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.
Volleyball was invented in a Holyoke, Massachusetts YMCA in 1895. Its inventor was William George Morgan. The game was first called "mintonette" and was played by hitting a basketball over a rope.
Walter Camp, more than any other person, was responsible for transforming the U.S. game of football into a unique contest, different from its soccer and rugby roots. For these contributions, he was called "The Father of American Football." From 1876 to 1871, Camp starred as a rugby runner and kicker at Yale, and represented Yale at the intercollegiate football conventions. Camp championed the following rules: reduction of players per side from 15 to 11 men (1879); creation of the scrimmage in which one team holds undisputed possession of the ball (1880); the system in which a team must gain a specified number of yards within a specified number of downs to retain possession (1882); and the point system of scoring (1883).
Polo may be played outdoors, on a field, or large indoor arenas, such as riding academies or armories. The ball used for outdoor polo may be wood or plastic. If wood, it may be made from ash or bamboo. The ball used indoors is inflated and covered with leather. It is approximately 4½ inches in diameter. It is 3¼ inches in diameter, and weighs between 4¼ and 4½ ounces.
Wellington College, which was founded in 1853 and specialized in educating the sons of soldiers, was quick to adopt its own set of colors for its sports teams. Its rugby team played in orange-and-black striped jerseys, while its cricket team sported light-blue caps piped with yellow — colors taken, curiously but appropriately, from the ribbon of the Crimean War medal.
Prize fights prior to the turn of the century lasted up to more than a hundred rounds (rounds were often determined by knockdowns.) The fighters used bare knuckles (no gloves.)
When Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927, he hit 14 percent of all home runs in his league that year. For a player to hit 14 percent of all home runs today, he would have to hit over 300 home runs in one season.
Roger Bannister was the first man to break the four-minute mile, however he did not break the four-minute mile in an actual race. On May 6, 1954, he ran 3:59.4 while being carefully paced by other runners. Bannister's quarter-mile splits were 57.5 seconds, 60.7, 62.3, and 58.9. Twenty-three days after Bannister had run the most famous mile of all time, his fellow Briton, Diane Leather, became the first woman to break five minutes with a 4:59.6 seconds, in Birmingham, England, on May 29, 1954. In the forty-plus years since the two British runners broke these significant marks, women's times have improved by a far higher percentage than men's.
When playing golf, scraping the golf club along the ground before hitting the ball is called sclaffing.
Ronald Reagan's favorite pastime sport was horseback riding.
Who would want to be a vicious Bear when you can be a lean, mean swimming machine? Definitely not the Miami Dolphins. When the football franchise chose its name in 1965 – the height of "Flipper-mania" – owner Joe Robbie explained why the name was a perfect fit: "The dolphin is one of the fastest and smartest creatures of the sea. Dolphins can attack and kill a shark or a whale. Sailors say bad luck will come to anyone who harms one of them."
Safeco Field, Seattle's newest ballpark for the Mariners baseball team which opened on July 15, 1999, was built to resemble the great ballparks of yesteryear. It is open-air and has real grass. Seating capacity of the ballpark is 46,621. Safeco Field features a retractable roof that covers the ballpark, but does not enclose it. The roof keeps fans protected from the wind and rain. The three roof panels measure 8.75 acres. The total weight of the roof is a staggering 22,000,000 pounds.
Yachting was scheduled to be on the first modern Olympic Games program in 1896, but rough seas forced the cancellation of the event.
Saint Lydwina is the patron saint of ice skating.
Scientists have estimated a fly ball will travel about seven feet further for every 1,000 feet of altitude. With an approximate elevation of 1,100 feet, Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, Arizona is the second highest facility in the major baseball leagues; only Coors Field in Denver, Colorado is higher.
Seven thousand years ago, the ancient Egyptians bowled on alleys not unlike our own.
Seven-foot-two Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born just a bit longer than the average newborn at 22½ inches, but he weighed a hefty 12 pounds, 11 ounces. His name at birth was Lewis Alcindor.
Soccer gave us the term "melee." It means a "confused mass," which was what the playing field looked like in Europe in the Middle Ages. Towns competed using teams of up to a hundred players, with the goals a half-mile or so apart.
Soldier Field in Chicago is the oldest stadium still in use in the NFL.
Some form of bowling is played in more than 90 countries around the world. Approximately 100 million people participate in bowling today.
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