Almanac chapter 5: Sports

                                     Chapter 5

                                       SPORTS

              This is not going to be a typical chapter  about  sports.  No
         ordinary sports statistics will be found here.  Who cares how many
         home  runs Wilt Chamberlin  hit,  whether  Billie  Jean  King  was
         banned  from  the  National  Football League, or if Mark Spitz can
         still punch Mohammed Ali's lights out.  These are the  things that
         interested me, the author. I think you will find them  interesting
         too.

              When volleyball was first invented in  1895,  it  was  called
         mintonette.

              There  is  a  non-competitive  game  called  Pepper that some
         volleyball players use to warm up. Two  players  face  each  other
         about  ten  feet apart. One sets the ball to the other, who spikes
         it. The first person bumps the ball (a two-handed underhand  move)
         to  the  second  who  then  sets  it for the first to spike.  This
         three-move game can theoretically go on forever  if  both  players
         have sufficient skill.

              You  have  a greater chance of injury playing volleyball than
         football.   This  is  because  in  volleyball  it   is   easy   to
         accidentally smash into your opponent through the net.

              In Europe, football means soccer.

              You probably think American football is a rough sport. It is.
         But  it  is  nothing  like  it  was before 1906. In the year 1905,
         eighteen  players  died  on  the  gridiron.   159  more   suffered
         permanent  disabilities.   President  Theodore Roosevelt made sure
         some of the rules were changed that year.  Modern football has one
         danger left, the possibility  of  a  torn  knee.   This  could  be
         virtually eliminated if players did not used spiked shoes.

              Most  tennis injuries actually happen after the game when the
         winner tries to jump over the net.

              When tennis  was  first  invented  in  1874,  it  was  called
         sphairistike.

              The  guy  who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1915 had to get out
         and push his broken car for more than the last mile of the race.

              Sometimes boxers apply live leeches to their black eyes. This
         sucks out the blood from the crushed tissue,  evidently  lessening
         the blackness, or promoting healing.

              Some  unique  research discovered that four out of every five
         boxers have sustained brain damage.

              The ancient American Indian game of lacrosse  involved  teams
         of up to 1,000 players.

              A  spectator  sport in Rome 2300 years ago was called Cestus.
         Slaves were given gloves covered with spikes  and  told  to  fight
         each other. The winner's reward: life.

              I saw this in the newspaper one day:
                   "DEAR ANN LANDERS: My son  is  6-foot-6  and  never
              played   basketball.    His  answer  to  those  tiresome
              questions is a message on his T-shirt that reads: NO. DO
              YOU PLAY MINIATURE GOLF?  - R.W., Cleveland

              Bowling used to be done with nine pins.  A law was passed  in
         colonial  Connecticut  making "bowling at nine pins" illegal.  The
         potential offenders just  switched  to  using  ten  pins,  thereby
         keeping their game legal.

              The best matadors in Peru used to be women.

              The  early  golf  balls were not made from zillions of rubber
         bands. They were feather-stuffed leather balls.

              Contrary to popular belief, the original olympians  did  wear
         clothing.   Then, one runner's loincloth fell off during a race in
         the year 720 B.C. He  kept  right  on  going,  and  won  the  race
         handily.   Like  athletes  of  any  era,  the  losers  copied  the
         techniques of the winner and  subsequent  competitions  were  held
         without clothes.

              One   guy  ran  the  100-yard  dash  in  14  seconds,  not  a
         spectacular time, but he did it running backwards.

              For  those  who consider jogging a boring exercise, you might
         consider the relatively new sport of joggling.   This  is  running
         while  juggling.   This  gives your upper body exercise as well as
         your lower body. It may sound difficult, but is really quite  easy
         to do. All you have to do is learn to juggle.

              How to juggle:
              Anyone  can juggle.  Coordination and panther-like control of
         your body is not required.  All you  need  is  patience,  lots  of
         patience. Do you have this? OK, read on.
              First, find a place where no one is watching. They will laugh
         at you and make you want to quit before you feel silly.
              Warm  up  by  throwing  a  single  ball,  apple  or rock in a
         sideways figure eight (infinity  sign-shape)  from  hand  to  hand
         using  underhand  tosses.   The ball should go about two feet high
         with each throw.
              Hold one ball in your left (or less dominant)  hand  and  two
         balls  in  your right hand. Starting with the hand that is holding
         two balls, throw one of these balls to the other hand. Wait!  Read
         the rest of the instructions first.
              Ok,  while  this  first ball is in the air, just before it is
         going to land in your left hand, throw the ball that  is  in  your
         left  hand  so  that  your left hand is free to catch the incoming
         ball.  Now you have one ball in the  air  approaching  your  right
         hand.  Throw the ball that is in that right to the left so you can
         catch the ball that is coming in. And so on.  As you can  see  (if
         you  try it a few times), you are really juggling only one ball at
         a time. If you have trouble, try slowing down, and  throwing  each
         ball higher, up to five feet up if necessary.
              Practice  for  a  hundred  years,  then show your friends how
         coordinated you are and make them feel  ridiculous  by  trying  to
         teach them how to do it.
              For  more  information,  write to the International Juggler's
         Association, P.O.  Box 29, Kenmore, NY, 14217.

              With  one  pitch,   Babe   Ruth   could   throw   two   balls
         simultaneously,  which  would  stay  parallel  all  the way to the
         catcher.

              In the early days of baseball, there were four bases  plus  a
         home  plate. The bases were not sand bags, they were stakes driven
         into the ground.  There was no such  thing  as  a  foul  ball  and
         fielders  had  to  hit  a runner with the ball in order to tag him
         'out.' The umpire sat in a rocking chair. The  batter  would  tell
         the pitcher where he wanted the ball, and that's where the pitcher
         would  try  to  throw  it.  The game ended when one team scored 21
         runs.

              A research study found that out of 40 typical umpires tested,
         12 needed new glasses.

              In 1962 The New York  Mets  had  two  pitchers  named  Robert
         Miller.   The  one  they  called  Righty was Robert G.  Miller and
         Lefty was Robert L. Miller.

              When you hit a baseball real  hard,  it  momentarily  changes
         shape by as much as 25 percent.

              It  costs $66 per minute for the electricity to light a large
         baseball stadium. That's $3,960 per hour.

              If  you  lined  up  all  the  mountain  bikes   in   America,
         tire-to-tire,  and then rode a bike along that line, it would take
         you 18 weeks, (riding 40 hours per week, 15 miles per hour) to get
         to the end of the line.

              The longest tandem or "bicycle built for two" ever  made  was
         actually  for  thirty-five.   It is almost 67 feet long and weighs
         about as much as a Volkswagen.

              The smallest bicycle that an adult can ride has  wheels  made
         from silver dollars.

              Steve  McPeak  built and rode a unicycle that was ten stories
         tall.  The greatest skill was not in riding the  machine,  but  in
         building it so that the chains would not fall off the sprockets.

              Next  time  you  are  waiting at a red light, you may want to
         begin practicing a technique called track stand. As you come to  a
         stop,  but  before  putting  a foot on the ground, turn your front
         wheel about 70 or 80 degrees to the right or left. If your bike is
         not facing uphill, turn the front wheel facing uphill. This  means
         that  your  wheel  will probably be turned to the left, since most
         often, the road curves  uphill  toward  the  centerline,  so  that
         rainwater  will  run  off.   Keep  steady  pressure  on one of the
         pedals, but balance the tendency to roll backward, downhill.  With
         practice, you will find that you can come to a stop and never have
         to  put  a  foot  on the ground. You will be able to rock slightly
         back  and  forth,  balancing  between  rolling  back  and  pushing
         forward.

              This  trick is used extensively by road racers who want their
         toe clips so tight that removing a foot would be  difficult.   For
         the  mountain  biker, it helps develop fine control of the bike at
         slow speeds, such as when riding along a narrow cliff.

              The longest bicycle skid on level ground: 374 feet.  The tire
         went flat 20' before the end of the skid.  The bike  was  equipped
         with  27" tires containing 110 pounds pressure.  The technique was
         simply a long start to get up to full speed, then the rider leaned
         way over the front of the bike, reducing the weight  on  the  back
         wheel  to almost nothing.  The feat was accomplished by the author
         of this book, who could have gone slightly  further,  but  he  was
         laughing  so hard that he fell off the bike.  Don't try this trick
         at home unless you have a really long living room.