NEDUSPORTSFACTS

Sport Facts

Golf the only sport played on the moon – on 6 February 1971 Alan Shepard hit a golf ball.

The first World Series was played between Pittsburgh and Boston in 1903 and was a nine-game series. Boston won the series 5-3.

About 42,000 tennis balls are used in the plus-minus 650 matches in the Wimbledon Championship.

The first puck ever used in a hovkey game was a frozen piece of cow crap.

The New York Yankees have won 26 World Series titles, which is more than any other team.

Fishing is the biggest participant sport in the world.

It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs.

Shaquille O’Neal wears size 22 shoes. He puts on a brand new pair before every game.

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.

Before 1859, umpires sat in a padded rocking chair behind the catcher

More than 1,800 medals are awarded at the Olympics.

Soccer is the most attended or watched sport in the world.

The Boston Celtics have won the most NBA championships (17), including seven straight from 1960 to 1966.

Pittsburgh is the only U.S. city with 3 sports teams that wear the same colors.

Average lifespan of a major league baseball: 5 pitches.

Boxing became a legal sport in 1901.

A forfeited game in baseball is recorded as 9-0.

Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool! He changed it every 2 innings!

The record for the most major league baseball career innings is held by Cy Young, with 7,356 innings.

Archery is the national sport in Bhutan,a Buddhist country in Asia.

The fastest serve in a game of tennis was in 1963 by Michael Sangster. It was clocked at 154 mile per hour.

South Korea is the birthplace of taekwondo, an olympic sport since 2000.

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.

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.

Pitcher Nolan Ryan played 27 seasons in major league baseball and struck out more batters in his career than any other pitcher

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.

If a horse wins a race “hands down” it means the jockey never raised his whip during the race.

Sports command the biggest television audiences, led by the summer Olympics, World Cup Football and Formula One racing.

Golf balls can reach speeds of 170 miles an hour.

Although 24 out of the 30 current National Hockey League teams are located in the United States, all NHL jerseys are manufactured in Canada.

Korfball is the only sport played with mixed teams, consisting of 4 men and 4 women.

Official baseball rules state that an umpire may not be replaced during a game except if he becomes ill, injured, or if he dies.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played 20 seasons in the NBA, holds the record for most points scored in a career with 38,387.

The Chicago Bulls have won all six NBA Finals in which they’ve appeared.

Approximately one out of four injuries by athletes involve the wrist and hand.

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.

The national sport of Japan is sumo wrestling.

In the 1930′s, American track star Jesse Owens used to race against horses and dogs to earn a living.

On average, it is estimated that females injure themselves ten times more than males do while playing sports

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.

Wild Bill Hickok was killed playing poker, holding two pairs – aces and eights, which has become known as ‘Dead Man’s Hand.

Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, once pinned an opponent using only a single finger.

Billiards used to be so popular at one time that cigarette cards were issued featuring players.

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.

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.

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

Kite flying is a professional sport in Thailand.

The sport Lacrosse was initially played by Native American Indians. They played the sport to prepare for war.

The Ouija board is named for the French and German words for yes – oui and ja.

The San Diego Chargers of the NFL are named after a credit card.

Golfers use an estimated $800 million worth of golf balls annually.

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.

The velocity of a pitched baseball is about 8 mph faster as it leaves the pitcher’s hand than when it reaches home plate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The distance between the pitcher’s rubber and home plate in baseball is 60 feet, 6 inches

The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece in 1896. There were 311 male but no female competitors.

The first players elected to Baseball Hall of Fame were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson & Walter