The Most Amazing Facts About Sports and Games!

1. Golf the only sport played on the moon - on 6 February 1971 Alan Shepard hit a golf ball.
2. The first World Series was played between Pittsburgh and Boston in 1903 and was a nine-game series. Boston won the series 5-3.
3. In the National Hockey League, home teams wear white jerseys and visiting teams wear dark jerseys. That's because back in the 1960s, the league figured it would be more difficult to keep white uniforms clean while players were on the road.
4. About 42,000 tennis balls are used in the plus-minus 650 matches in the Wimbledon Championship.
5. The first puck ever used in a hovkey game was a frozen piece of cow crap.
6. The New York Yankees have won 26 World Series titles, which is more than any other team.
7. Fourteen players have hit four home runs in one game: Bobby Lowe, Ed Delahanty, Lou Gehrig, Chuck Klein, Pat Seerey, Gil Hodges, Joe Adcock, Rocky Colavito, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, Bob Horner, Mark Whiten, Mike Cameron and Shawn Green.
8. Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia are building a 27-hole golf course on the border between the three countries, with nine holes in each country. Much of the area proposed for the golf course is currently a minefield.
9. You might think a yo-yo is just a fun toy. But it started out as a weapon in the Philippine Islands in the 16th century. It weighed four pounds and had a 20 foot cord. It was introduced to the United States as a toy in 1929.
10. The Olympic Flame is a symbol of the fire stolen from the Greek God Zeus. Months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic games the torch is lit at the ancient site of the Olympics in Olympia. A ceremony is performed by Eleven women called priestesses in which the torch is lit by a parabolic mirror which concentrates the rays of the sun.
11. The big black tarps that cover the middlefield seats in baseball, are so the batter can see the ball better. When people sat in those seats it was too hard for the batters to see the ball coming out of the pitchers hand. The backround was too busy. The tarp fixed it.
12. Fishing is the biggest participant sport in the world.
13. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
14. Shaquille O'Neal wears size 22 shoes. He puts on a brand new pair before every game.
15. Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. didn't miss a game in 16 years. He played in 2,632 consecutive games from April 30, 1982 to Sept. 19, 1998.
16. Before 1859, umpires sat in a padded rocking chair behind the catcher
17. More than 1,800 medals are awarded at the Olympics.
18. Soccer is the most attended or watched sport in the world.
19. American football has the highest injury rate of any sport, with a rate 12 times higher than basketball, the next most injurious sport. Most NFL players eventually suffer a career-ending or career-shortening injury sometime in their career.
20. The Boston Celtics have won the most NBA championships (17), including seven straight from 1960 to 1966.
21. Pittsburgh is the only U.S. city with 3 sports teams that wear the same colors.
22. Average lifespan of a major league baseball: 5 pitches.
23. Boxing became a legal sport in 1901.
24. A forfeited game in baseball is recorded as 9-0.
25. Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool! He changed it every 2 innings!
26. College footballs and NFL footballs are the exact same size. The only difference is the white stripes on the college ball. The white stripes on college footballs is to help the recievers see the ball better.
27. The record for the most major league baseball career innings is held by Cy Young, with 7,356 innings.
28. Archery is the national sport in Bhutan,a Buddhist country in Asia.
29. The fastest serve in a game of tennis was in 1963 by Michael Sangster. It was clocked at 154 mile per hour.
30. South Korea is the birthplace of taekwondo, an olympic sport since 2000.
31. Before the turn of the century, prize fighters fought bare fisted. Matches sometimes lasted more than one hundred rounds and were counted by knock outs.
32. The oldest continuous trophy in sports is the America's Cup. It started in 1851, with Americans winning for a straight 132 years until Australia took the Cup in 1983.
33. Pitcher Nolan Ryan played 27 seasons in major league baseball and struck out more batters in his career than any other pitcher
34. To wear a "visor" on your helmet in the NFL, you have to have a doctors note. Almost all the visors in the NFL are prescription.
35. You've probably heard your coach or parents say, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." Well that phrase comes from Ancient Rome. The only rule during Roman wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Biting, kicking and scratching were allowed but the only way to be disqualified was to poke someone's eye out.
36. If a horse wins a race "hands down" it means the jockey never raised his whip during the race.
37. Sports command the biggest television audiences, led by the summer Olympics, World Cup Football and Formula One racing.
38. Golf balls can reach speeds of 170 miles an hour.
39. Although 24 out of the 30 current National Hockey League teams are located in the United States, all NHL jerseys are manufactured in Canada.
40. Korfball is the only sport played with mixed teams, consisting of 4 men and 4 women.
41. James Naismith, a teacher at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, is credited with inventing basketball in 1891.The first hoops were actually just peach baskets and the first backboards were made of wire.
42. Official baseball rules state that an umpire may not be replaced during a game except if he becomes ill, injured, or if he dies.
43. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played 20 seasons in the NBA, holds the record for most points scored in a career with 38,387.
44. The Chicago Bulls have won all six NBA Finals in which they've appeared.
45. In 1981, baseball's Chicago White Sox moved their centre field wall in by 43 feet, hoping that Chicago's power hitters would hit a few more home runs. In the first two months of the season, four home runs were hit over the new wall, all by opposing teams.
46. Approximately one out of four injuries by athletes involve the wrist and hand.
47. In bowling, three strikes in a row was called a turkey. The term originated in the 1800s when at holiday time, the first member of a team to score three strikes in a row won a free turkey.
48. The national sport of Japan is sumo wrestling.
49. A baseball ball has exactly 108 stitches, a cricket ball has between 65 and 70 stiches. A soccer ball is made up of 32 leather panels, held together by 642 stitches. Basketball and rugby balls are made from synthetic material. Earlier, pigs' bladders were used as rugby balls.
50. In the 1930's, American track star Jesse Owens used to race against horses and dogs to earn a living.
51. The Aztec and Maya Indians of Mexico and Central America played a complicated kind of ball game not unlike lacrosse. The game, played in a large stadium and witnessed by thousands of spectators, went on for several hours. When the game was finished, the captain of the losing team was slaughtered before the onlookers, his body torn limb from limb, and pieces of his heart passed among the crowd for members of the audience to nibble.
52. On average, it is estimated that females injure themselves ten times more than males do while playing sports
53. On March 2, 1962, Philadelphia center Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in one game against New York. That is the most one player has ever scored in one game.
54. Wild Bill Hickok was killed playing poker, holding two pairs - aces and eights, which has become known as 'Dead Man's Hand.
55. Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, once pinned an opponent using only a single finger.
56. Billiards used to be so popular at one time that cigarette cards were issued featuring players.
57. Gold medals haven't been pure gold in 96 years. The 1912 Olympics was the last time that gold medals were solid gold. Ever since, they've been silver with gold plating.
58. The Pittsburgh Pirates got their name as a result of bad publicity. In 1880 the Pittsburgh team allegedly "Pirated" an important player away from Philadelphia and did nothing to smooth over ruffled feelings. Local newspapers angrily called Pittsburg "a bunch of Pirates." The epithet stuck, and eventually became the team's official name.
59. During the hundred days of the opening games at the Colosseum in Rome, in 80 A.D., over 5,000 animals were killed, including elephants, tigers, lions, elks, hyenas, hippopotamuses, and giraffes.
60. A perfect game in baseball is one in which the same player pitches the entire game without allowing any player of the opposing team to reach first base
61. Kite flying is a professional sport in Thailand.
62. The sport Lacrosse was initially played by Native American Indians. They played the sport to prepare for war.
63. The longest major league baseball game on record was played on May 1st, 1921, between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves. It was called at the end of 26 innings on account of darkness, with the score tied 1-1. Brooklyn's Leon Cadore and Boston's Joe Oeschger both pitched the entire 26 innings. The entire game lasted only 3 hours 50 minutes.
64. The Ouija board is named for the French and German words for yes - oui and ja.
65. The San Diego Chargers of the NFL are named after a credit card.
66. Golfers use an estimated $800 million worth of golf balls annually.
67. Gymnasiums were introduced in 900BC and Greek athletes practised in the nude to the accompaniment of music. They also performed naked at the Olympic Games.
68. The velocity of a pitched baseball is about 8 mph faster as it leaves the pitcher's hand than when it reaches home plate.
69. In 1905, 18 men died from injuries sustained on the football field. President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in and instituted safety measures to make the game safer.
70. There are 318,979,564,000 ways of playing the first four turns in a game of chess. There are 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 ways of playing the first ten turns of a game of chess.
71. The 'huddle' in football was formed due to a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn't want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.
72. If the air conditioning at the Astrodome in Houston were turned off, it would rain inside the stadium due to the entrance of humid air.
73. The first professional football team to sport an insignia on their helmets was the Los Angeles Rams in 1950, who hand painted yellow horns on their blue leather helmets.
74. The distance between the pitcher's rubber and home plate in baseball is 60 feet, 6 inches
75. The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece in 1896. There were 311 male but no female competitors.
76. The great Yankee slugger Babe Ruth, who began his career as a pitcher, had a favorite pitching trick that has rarely been duplicated. He 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.
77. There are bullfights in Detroit. Twelve times a year, at the Cobo Arena, some of the best Spanish and Mexican matadors are featured, as well as several American Bullfighters who have been trained in Spain. Bullfights themselves are not illegal in the United States; the matador is simply not allowed to kill the bull. In Detroit, therefore, all fights are "exhibitions," bloodless events that demonstrate the matador's skill, not his ability to make a kill.
78. The first players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson & Walter Johnson in 1936

SUPERSTITIONS:

Baseball:
• Spitting into your hand before picking up the bat is said to bring good luck.
• A wad of gum stuck on a player's hat brings good luck.
• It is bad luck if a dog walks across the diamond before the first pitch.
• Some players believe it is good luck to step on one of the bases before running off the field at the end of an inning.
• It is bad luck to touch the baselines while running off and onto the field between innings.
• Lending a bat to a fellow player is a serious jinx.
• Some players actually sleep with their bat to break out of a hitting slump or stay in a groove.
• If a pitcher is throwing a perfect game or a no-hitter, never speak of it while it's going on.
Basketball:
• The last person to shoot a basket during the warm-up will have a good game.
• Wipe the soles of your sneakers for good luck.
• Bounce the ball before taking a foul shot for good luck.
Bowling:
• To continue a winning streak, wear the same clothes.
• The number 300, a perfect score, on your license plate will increase your score.
• Carry charms on your bowling bag, in your pockets, or around your neck for good luck.
Fishing:
• Fish may not bite if a barefoot woman passes you on the way to the dock.
• Spit on your bait before casting your rod to make fish bite.
• Throw back your first catch for good luck.
• It is bad luck to change rods while fishing.
• Don't tell anyone how many fish you've caught until you're done or you won't catch another.
Football:
• Double numbers on a player's uniform brings good luck.
• It's bad luck for a professional football player to take a new number when he is traded to another team.
• A mascot is an important good luck symbol.
Golf:
• Start only with odd-numbered clubs.
• Balls with a number higher than 4 are bad luck.
• Carry coins in your pockets for good luck.
Ice Hockey:
• It is bad luck for hockey sticks to lie crossed.
• It is bad luck to say shutout in the locker room before a game.
• Players believe they'll win the game if they tap the goalie on his shin pads before a game.
Rodeo:
• Always put the right foot in the stirrup first.
• Avoid wearing the color yellow.
• Always shave before a competition.
Tennis:
• It's bad luck to hold more than two balls at a time when serving.
• Avoid wearing the color yellow.
• Walk around the outside of the court when switching sides for good luck.