Sports Facts

Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

Tug of War was an Olympic event between 1900 and 1920.

Today's top fuel dragsters take off with more force than the space shuttle.

Left-handed people often exhibit an advantage in sports that demand quick reactions and spatial judgment, frequently due to tactical unpredictability and specific neurological factors.

When pitched, the average Major League baseball rotates 15 times before being hit.

Pittsburgh is the only city where all major sports teams share the same colors: black and gold.

Three consective strikes in bowling is called a turkey.

It takes about 3,000 cow hides to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.

People in nudist colonies play volleyball more than any other sport.

At 120 miles per hour, a Formula One car generates so much downforce that it can drive upside down on the roof of a tunnel.

Kite flying is a professional sport in Thailand.

A 'face-off' in hockey was originally called a 'puck-off'.

The most popular sport as a topic for a film is boxing.

NASCAR teams use nitrogen instead of regular air to fill their tires because it maintains more consistent pressure under extreme heat.

Honey is used sometimes for antifreeze mixtures and in the center of golf balls.

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

Hockey player Jarome Iginla donates $2,000 to the children’s charity Kidsport for every goal he scores. Since 2000 it has added up to more than $700,000.

There is a growing sport in Berlin and London called Chess Boxing. Players alternate between a round of chess and a round of boxing until one is declared winner either by checkmate, KO, or technical stoppage.

The 1904 Olympic Marathon in St. Louis had one water station for the entire 25-mile course. The first man across the finish line had ridden in a car for 11 miles. The actual winner was fed strychnine and brandy by his trainers and was hallucinating at the finish. A South African runner was chased a mile off course by wild dogs. Only 14 of 32 runners finished.

The five who come over the wall at a NASCAR pit stop are not the shop's mechanics. Teams scout college football for players too small for the NFL. Hendrick Motorsports invited 52 to a June tryout and expected to hire one to five. Four tires and a full tank in about ten seconds. Somewhere on pit road Sunday is a linebacker who never got an NFL call, still chasing a championship.

The Herkie is the cheer jump: one leg kicked straight out, the other bent back. It started as a flub. Dallas teenager Lawrence Herkimer went up for a clean split jump and missed. "It was just a poor split jump," he said later. "I don't like to tell people that." The jump took his name anyway. Squads still throw it every Friday night.

A foul ball fell into the Philadelphia bleachers in 1923. Robert Cotter, age 11, caught it and pocketed it. Back then the ball belonged to the Phillies, so they pressed charges. He spent the night in a cell. Next morning a judge freed him, refusing to brand a boy a thief over a $1.50 ball. It was the first court ruling that a fan could keep one. Every foul ball in the seats tonight is yours.

The shortstop was not invented as an infielder. The hand-made balls of the 1840s were too light to throw 200 feet. So one man stood in the grass between the outfield and the pitcher, relaying throws in. Doc Adams played that spot and believed he was the first. In 1857 he also set the bases at 30 yards. The bases are still 90 feet apart. Every team still fields a shortstop.

The Terrible Towel is the gold rag every Steelers fan waves at every game. The team does not own it. Myron Cope invented it as a radio gimmick before a 1975 playoff game. He gave the entire trademark to a school for people with disabilities. His own son had lived there for years, and had never spoken a single word. Every official towel sold since has funded that school. Fans are still waving it, fifty years on.