Sports History Facts

The first baseball caps were made of straw.

Taekwondo is only about 70 years old, making it one of the youngest major martial arts in the world.

The average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches.

In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an 'Honorary Harlem Globetrotter.'"

Babe Ruth wore No. 3 because he batted third.

Cheetahs were raced at Romford greyhound stadium in 1937!

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

The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers founded in 1744, is the world's oldest golf club!

Bo Jackson destroyed his left hip in the 1991 NFL playoffs and was told he would never play again. Doctors replaced the joint with a prosthetic hip. Eighteen months later he pinch-hit for the Chicago White Sox - took the first pitch for a strike, then drove the next one over the right-field wall. All 42,775 fans at Comiskey Park rose to their feet. He hit 16 home runs that season and won AL Comeback Player of the Year.

Tom Brady was drafted by the Montreal Expos as a catcher in the 1995 MLB Draft. The scout ranked him a late second-round talent but placed him in round 18 - they knew his Michigan football scholarship made him impossible to sign. Brady chose football and won seven Super Bowls. Asked where baseball would have led, Brady said: "I would be selling insurance."