Subject: Recent sports oddities
Date: Mon May 10 13:29:56 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:I saw the story about that this weekend, but thought maybe too big a deal was being made out of it. After all, we've had Bob Hayes, Herschel Walker (2-time All-American sprinter in college, and whom I saw in person run something in the low 10.3s), Bo (better in the 40 than the 100, I guess), Willie Gault, Deion (also maybe better in the 40, but some would say not necessarily), and maybe some others, too. Jim Hines, too, but he didn't really "make it". And that is not meant to be anywhere near an exhaustive list of the possibilities. There have been a great many sprinters who also played NFL.
It goes without saying that all such humans are "freaks of nature"........but Bo, Herschel, and Deion were *extreme* freaks in their ability. The first two because of their speed combined with their rather large size (shout out to Isaac Newton?), and I guess Metcalf is in that mold; and Deion because of his stride and acceleration. All just my considered opinion, of course.
Date: Mon May 10 14:33:40 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Right. So......why is Metcalf such news? I'm not complaining or anything; just wondering if I'm missing something.
(And obviously I did at some point - as I didn't know Tommie Smith played in the NFL, for the Bengals. But looked it up, and it was only 2 games, and caught 1 pass - so understandable I missed that. LOL.)
Date: Mon May 10 14:59:11 2021
User: The_Interpreter
Message:"freaks of nature"??
I think I hear the cancel culture crew coming.
Date: Mon May 10 15:16:57 2021
User: BuzzClik
Message:Metcalf is in the news because his agent put it out there and the sports media gobbled it up.
The analyses of his performance have ranged from "he was humiliated" to "defensive backs should be terrified of his blinding speed."
Date: Mon May 10 16:14:16 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Wait a minute, Buzz..........................are you saying that the media print or broadcast stuff that's not newsworthy? The world doesn't work like that............
..................................does it? Somebody needs to report that - if it's true.
And if so, there's gonna be a lot of people in Hollywood, LA, New York, Tokyo, and lots and lots of places in between that are gonna have a lot of 'splainin' to do when the world finds that out.
Date: Mon May 10 20:08:47 2021
User: Oded789
Message:The Metcalf story is news because the vast majority of above cases are Athletics stars who ditched that to make it to the NFL, not the other way around. There was certainly very little money in T&F in Bob Hayes' time, otherwise he might have stayed there and would become a candidate for the best ever like Carl Lewis or Bolt.
The only former NFL player who made it to the Olympics is Jahvid Best - who had a promising RB career cut very short by concussions - and he had to go represent St Lucia for that.
Date: Tue May 11 05:15:13 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:I guess this is an "oddity", but it's also hardly a "tib-bit", where I almost put this. But since most of our discussion of Russell Westbrook has been in this thread (I think), I'm sticking it here. (See page 3 of this thread, April, 2018 for some pertinent comments.) It's a truly amazing accomplishment. And I mean *amazing*. I think it would be fair to call it "Ruthian", even tho it's a different sport.
He's done it. He's surpassed the Big O for most career triple doubles. He now has 182 of them, including 36 just this year. And what a way to do it - with an astonishing 21 dishes (28 and 13, with the 21). And yet again, he's *averaging* a triple double.
We can't compare how today's D compares with what the Big O had to deal with, and some would argue it's easier to do this in this era. We'll never know, but look at the scarcity of dudes who've done it. Ain't many. This should be headlines tomorrow, but it may not be.
Link: Oops! He did it again - again.
Date: Tue May 11 21:39:55 2021
User: BuzzClik
Message:Westbrook is a fierce, relentless competitor and a good person, but his numbers are part of a larger trend.
This year, there were 40% more triple doubles than last year, and they have increased by a factor of 9 over the past decade. In some measure, it's the result of the very generous awarding of assists. Not that long ago, an assist required a pass that created an immediate opening for an easy score. Sometimes the scorer might take a single dribble before scoring, but dribbling generally negated any possibility of an assist.
An example of this decay in standards for assists was one of Westbrook's most recent. He drove to the edge of the lane on the left and drew a double team. He passed off a teammate just inside the 3-point arc at the top of the key who drove in for a layup. Westbrook got the assist. Wow. Guaranteed, The Big O would not have been credited with that assist.
Regardless, tip of the hat to Westbrook. His assist numbers are gigantic, and not just due to diminished standards.
Date: Wed May 12 20:13:21 2021
User: Oded789
Message:We can compare somewhat. The pace of game in the early to mid 60s was hectic and and Oscar's TD season the league reached an all-time high of 118.8 PPG.
The average score per team across the league was over 110 in 1960-1972, 1979, 1984-1986 and 2019-2021 (and counting).
Over 115 in eight of eleven seasons between 1960 and 1970. We're not back there yet.
Teams averaged 107-109 FGA, 37 FTA and 73 rebounds per game. Current numbers are 88 FGA, 22 FTA and 44 rebounds - but point averages are the highest in 50 years thanks to 3 point volume and overall accuracy: FG% (46.6%) is the highest in more than 25 years, and 3 point (36.7%) and FT % (77.7%) are the highest ever, in spite of more and more 3 pointers (12.7/34.6, the 9th year running with a new record in attempts and makes from downtown).
As for Westbrook, what's even more amazing is his recent pace, which even translates to winning basketball for the Wizards, unlike earlier this year (15-5 over their last 20, after a 17-32 record until then).
Over his last 26 games, he put up 22 triple-doubles, a much higher rate than his record of 42 in a single season (which broke Oscar's 41 from 1962, and the previous instance of someone even breaking 20 was Wilt in 1968). His averages over those games are 23-14-13.5, which would be an impressive TD for a single game, not something one can do over 26 straight games.
He recently had 50+ rebounds and 50+ assists over a 3-game span, which had never been done before, and likewise has over 100+ each in his last 7 games - also an NBA first.
Date: Wed May 12 20:40:13 2021
User: Oded789
Message:An oddity by itself was the game in which Westbrook set a career high in rebounds (21) and tied a career high in assists (24), the Wizards 154-141 win last week over Indiana.
It was the 3rd such 20-20 game in NBA history after Wilt in 1968 and Westbrook himself two years ago. The first two were triple-20s, but this one wasn't because he only scored 13 points.
But that's not it for this game.
The Wizards as a team dished out 50 assists. The last time any team did that was 30 years ago, and that was against the worst defensive team of all-time, the 1990/91 Nuggets. It was the game in which Phoenix led them 107-67 *at halftime* (almost needless to say, the only 100+ point half in NBA history), winning 173-143. The Suns had 33 assists in that half.
The NBA team single-game record is 53.
Skiles' 30 assists game was also set against those Nuggets (Orlando "only" had 44 altogether in that game).
The Wizards also had 9 players in double-figures. That's not very rare - after only one such game in 25 years, there have been 13 cases since 2018 - but guess what was the last time Washington had 9 players with 10+ points in a game, or to be exact, against which team?
On top of that, the Pacers had 8 double-figure scorers of their own.
The total of 17 tied an NBA record, set four times before, last in 1984. Most of these were shootouts, but surprisingly, one of them had a rather modest 135-104 scoreline.
Unfortunately, Raul Neto scored 9 points for the Wizards.
The last time a team had the NBA-record 10 double-figure scorers was in 1994.
Date: Thu May 13 09:28:17 2021
User: byronsmoot
Message:BuzzClik is correct ... the definition of 'assist' has been distorted so much so that it makes a true comparison of statistics nearly impossible.
The NBA (especially) long ago jumped the shark blurring lines between sports and entertainment ... infractions not penalized (and if so, then rescinded), and achievements exaggerated.
Date: Thu May 13 20:18:49 2021
User: Oded789
Message:I agree with both of you that assists are being awarded too generously, and as for non-penalized infractions, the main culprit is traveling (I'm looking at you, beard-man).
However, "they have increased by a factor of 9 over the past decade" is somewhat misleading.
Scoring was at an all-time high in the 60s (Big O's heyday), took a relative dip in the mid-70s, up again in the 80s, a nosedive in the mid-90s that lasted almost two decades (to the point of the lowest scoring season in the shot-clock era in 1998/99 with 91.6 PPG), and up again over the past decade.
The total number of triple-doubles in the past few seasons is only about double than in the 60s or the 80s, and that's not only because of gifting free assists but also due to style of play with less big men and back to the basket isos, instead setting up open threes with (real) assists, but also bear in mind that blocks and steals were not recorded until the 1973/74 season, otherwise Wilt might have 150 or more TDs instead of 78, with multiple Quadruple-doubles, and that as I've mentioned, the number of possessions made getting big rebounding numbers much easier back then.
Wilt has 8 40-40 double-doubles, there are five other players who grabbed 38 or more in the 50s and 60s, but no-one had gone over 35 in more than 50 years.
Also, if getting assists is so easy nowadays, how come the team average across the league is still lower (24.8) than what is was for more than a decade (1977/78 to 1988/89 with over 25)?
Date: Fri May 14 04:14:23 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:I grew up with the 'rule' being no more than 1 dribble. I don't remember if that was college, NBA, or what, tho. I had suspected it had 'evolved', but didn't know how bad it had gotten and that so much 'judgement' is now involved. Don't have time to discuss deeply, tho. Good points above.
And in the meantime.............................
The Sac. Kings miss the playoffs for the 15th straight year - a new record beating the one owned by the Clippers. You've almost gotta be trying to do that. So is that an "oddity"? Yeah, I kinda think it is.
Link: assists for the assists
Date: Sat May 15 08:05:58 2021
User: JackK
Message:The NBA is run by suits and lawyers, with cheaters for refs. Interest is low. Ratings are low.
Date: Sat May 15 08:41:36 2021
User: Oded789
Message:The NFL had more officiating scandals over the past few years than the NBA.
I don't follow the MLB and NHL enough to know what's going on there in that regard.
But how many American or global sports are not being run by suits and lawyers?
Date: Tue May 18 08:46:12 2021
User: mrbuck
Message:Hardly recent other than I recently came across the article. A 27 strike out no hitter. Dude struck out 24 in his next start.
Link: Ron Necciai
Date: Tue May 18 11:21:51 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:That's a great story, and I've been aware of it nearly all my life, I guess, because it happened just up the road from here, being in the Appalachian League, and local writers have brought it up from time-to-time. In fact........my parents *may* have seen him pitch, as my mother worked for the local Appy team at that time, and my father was a recently-retired player. Seems like I have a very vague memory of him telling me about this guy, but can't say so for sure that he witnessed him at all. (And not *that* game.) Below I link another (2 pages) article (or really 2 articles) with more details. BTW..........the Bristol Twins were named that because Bristol sits astride the TN/VA line, and is, or sometimes is, called "The Twin-City". Obviously this was well before the Senators moved to *the* Twin-Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul - and so they weren't a farm team of that organization. Bristol is also the location of the pic of bucky and me together on the pics page.
Link: More on Necciai
Date: Sun May 23 11:29:22 2021
User: ix
Message:i'm not a sports guy, so i have no clue and googling didn't help, but how common is a triple play that isn't a line drive?
Date: Sun May 23 13:05:38 2021
User: joeygray
Message:No triple play’s common, of course. I would say that the line drive with two guys doubled off is probably equal in time of occurrence to the steps on 3rd to 2nd for two and back to 1st triple play. I’ve also seen the fly ball, man out trying to score on the tag, runner tagged out trying to advance to third. That one’s rarer.
Date: Sun May 23 13:16:00 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Without trying to research it in the least, I'd probably agree with joey. Seems like certainly in the same general realms of occurrence frequency. But I wouldn't be shocked to 'be shocked', either. Maybe third behind those is the 'bloop' ball that looks like it may fall in but gets caught then 2 runners get caught. Same as the line drive except it's not a line drive. There have been some really, really odd triple plays down thru the years. Seems like once or twice a year there's a real head-scratcher.
Date: Sun May 23 13:31:38 2021
User: The_Interpreter
Message:Here George Will hypothesizes about an unfielded triple play
Link: Wiki
Date: Sun May 23 17:14:47 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Altho this isn't recent (except from the long view of baseball history), it involves a triple play, and is a fairly absurd oddity.
This is an extremely bad line score for a player to have for any one game.........how about this being your entire career? Being 'responsible for' 6 outs for your team in 3 AB.
Link: Chances poor for the HOF....
Date: Sun May 23 18:21:25 2021
User: Oded789
Message:But hey, his team won every game he ever played!
The NY Times piece about him was nice.
Apparently once there was a 3-foot-7 batter in the MLB...
Link: Wright on!
Date: Sun May 23 18:56:51 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:That really is a great story. Thanks.
The story of Eddie Gaedel is a well-known and oft-told one.
Date: Sun May 23 18:58:36 2021
User: Klepp
Message:Eddie Gaedel was a baseball titan, for a trice.
Date: Thu May 27 18:35:40 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Truly crazy baserunning (and truly befuddling decision-making by a first baseman (in only his 7th(??) major league game)).
This happens all the time with run-downs between first and second, or between second and third, but before first base?
Link: Javier Baez befuddles Will Craig
Date: Thu May 27 19:05:32 2021
User: joeygray
Message:Yeah. According to the force-out rules, all he has to do, even after idiotically running the guy 88 feet back toward the plate, is tag first base or throw it to somebody who does. The run doesn’t count.
Date: Sun May 30 15:10:12 2021
User: ix
Message:i think, in addition to the pirates team meeting, the rahal team meeting will begin with: let's go over some fundamentals.
Date: Sun May 30 18:50:49 2021
User: Oded789
Message:NBA all-time blocking leader (per game, with 3.5), former Jazz center Mark Eaton, died in a biking accident. He was 64.
A really unique story:
He was more into water polo in his youth, played some ball in HS, but was "raw" and didn't get serious college offers, so he went to work as an auto mechanic for a couple of years, making 20K per year. Then some junior college coach saw him there, and persuaded him to play for them, while keeping his day job.
After two years there, UCLA offered a full scholarship, but he rarely saw playing time in his two seasons with them.
Utah coach Frank Layden decided to pick him on the 4th round of the draft, explaining his choice by quoting Red Auerbach's old axiom, "you can't teach height".
But it was a chance encounter with the man who probably *truly* owns all blocking records (Blocks weren't officially recorded till the 1973/74 season) who changed his career.
Wilt lived near UCLA and after watching Eaton struggle to chase smaller guards in a pickup game, pulled the fellow big man aside to help him better understand his role on the court.
“Look young fella, you’re never going to catch that guy,’ Eaton remembered, “And more importantly, it’s not really your job. He said come here, so he grabbed me and he took me out on the court and he put me right in front of the basket and he said you see this basket behind you, your job is to stand here and block shots, your job is to stop the other players from getting to the basket, collect the rebound and then throw it up to the guard, let them go down to the other end and score it and then your job is to kind of cruise up to half court and see what’s going on.”
Very few non-foreign players made their NBA debut at 26.
Eaton immediately broke the franchise record in blocks, and on his 3rd season (1984/85) set the NBA single season record with 456 (5.56 BPG).
Twice defensive player of the year, once an All-Star.
In his last years, he served as a mentor and formed a bond with current Jazz defensive ace, Rudy Gobert.
I've found his twitter nick rather amusing (@markeaton7ft4).
Date: Sun May 30 20:24:04 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Wow - I saw he died but didn't know it was ANOTHER bike accident for yet ANOTHER Jazz center, also in Utah!!! How freaky is that! (The earlier one was (the even taller) Shawn Bradley, who survived, but is (fully, I think) paralyzed, just a few months ago.)
New law in Utah to come, prohibiting NBA centers from riding a bike??
Date: Sun May 30 22:24:34 2021
User: ElGuapo
Message:Haven't seen this in the news, but the guy he rode with earlier in the day said it was a heart attack and not the bike accident itself that was the cause. Pretty sad at 64 years young, Eaton really seemed like a good dude.
Date: Sun May 30 23:17:58 2021
User: BuzzClik
Message:In other news, a day late unfortunately:
Saturday afternoon, ABC broadcast the Oklahoma-Washington women's softball super regional game. Sounds like it's no big thing, but shockingly enough, that was the first time that a women's collegiate softball game has been broadcast by a major network. The first women's World Series as 1982, so there's been opportunity.
Date: Mon May 31 00:38:50 2021
User: Kaos
Message:I had the great fortune of seeing two games courtside with the Sonics vs. Utah many moons ago when Eaton was playing for the Jazz. He was huge. Heck, John Stockton is/was way bigger than you would think and Eaton was just over a foot taller than Stockton. Always sad to see athletes pass away before their time.
Date: Mon May 31 00:42:24 2021
User: Kaos
Message:Oh, and especially when they are younger than you are.
Date: Mon May 31 04:16:56 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:This was yesterday.........(hyperlink)
*This* was last year:
https://fanbuzz.com/mlb/high-school-pitcher-barehands-line-drive-hit-plays-it-off-like-its-no-big-deal/
Link: line drives back to the pitcher
Date: Wed Jun 2 19:24:23 2021
User: Oded789
Message:If they were scorching the nets, whatcha say about Dame's recent effort?
That was not only the playoff 3-point record (Lillard already was one of only two to make 10 or more in a playoff game), but arguably the best playoff game by any player in decades, and no doubt the best in a losing effort.
Link: Reactions to Dame's 55 point playoff game
Date: Thu Jun 3 03:34:14 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Well..........that's downright studly. When I made my post above, I had yet to see Lillard's gaudy effort. Altho I'm not going to try and think of one to surpass it, it's hard for me to say it's the best by any player in decades, even in a loss. That's *awfully* tall talk.
Doncic was pretty awesome tonight, too - altho not Lillard level.
Date: Sat Jun 5 01:09:11 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:Clippers win in Dallas to even their series 3-3. So? So..............first time in NBA history that the road team has won the first 6 games of a playoff series. Bizzaro.
Date: Sat Jun 5 20:51:29 2021
User: Oded789
Message:It's the first time in NBA history that the road team has won the *any* 6 games of a playoff series, straight or not.
There had been two previous instances of the road team winning the first 5:
* Sixers-Nets 1984, with the Nets stunning the champs to win their first NBA playoff series ever; first round was best of 5, so the road team won every game.
* Spurs-Rockets 1995, West Finals. Houston closed the series with a game 6 home win, en route to sweeping Shaq's Orlando in the NBA Finals.
Another two times a series ended with 5 road wins:
* Lakers-Spurs 1983 - the Lakers won home game 1.
* Warriors-Clippers 2019 - Golden State won home game 1 (and blew a postseason record 31 point lead in the 3rd quarter in game 2).
Memorably there were also 5 road wins in 6 games in the 1993 Finals between Chicago and Phoenix, with the lone home win coming in game 4, wrapped between home losses for the Bulls.
But they still got one to go to match the ultra-bizarre 2019 World Series with its 0 of 7 home wins.
Date: Sat Jun 5 22:26:14 2021
User: BuzzClik
Message:It seems that no seven game series in the NHL has ever been decided win no home wins. The most number of road wins is 5 with the deciding game won by the home team. That has happened a few times.
Date: Sun Jun 6 18:19:58 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:This may not be an "oddity", but knocking over 10 seconds of the W.R. is pretty amazing. I was aware of the new spike technology, but this is the first I've heard of "pacing lights"!!?! I object! (I think.) Seems too much like an "external aid. Maybe I should consider coming out of retirement!
Link: new wimmens W.R. in the 10,000
Date: Sun Jun 6 19:26:56 2021
User: Oded789
Message:This has been going on for at least a couple of years.
And as for the women's 10000 record, if you discount one hand-timed record, somehow only once there was a WR improvement of *less* than 10 seconds, which is a truly absurd stat.
The previous one (at the Tokyo Olympics - a very rare place for a long distance record, with no pace-making of any kind) was a 14s improvement, and the two prior to that one blasted the old record by more than 40(!!!) seconds each time, the majority of an entire lap.
Of course, the 1993 Chinese record (29:31, for a long time the only sub-30 run) was part of a whole set of extremely dubious marks, most of them by unknown teenagers nobody has ever seen competing, who set a slew of world (3000, 5000, 10000) and national records (from 10.79 in 100m to 6750 in Heptathlon) that lasted for decades and should have never been ratified.
Link: Women's 10000 WR progression
Date: Sun Jun 6 19:56:42 2021
User: 82nd_Airborne
Message:That guy who ran the sub 2hr marathon, wasn't it all downhill with the wind at his back?
Date: Sun Jun 6 20:29:29 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:I know/knew all about the dubious (to be kind) Chinese records. Did not realize that the drops in the wimmens records had been that big, tho - in recent times. Before, oh, 1980 or so (just pick your date - you would know better than I), there were FAR fewer quality runners to put pressure on those marks, thus the quantized jumps were larger, expectedly. And as you imply, the further back one goes, the greater the 'opportunities' for those huge drops. And of course other distances - same thing.
Tony, what say you about the use of said "external aids"?
Date: Sun Jun 6 20:34:17 2021
User: TNmountainman
Message:P.S. - I had not seen the link you provided until after I made my above post, but I think it's still about right. Hard to believe it's been nearly 40 years (and 2.5 minutes!!) since Mary Decker had her turn.
Date: Sun Jun 6 20:37:59 2021
User: Oded789
Message:redberet: lot's of optimization there, mainly the shoes, but not downhill, just flat out.
Link: Kipchoge's sub-2h marathon
Post follow-up