Interesting Rarely Known Sports Facts/Tidbits Thread

[AA484]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1417695509842694145

Antetokounmpos are the first trio of brothers to win an NBA Championship

Has this happened in other sports?

The brothers also combined to score 211 points in their respective championship series.

 

[alkeiper]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1417695509842694145

Antetokounmpos are the first trio of brothers to win an NBA Championship

Has this happened in other sports?

The Molina brothers. Yadier with the '06 and '11 Cards, Bengie and Jose with the '02 Angels, and Jose Molina played for the '09 Yankees as well.

 

[alfdogg]

This was the first season since 1994 that both #1 seeds in the NBA playoffs (Philadelphia and Utah) were eliminated before the conference finals. Seattle, of course, famously lost in the first round to the Denver Nuggets as the #1 overall seed, while Atlanta, top seed in the East for the first time, lost in 6 games to Indiana, which prior to that season had never won a playoff series since the ABA merger.

However, since 2000, there have only been three instances where both #1 seeds made it to the Finals.

Lakers/Pacers, 2000
Celtics/Lakers, 2008
Warriors/Cavs, 2016

Since the playoffs expanded to 16 teams in 1984, these are the #1's who were eliminated prior to the conference finals.

LA Lakers, 1990 (lost 4-1 to Phoenix, 2nd round)
Seattle, 1994 (lost 3-2 to Denver, 1st round)
Atlanta, 1994 (lost 4-2 to Indiana, 2nd round)
Miami, 1999 (lost 3-2 to New York, 1st round)
San Antonio, 2006 (lost 4-3 to Dallas, 2nd round)
Dallas, 2007 (lost 4-2 to Golden State, 1st round)
Cleveland, 2010 (lost 4-2 to Boston, 2nd round)
San Antonio, 2011 (lost 4-2 to Memphis, 1st round)
Chicago, 2012 (lost 4-2 to Philadelphia, 1st round)
Oklahoma City, 2013 (lost 4-1 to Memphis, 2nd round)
Toronto, 2018 (lost 4-0 to Cleveland, 2nd round)
Milwaukee, 2020 (lost 4-1 to Miami, 2nd round)
Utah, 2021 (lost 4-2 to LA Clippers, 2nd round)
Philadelphia, 2021 (lost 4-3 to Atlanta, 2nd round)

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Mitch Richmond: Teammate’s greeting with Kings was ‘Welcome to hell’

When the Kings hired George Karl in 2015, Rudy Gay reportedly greeted his new coach with, "Welcome to basketball hell."

sports.yahoo.com

Mitch Richmond didn't comb his hair for the entire 1991-92 NBA season because he was so depressed over having to play for the SacKings.

Damn. No wonder why Slim stopped rooting for these guys. Outside of the first half of the '00s, Sacramento really is basketball hell.

I thought the SacKings getting blown out by the Warriors by 61 points during Richmond's first game was a stereotypical retired athlete exaggeration but they actually lost by 62!

Kings vs Warriors, November 2, 1991 | Basketball-Reference.com

SAC (91) vs GSW (153). Get the box score, shot charts and play by play summary of the Kings vs Warriors, November 2, 1991.

www.basketball-reference.com

 

[BruiserBrody]

The Rumble in the Jungle Was a Fair Fight Because Both Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s Camps Paid off the Ref

Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fought an iconic bout in 1974 in Zaire, Africa and both sides went to incredible lengths to ensure fairness.

www.sportscasting.com

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1435247955548770315

 

[alkeiper]

Really cool that Zack Clayton played baseball, and what we now recognize as Major League Baseball at that.

The automatic safety looked like it wasn't exactly planned. The punter couldn't get the kick off and then made a judgment call.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Robin Yount's brother Larry holds an unusual MLB record

The Official Site of Major League Baseball

www.mlb.com

Al, you'll probably like this story on the 50th Anniversary of Larry Yount's one minute as a MLB player.

 

[alkeiper]

I read that yesterday. It's interesting to me how one person can take what others may view as disappointment in stride and live fulfilling lives. And others reach great heights but spiral out of control.

What the article left unmentioned though is whether Larry knows his wife had an out of wedlock child with Patton Oswalt.

 

[snuffbox]

Oh, the family picture.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Jim Kiick - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Following his brief, disappointing, but lucrative detour to the WFL, Kiick stated that he wanted to join Csonka with the New York Giants, but Giants coach Bill Arnsparger, who had been Miami's defensive coordinator, was opposed because he was concerned Kiick would be a bad influence on Csonka.[19] So he returned to the NFL in a back-up role for the Denver Broncos in 1976. He rushed 32 times for 115 yards and one touchdown, and caught 12 passes for 92 yards and a touchdown. Kiick was released during the 1977 regular season and missed out on the Broncos' playoff run to Super Bowl XII. (On the same day he was released by the Broncos, his house burned down and he got divorced.)[20] He was then picked up by the Washington Redskins on December 1,[21] but Kiick played in just one game for them, was waived in June 1978,[22] and then retired.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Gastineau lost to Tim "Doc" Anderson by a lopsided five-round unanimous decision in June 1992. Anderson later claimed that Parker offered him money to take a dive.

They had a rematch in December 1992, and Gastineau won by a sixth-round knockout. After the fight, Anderson insisted that he was drugged by Parker. He said he was light-headed, nauseous and hallucinating during the bout. A year and a half later, Anderson shot Parker dead.

https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Mark_Gastineau

---
Also this....

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Comedian Jerry Lewis once got a hit against the Tigers in the Astrodome

Go ahead – reread that headline. I’ll wait for you. It’s true, comedian Jerry Lewis — that Jerry Lewis — put on a major league uniform and played in a game against the Detroit Tigers. And he did it in Houston at the famed Astrodome, the first indoor stadium in big league baseball and the […]

www.vintagedetroit.com

Jerry Lewis started at first base in a mid season exhibition for the Houston Astros in 1973 and hit a single!

Also imagine how pissed the player’s association would be if they had rando exhibitions during off days during the season now. Although they were still having them not too long ago. Back when Portland was the Marlins AA affiliate, the Florida Marlins came here at least once to play an exhibition on an off day before a series in Montreal against the Expos. And that was the late ‘90s.

 

[alkeiper]

Quiet Day. Let's see what the Sporting News looked like 50 years ago (cover date: December 11, 1971).

COVER: Otis Taylor of the Kansas City Chiefs. Apparently he's really good.

*NBA and ABA owners contend the bidding war for rookies is driving teams into the red. Leonard Koppett refutes that. It took until 1976 for the leagues to merge but even this early the owners were trying.

Vern Rapp resigned as manager of the Tigres Aragua. He writes in though to tell the Sporting News it was for personal reasons and assures readers Venezuela is a wonderful place.

*The Chargers fired Sid Gillman. His message for the youth of America, if someone offers you a lifetime contract, get it in writing.

*NFL recaps. The Sporting News was a weekly publication so it's coverage was a couple weeks older than the cover date. This issue featured games from week ten, I'll link the actual games.

1971 NFL Week 10 Leaders & Scores | Pro-Football-Reference.com

1971 NFL Week 10 Leaders & Scores

www.pro-football-reference.com

*Speculation that Gale Sayers' career is over. Indeed, it was.

*Want to buy the Patriots' old grandstand?

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

21 years ago today, @HarleyQuinn. Had no idea even in his first season with the Pats, the hoodie was already a part of Coach Belichick's identity. Idk why I thought he might have dressed to impress when he started but I guess there was really no need given state of Patriots in late '90s/early '00s lol.

Had no idea Sgt. Slaughter coached the Bruins in the '00s!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Interesting factoid that the PBP dropped during garbage time of Pats-Jags...the last time Bill Belichick lost to a rookie QB at home? It was against The New England Patriots (led by Drew Bledsoe) when he was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1993!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Work is unusually slow for a Saturday so I'm just scrolling through Wikipedia for random '00s sports stuff. I had forgotten that how bad the 2009 St. Louis Rams were. They're lost in the shadow of the winless 2008 Detroit Lions but the '09 Rams were arguably worse. They went 1-15 against a weaker schedule (one win was against the Detroit Lions, of course) and had 12 passing touchdowns ALL SEASON (one of which was thrown by the kicker). Wowee zowee. That's a long hard fall from the Greatest Show on Turf, huh.

2009 St. Louis Rams season - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Work is unusually slow for a Saturday so I'm just scrolling through Wikipedia for random '00s sports stuff. I had forgotten that how bad the 2009 St. Louis Rams were. They're lost in the shadow of the winless 2008 Detroit Lions but the '09 Rams were arguably worse. They went 1-15 against a weaker schedule (one win was against the Detroit Lions, of course) and had 12 passing touchdowns ALL SEASON (one of which was thrown by the kicker). Wowee zowee. That's a long hard fall from the Greatest Show on Turf, huh.

2009 St. Louis Rams season - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

To be fair, that was the year they trotted out Kyler Boller(!) and Keith Null(?) to start 8 games between them. Injuries completely ravaged them with WR Laurent Robinson having to start 3 games and WR Keenan Burton starting 6 due to Brandon Gibson's early injury.

The next year, with Bradford as a rookie and a little more health, they finished 7-9 then imploded to 2-14 the next year under McD as OC when Bradford died after 10 games in that offseason where coaches couldn't meet with players, etc.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

From 1950-1964, Nellie Fox hit .290 while averaging 49 BB to 15 K when extrapolated over a 162 game season. His "highest" strikeout total was just 18 in 1953, then 17 in 1950 and 1963. He had 2 seasons with 75 BB vs 13 K and 71 BB vs 13 K!

For comparison, from 1984-1999, Tony Gwynn hit .341 while averaging 54 BB vs. 28 K when extrapolated to a 162 game season. His "highest" strikeout total was 40 in 1988, then 35 in 1986 & 1987. Gwynn's best season was 1987 with 82 BB vs 35 K but then he rarely walked 45+ a season afterwards.

 

[alkeiper]

I wonder if it's even possible to succeed in today's game with that approach. Fox played in leagues where the K/9 rate was somewhere between 4.0 and 4.9. The league average this year was 9.0. Kevin Newman struck out just 41 times in a full season. He hit .226 for his trouble. If you guard the plate to the extent Fox did against today's pitchers there's no way you could hit the ball with any authority.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

I wonder if it's even possible to succeed in today's game with that approach. Fox played in leagues where the K/9 rate was somewhere between 4.0 and 4.9. The league average this year was 9.0. Kevin Newman struck out just 41 times in a full season. He hit .226 for his trouble. If you guard the plate to the extent Fox did against today's pitchers there's no way you could hit the ball with any authority.

It also makes me wonder if the reliance on making pitchers work/emphasis on power instead is partly why the trend of .300 hitters has gone down too. Guys like Juan Pierre who could hit around .307 or peak at .325 would largely be irrelevant in today's baseball era because he didn't walk much or hit for much power.

Worth highlighting that 2007 onwards has seen the highest league-wide strikeout totals per team game. 2009 saw the highest BB totals (equivalent to 1987) and 2020 was the equivalent to 1986 & 1998 albeit in a shortened season. Only 5 players had 90 or more walks last year(!)

That coincides with 2016 on seeing a skyrocket in HR totals outside of the infamous 1999-2001 era (ironically enough).

HR totals per game: 2019 = #1 (1.39 per game team totals!), 2020 = #2, 2017 = #3, and 2021 = #4.

Interesting to note that league-wide BA is trending towards the raised mound era of 1967/1968 and the deadball era of 1907-1909.

 

[alkeiper]

Without doing too deep a dive I thought, who is a player like Juan Pierre in today's game? Pierre's career average was .295, ISO (Isolated power, Slugging minus batting average) was .066. So batting average .294 or above, ISO less than .100. In the last fifty years you get Pierre, Ichiro Suzuki, Bip Roberts and Mark Loretta. Loretta doesn't really fit, he just barely makes both parameters. I played around with the data a bit but what I got out of it is that players like Juan Pierre are rare in the first place. The last player to hit .300 with an ISO over a full career besides Ichiro was Manny Mota. Pierre hit 15 points higher than his contemporaries like Scott Podsednik, that's what made him special. What really hurts this style of player is the lack of roster spots for pinch hitters. A player like Greg Gross doesn't exist today.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Without doing too deep a dive I thought, who is a player like Juan Pierre in today's game? Pierre's career average was .295, ISO (Isolated power, Slugging minus batting average) was .066. So batting average .294 or above, ISO less than .100. In the last fifty years you get Pierre, Ichiro Suzuki, Bip Roberts and Mark Loretta. Loretta doesn't really fit, he just barely makes both parameters. I played around with the data a bit but what I got out of it is that players like Juan Pierre are rare in the first place. The last player to hit .300 with an ISO over a full career besides Ichiro was Manny Mota. Pierre hit 15 points higher than his contemporaries like Scott Podsednik, that's what made him special. What really hurts this style of player is the lack of roster spots for pinch hitters. A player like Greg Gross doesn't exist today.

The closest guys I could think of were guys like Starling Marte or a Whit Merrifield if they traded off trying to hit 10-15 HRs a season and aim more for singles instead.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Doesn't really count as rarely known since it just happened today but

Clips do it again, rally from 35 down to stun Wiz

The LA Clippers roared back from 35 points down to stun the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night, marking the third time in January the Clips have erased a deficit of 24 or more points and won.

www.espn.com

Rag tag Clippers came back from being down 35 points last night to beat the Wizards. This is third time they've erased a 24+ point deficit THIS MONTH (and 2nd time this week!) No other team has done that in a season the past 25 years.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1488847227934195712

 

[BruiserBrody]

Self flagellating this AM by watching a condensed version of the Cowboys destroying the Packers in the 1994 Playoffs.

Brett Favre was charged with a holding penalty for grabbing Charles Haley's arm while trying to keep him from grabbing a deflected pass!

I'm guessing QB's haven't had a whole lot of holding penalties over the years.

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/su9w1q

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Thought this was pretty interesting in a long retrospective way! Kiper's reasoning is fun to read too.

Mel Kiper's Post NFL Combine Mock Draft - 2001 Edition ... https://www.espn.com/melkiper/s/2001/0305/1130313.html
1 San Diego - QB Michael Vick
2 Arizona - DT Gerard Warren
3 Cleveland - WR Koren Robinson
4 Cincinnati - OT Leonard Davis
5 Atlanta - DE Justin Smith
6 New England - OT Kenyatta Walker
7 Seattle - WR David Terrell
8 Chicago - RB LaDainian Tomlinson
9 San Francisco - RB Deuce McAllister
10 Green Bay - WR Freddie Mitchell
11 Carolina - OG Steve Hutchinson
12 Kansas City - CB Fred Smoot
13 Jacksonville - DE Andre Carter
14 Buffalo - CB Will Allen
15 Washington - WR Santana Moss
16 Pittsburgh - MLB Dan Morgan
17 Seattle - DT Marcus Stroud
18 Detroit - C Dominic Raiola
19 NY Jets - WR Chris Chambers
20 St. Louis - DT Richard Seymour
21 Tampa Bay - OT Jeff Backus
22 Indianapolis - DT Damione Lewis
23 New Orleans - TE Todd Heap
24 Denver - DE Jamal Reynolds
25 Philadelphia - WR Chad Johnson
26 Miami - WR Rod Gardner
27 Minnesota - DE Willie Howard
28 Oakland - QB Drew Brees
29 Tennessee - WR Reggie Wayne
30 NY Giants - CB Ken Lucas
31 Baltimore - OT Maurice Williams

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1496904738780164097

 

[BruiserBrody]

Thought this was pretty interesting in a long retrospective way! Kiper's reasoning is fun to read too.

Mel Kiper's Post NFL Combine Mock Draft - 2001 Edition ... https://www.espn.com/melkiper/s/2001/0305/1130313.html
1 San Diego - QB Michael Vick
2 Arizona - DT Gerard Warren
3 Cleveland - WR Koren Robinson
4 Cincinnati - OT Leonard Davis
5 Atlanta - DE Justin Smith
6 New England - OT Kenyatta Walker
7 Seattle - WR David Terrell
8 Chicago - RB LaDainian Tomlinson
9 San Francisco - RB Deuce McAllister
10 Green Bay - WR Freddie Mitchell
11 Carolina - OG Steve Hutchinson
12 Kansas City - CB Fred Smoot
13 Jacksonville - DE Andre Carter
14 Buffalo - CB Will Allen
15 Washington - WR Santana Moss
16 Pittsburgh - MLB Dan Morgan
17 Seattle - DT Marcus Stroud
18 Detroit - C Dominic Raiola
19 NY Jets - WR Chris Chambers
20 St. Louis - DT Richard Seymour
21 Tampa Bay - OT Jeff Backus
22 Indianapolis - DT Damione Lewis
23 New Orleans - TE Todd Heap
24 Denver - DE Jamal Reynolds
25 Philadelphia - WR Chad Johnson
26 Miami - WR Rod Gardner
27 Minnesota - DE Willie Howard
28 Oakland - QB Drew Brees
29 Tennessee - WR Reggie Wayne
30 NY Giants - CB Ken Lucas
31 Baltimore - OT Maurice Williams

I have NFL previews dating back to the 70s for this very type of retrospective fun,

Also, ugh Jamal "Too Small" Reynolds - top 10 Packer pick