Things I Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_Test

While an average football player usually scores around 20 points, Wonderlic, Inc. claims a score of at least 10 points suggests a person is literate.

On the other hand, some well-known players have scored low on the test. Dan Marino scored a 16 and Vince Young also scored a 16 on the test his second try, after sources confirmed his previously reported score of six to be erroneous.

Vince Young’s score of 6 was “confirmed” as erroneous by the people that drafted him. Interesting.

These are the things I learn by watching the Superbowl with my buddies!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_Ruiz

In addition, her time of 2:31:56 was an unusual improvement, more than 25 minutes ahead of her reported time in the New York City Marathon six months earlier. When asked by a reporter why she didn’t seem fatigued after the grueling race, she said, “I got up with a lot of energy this morning.” Some female competitors thought it was odd that, when asked what she had noticed about Wellesley while running through it, she did not mention the students of Wellesley College, who traditionally loudly cheer the first women runners as they pass the campus.

I’ve never been one for “physical fitness.” (I’m what might be generously termed “phlegmatic.”) Growing up, kids always seemed stronger, faster, or better at me than everything, be it soccer or rollerblading, and it was kind of a bummer. It’s not that I didn’t try… I just, uh, didn’t try very hard.

Every 4th of July, my hometown hosts a 5K-10K race. (This is Southern California, after all.) It’s sort of a tradition for people to run the race in the morning, go to brunch, and then watch the parade. After a couple of half-hearted years of trying to keep up with my sister (a personal trainer) and my good friends (cross-country runners) in the race, I just gave up. One year, I dragged my friend Christy down to my level: we slept late, rollerbladed down into town, and snuck into the race with the rest of our friends a quarter of a mile before the finish line.

They were sweaty, exhausted, and not amused. But they still went out to brunch with us afterwards.

Now, imagine that instead of a 4th of July Fun Run, this was the Boston Marathon, and instead of saving time by rollerblading, we had jumped on the subway; and instead of joining our friends, we had actually cut in front of everyone else; and instead of joking, we were serious.

Because that is precisely what Rosie Ruiz did in 1980.

Rosie seemingly came out of nowhere to win the race in a record-shattering time, “the fastest female time in Boston Marathon history as well as the third-fastest female time ever recorded in any marathon,” and an improvement of more than 25 minutes from her previous New York Marathon time. All without visibly breaking a sweat! Or raising her heart rate! Or appearing in any race photos!

After about a week of investigating, race officials stripped Rosie of her title and awarded it to the “second place” winner, Jacqueline Gareau, whose time still ended up being a record for the course.

And Rosie?

In 1982, Ruiz was arrested for embezzling $60,000 from a real estate company where she worked. She then moved back to southern Florida, only to be arrested for her involvement in a cocaine deal. At last report, she was working in West Palm Beach as an account representative. To this day, she still maintains that she ran the entire 1980 Boston Marathon.

In other words… somewhat less awesome than brunch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb

At the end of the sixth inning, after being challenged by teammates Sam Crawford and Jim Delahanty to do something about it, Cobb climbed into the stands and attacked Lueker, who it turns out was handicapped (he had lost all of one hand and three fingers on his other hand in an industrial accident). When onlookers shouted at Cobb to stop because the man had no hands, Cobb reportedly replied, “I don’t care if he got no feet!”

Sometimes, my dad likes to talk baseball. And by “sometimes,” I mean “always.”

He’s an interesting one, my dad. I suspect he’s borderline Asperger’s… or maybe even totally raging Asperger’s. He’s obsessed with numbers (like baseball stats or Sudoku puzzles), socially awkward to the point of caricature, and has an anxiety attack when anything alters his plan for the day (even if the plan for the day is “sit in my chair and do 10,000 Sudoku puzzles”).

(I seem to have inherited some of these traits… Obsessions! Social awkwardness! Rampant anxiety! Recently, I took a “Do I Have Asperger’s Syndrome?” test online that was out of 50 points, where 32 and above indicated probable Asperger’s. I scored a 30.)

Regardless, Dad’s obsession with baseball stats is actually a pretty interesting story. When he was very young, he contracted Polio. This was back in the ‘50’s, before the vaccine was invented, and it was a real epidemic—often causing paralysis, sometimes causing death. At that time, the best bet for kids with polio was an Iron Lung, but there were other experimental cures like wrapping legs in warm, wet blankets to stave off the virus’s effects—my dad having undergone the latter.

During his treatment, when he was about 10 or 11, he had to drop out of school and stay in the hospital for months. He was in a unit composed mostly of older World War II veterans who would gripe and yell at him for listening to the radio. To keep him occupied, his parents bought him a Baseball Encyclopedia full of statistics and trivia. He can still can quote it to this day.

Another fun fact: when the Brooklyn Dodgers came to Los Angeles in 1958, he clipped the box score from every game out of the newspaper. I believe they’re still somewhere in the attic of my parents’ house.

Point being: Baseball. He likes it.

Don’t get me wrong, I like it too: I live in L.A., so I’m all about the Dodgers; my cousin Brendan Ryan plays for the Seattle Mariners; I played softball and baseball in high school. But if I mention anything at all to my dad (Hey, what’s up with Don Mattingly? or So, Albert Pujols is being traded to the Angels?), he will spout off for an unlimited amount of time about anything and everything baseball, mostly skewing toward the game’s early days. I once sat in a car with him for 15 minutes while he touched on (among many other things) black players in the 1880’s, Cuban players in the early 1900’s, the Negro Leagues, the 1947 racial integration of the Major Leagues, Satchel Paige (at 42, the oldest player to debut the Major Leagues—and maybe the best pitcher in the history of the game), Jackie Robinson, (Fun fact: he was a UCLA football star and an Army Lieutenant!), Jackie Robinson’s track star brother Mack who earned a Silver Medal in the famous 1936 Berlin Olympics behind Jesse Owens, Pee Wee Reese (Jackie Robinson’s white teammate who publicly supported him), why FDR kept baseball alive during World War II, and even the rise of pro basketball with players like Bill Russell being the first to break the color barrier with the Boston Celtics.

Wow.

Anyway, Ty Cobb came up a few days ago during the most recent baseball conversation, which began with the question, “Albert Pujols is being traded to the Angels?” and somehow ended up about the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 and Shoeless Joe Jackson. Basically, from what I gleaned from my dad, Ty Cobb was a hell of a baseball player, but also a hell of a racist—to the point where he’d allegedly sharpen his metal cleats and intentionally slide into a base defended by a black player so he could take them out. Really fucked up shit. [Ed. Note: Upon review, this may be just an urban legend. Many out there on the internet argue that Cobb was not, in fact, a racist—he was just an asshole.]

Mr. Cobb was a bit (and by “a bit,” I mean “insanely”) surly. And not just to blacks.

During Cobb’s career, he was involved in numerous fights, both on and off the field, and several profanity-laced shouting matches.

Cobb once slapped a black elevator operator for being ‘uppity.’ When a black night watchman intervened, Cobb pulled out a knife and stabbed him. The matter was later settled out of court.

Cobb fought a groundskeeper over the condition of the Tigers’ field in Augusta, Georgia at Spring Training in 1907. Cobb also ended up choking the man’s wife when she intervened.

“Sure, I fought,” said an unrepentant Cobb in a revealing quote. “I had to fight all my life just to survive. They were all against me. Tried every dirty trick to cut me down, but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.”

One of my favorite trivia tidbits comes from that time that he beat up a handicapped spectator for implying that he was half-black, the kind of nonsense that got one’s ass briefly suspended from playing in those days. (Nowadays? Probably a lifetime suspension, hefty fines, and significant jail time.) Though they didn’t much like him as a human, his Detroit Tiger teammates protested his suspension and refused to play without him. For one game against the Philadelphia Athletics, they recruited a team of ringers from college and amateur teams to step in. It turned out to be a fairly rare “complete game” for the ringer pitcher—i.e. he pitched the entire game without relief. Sounds like he could have used some, though, since the final score was 24-2, Philadelphia.

He was also one of the first people to invest in Coca-Cola, which meant he became ludicrously wealthy.

Essentially, Ty Cobb was a son of a bitch, but a goddammned good baseball player who made a ton of Major League records—and still holds some of them, including the highest career batting average.

C is for Cobb,
Who grew spikes and not corn,
And made all the basemen
Wish they weren’t born.

— Ogden Nash

You can thank my father for this blog post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastest_recorded_tennis_serves

1. Andy Roddick, 155 mph (249 km/h), 2004 Davis Cup 
2. Roscoe Tanner, 153 mph (246 km/h), 1978 Palm Springs 
3. Andy Roddick, 153 mph (246 km/h), 2004 Queen’s Club
4. Ivo Karlović, 153 mph (246 km/h), 2007 Nottingham
5. Andy Roddick, 152 mph (245 km/h), 2004 U.S. Open
6. Andy Roddick, 151 mph (243 km/h), 2009 Madrid
7. Andy Roddick, 151 mph (243 km/h), 2004 Davis Cup
8. Andy Roddick, 151 mph (243 km/h), 2007 Washington D.C.
9. Andy Roddick, 150 mph (241 km/h), 2008 Dubai
10. Andy Roddick, 150 mph (241 km/h), 2004 Davis Cup
11. Andy Roddick, 150 mph (241 km/h), 2009 San Jose

C’mon, Roddick. Put a little effort in it.

Photo by Pat Scala for The Age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportsmanship

Sportsmanship can be conceptualized as an enduring and relatively stable characteristic or disposition such that individuals differ in the way they are generally expected to behave in sport situations. In general, sportsmanship refers to virtues such as fairness, self-control, courage and persistence and has been associated with interpersonal concepts of treating others and being treated fairly, maintaining self-control in dealing with others, and respect for both authority and opponents.

Well… looks like I can’t ever again feign ignorance when being called a poor sport.

Ugh. Whatever, I DIDN’T WANT TO PLAY ANYWAY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Atlanta_Falcons#1965.E2.80.931969

The name Falcons was suggested by Julia Elliott (1909–1990) a high school teacher from Griffin, Georgia who won a contest in 1965. Though 40 other contestants had also suggested the name, Elliott wrote in an essay, “The falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight. It never drops its prey. It’s deadly and has a great sporting tradition.” Among the many suggested names were the Knights, Bombers, Rebels, Crackers, Thrashers, Lancers, Firebirds, Fireballs and Thunderbirds.

I cannot tell you how much I would pay to see an Atlanta Crackers game.

Hint: it’s a lot.

(But probably less than I owe to my credit card companies at the moment…)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson#University_of_Southern_California

Another dramatic touchdown in the same game [of 1967] is the subject of the Arnold Friberg oil painting, O.J. Simpson Breaks for Daylight.

In 1968, he rushed for 1,709 yards and 22 touchdowns, earning the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and the Walter Camp Award that year. He still holds the record for the Heisman’s largest margin of victory, defeating the runner-up by 1,750 points.

Reggie Bush killed USC’s bowl eligibility for the next two years. O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife. (Allegedly.) Both Heisman-winning running backs.

Heisman-winning USC quarterbacks just kill their NFL teams’ records.

Motto: if you’re going to play USC football, don’t shoot for the Heisman. Aim low. For everyone’s sake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate_belts

This article does not cite any references or sources.

Oh. So that’s why it reads like a second-grader wrote it. White belt in style!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_Mary_pass#Reactions

The ball wasn’t the only thing getting thrown on the field that day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Globetrotters

Nelson Mandela:  First South African president, Nobel Peace Prize winner…and honorary Globetrotter. Prestigious stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Caray

HOLY COW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landon_Donovan

Fun Fact: in 1999, Landon Donovan almost had his feet bitten off by an alligator while enjoying a post-training round of golf.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganism