Sports Curiosity

1. Bulls and white sox owner jerry reinsdorf continued to pay michael jordan his reported $4 million basketball salary while he was experimenting with baseball.

2. Roger Bannister held the world record in the mile for exactly 46 days.

3. Venus Williams (7 grand slams) has been ranked no. 1 in the wta rankings for 17 weeks, more than a full year less (56 weeks) less than caroline wozniacki (0 grand slams).

4. Miguel Cabrera (no. 48 at .321) is the only active player in the top 50 of mlb career batting average.

5. Only three active players are in the top 50 on the all-time mlb home run list, yet 27 of the top 50 have played in the past 20 years..

6. Yogi Berra won 13 world series in 18 seasons with the yanks.

7. Only 10 other quarterbacks in nfl history have thrown half as many touchdown passes as peyton manning.

8. John isner and nicholas mahut (the 70-68 wimbledon match) played 183 games over those three days, which beat the previous record of 112 games (set when there no tiebreaks for any set) by 71 games, which is just insanity.

9. Sammy Sosa has three of the eight 60-home run seasons in baseball history.

10. An nfl player’s union study determined that the average nfl career is 3.3 years, with running backs (2.57 years), wide receivers (2.81) and cornerbacks (2.94) having the shortest career, by average.

11. At the first modern olympics, winners were awarded silver medals.

12. Among Ted Williams’ many records, he set a student gunnery record as a world war ii pilot. The test emphasizes reflexes, coordination and visual reaction time and still stood, as of 2002.

13. Sir arthur conan doyle, the creator of sherlock holmes, played goalie for the amateur portsmouth association football club, which would eventually become the portsmouth professional team that won the fa cup in 2008.

14. Bob beamon’s 1968 olympic record in the long jump would have won the 2012 olympics by almost two feet.

15. The night before the miracle on ice, american goalie jim craig played the video game centipede with soviet star sergei makarov at the olympic village.

16. The boston bruins name is spelled “bqstqn bruins” on the stanley cup for their 1971-72 title.

17. Of the four nba players who have played for the most teams (the shared record is 12), three of them (jim jackson, tony massenburg and joe smith) had a college relationship with former ohio state and maryland coach gary williams.

18. In 1974, chris evert was the top money winner in two sports. Chrissy, as she was affectionately known, won the french open and wimbledon and led the wta money list. Then there was chris evert, the horse, named after the female tennis star, who won the three-year-old filly of the year award.

19. Four presidents have been on the cover of sports illustrated: john f. Kennedy, gerald ford, ronald reagan (twice) and bill clinton.

20. Despite not playing baskeball since high school, bruce jenner was drafted no. 139 by the nba’s kansas city kings after winning the men’s decathlon at the 1976 olympics.

21. Cleveland has more titles in the big four sports than dallas, san francisco, washington, baltimore, denver and houston, so enough with this “woe is cleveland” nonsense.

22. In 1991, sports illustrated predicted that the nfl of 2001 would have a 20-game season and 40 teams, including squads in london, paris, berlin, tehran, johannesburg, bombay, djakarta, sydney, auckland, and mexico city.

23. These kids had no interest in baseball hall of famer johnny bench.

24. While he was a football player at florida state, lee corso had a college roommate named burt reynolds who eventually quit school because he was going “to hollywood to be a movie star.”