The Retort

The Sports Corner: Miscellaneous

October 21st, 2011 by Cory Lovec Of The Retort Staff

• Prairie View College has a notorious record of futility, losing 80 straight games during the 1990s!
• Tug of War was an Olympic event between 1900 and 1920.
• In 1910, a football team was penalized 15 yards for an incomplete forward pass.
• The longest major league baseball game on record was played on May 1st, 1921, between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the 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.
• Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia have built a golf course on the border between the three countries. It is a 27-hole course, with nine holes in each country. Much of the course was formerly a minefield.
• 23 out of the 30 current National Hockey League teams are located in the United States. All of the NHL jerseys are manufactured in Canada.
• The UCLA Bruins won seven consecutive NCAA basketball titles (1967-73).
• Since coming into the NBA in 1967, no team has blocked more shots than the San Antonio Spurs.
• 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.
• In 1916, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets beat Cumberland University 222 – 0! Georgia Tech scored an incredible 32 touchdowns, and Cumberland had just one play for positive yards during the entire game!
• According to the third edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, there are 20 valid words containing no vowels.
• In 1981, baseball’s Chicago White Sox moved their center 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.
• During the 1945 PGA Tour, Byron Nelson had 11 consecutive victories.
• President Gerald Ford actually declined two NFL contracts: one with the Green Bay Packers and another with the Detroit Lions.