Barkley.
Barkley has confessed to having lost about $10 million on gambling, $2.5 million of it during one particularly poor six-hour blackjack session.
FUTILITY FACTOR
In 2012, the Portland Trailblazers set an NBA record for missing all twenty of their 3-point shot attempts in a 92–74 win over the Toronto Raptors.
WILLIAMS TO WILLIAMS TO WILLIAMS TO WILLIAMS
The 2011 New Jersey Nets NBA basketball team had four players with the last name Williams. They sometimes were all on the court at the same time during a game, making it quite challenging for the play-by-play announcers.
NBA player Ron Artest changed his name to Metta World Peace.
HOOP SCOOP
On November 20, 2012, Jack Taylor, who was a sophomore player on the Grinnell College basketball team in Iowa, shattered the NCAA scoring record by pouring in 138 points in a regulation game. He took 108 shots, made 27 of 71 three-pointers, averaged one shot every twenty seconds, and scored four points a minute in the second half. A player on opposing Faith Baptist Bible scored seventy points and they still lost by seventy-five points. Taylor’s best effort before this game was forty-eight points when he was in high school.
DISPOSABLE INCOME
In 2012, Tiger Woods’s ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, bought a $12-million mansion in Florida and promptly had it demolished to make room for an even more expensive one.
MARATHON MAN
American ultramarathon runner Dean Karnazes once ran fifty marathons in fifty states in fifty days.
FLIP-FLOPPER
In 2012, American Keith Levasseur ran the Baltimore Marathon in a time of 2:46:58 while wearing flip-flops.
Wild Things
SLEEPY TIME
Opossums sleep twenty hours a day.
Walruses have air sacs beneath their throats that they inflate to keep their heads above water while sleeping at sea.
Migrating thrushes will land briefly to take micro-naps lasting only eight seconds.
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
A “new” species of frog has been discovered in the most unlikely of places—the New York metropolitan area. It went unnoticed for so long because it closely resembles the local southern leopard frog that lives in the region.
In 2010, a new species of bee was discovered in New York City. The blue-green, non-stinging sweat bee, about the size of a sesame seed, licks salt from sweaty people.
There are about 250 native bee species found in New York City, the highest number of any major city.
Half of the world’s spider species have yet to be discovered.
MONKEY BUSINESS
The first new monkey species discovery in twenty-eight years was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012. The golden-maned primate is known as a lesula.
Black howler monkeys in an Argentine natural park were treated with antidepressants after two of the elder females in the group died.
Male chimpanzees have spines on their penises that can injure the female during mating.
GOING APE
Bonobos, chimpanzee-like apes that live in the Congo, have sex more than any other primate. They do so several times a day, with multiple partners, in multiple positions, regardless of gender or age.
Bonobos are the only nonhuman primates to engage in tongue kissing and oral sex.
Bonobo society is matriarchal, with females ruling. They use sex to keep the males in line.
A bonobo mother will carry and nurse her young for four years.
FOR THE BIRDS
The expression “crazy as a loon” comes from the fact that the common loon’s call sounds like the wild laughter of a demented person.
The name “loon” comes from the Swedish lom, meaning “lame.” This waterfowl’s feet are set so far b
ack on its body that it has difficulty walking on land.
Woodpeckers have barbed tongues so that they can grab insects out of the holes they peck in trees.
Bald eagles return to the same stick-built nest each year, adding to its size annually. Some older nests can weigh up to one thousand pounds.
The golden eagle is North America’s largest predatory bird.
A barn swallow’s nest consists of one thousand beakfuls of mud.
American kestrels are able to see ultraviolet (UV) light. This enables them to locate rodents by their urine, which glows bright yellow in UV light.
Great horned owls can hear a mouse moving beneath a foot of snow.
Great horned owls lay their eggs in January or February.
The curious name of the titmouse comes from the Scandinavian word tit, meaning “little,” and the Old English word mase, meaning “bird.”
The tufted titmouse will pull the fur from sleeping cats and dogs to line its nest.
Robins do not cock their heads to listen for worms. They hunt by sight, and their eyes are set so far back on their heads that they must tip their heads to one side to see the ground.
Swifts spend all their daylight hours on the wing, never perching. They drink by dipping into water, and they collect twigs by snapping them off while in flight.
Barn swallows may fly up to six hundred miles a day in search of food for their young.
Some male marsh harriers grow female plumage to protect these transvestite birds from other males.
Birds have better color vision than do humans. While humans have three color cones in their eyes—red, green, and blue—birds have a fourth type—violet.
In Stockholm, Sweden, the pigeons hitch a ride on a local subway instead of flying. From their resting area the birds take the train one stop to their preferred feeding site near a mall that has plenty of cafes and Dumpsters for their dining pleasure.