Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

mebbe a baseball stat geek could explain this, but why ISNT bert blyven a HoFer?

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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edit: Other NBA not so surprised: the Stackhouse scoring champ thing, if only because they mention it during Mavs games all the time.

[/ QUOTE ] It's one of those things the announcers mention a lot. But the first time you hear it, you're surprised.

Similar note, Brent Barry was a slam dunk champ. Not surprising if you've followed the NBA for a while. But if you started watching during this year's playoffs, it'd surprise you that some 3 point shooter once won the slam dunk contest.

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i think most quasi NBA fans (and obv hardcore ones) know this, only because it was the MJ imitation dunk he won on. I dont like the slam dunk contest but man the brent barry dunk was so [censored] cool.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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mebbe a baseball stat geek could explain this, but why ISNT bert blyven a HoFer?

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Because the voters aren't baseball stat geeks.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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I read this one a few years back, not sure if it's still true.

There is no player in any pro sports hall of fame who played with a playing weight above 300 pounds (came up during discussing Shaq and how he might be the first)

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might? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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I read this one a few years back, not sure if it's still true.

There is no player in any pro sports hall of fame who played with a playing weight above 300 pounds (came up during discussing Shaq and how he might be the first)

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might? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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I assume he said "might" not because Shaq isn't a shoo in for the HOF but because another 300+lb athlete might make it to a HOF before him.

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6 of the 10 highest single-season strikeout totals for batters have been recorded since the 2000 season.

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Forgot about this one.

The only recorded in-game homerun in MLB history to cross a state line was hit by Adam Dunn in 2004. He hit a ball out of GABP that bounced and rolled into the Ohio river, which is technically a part of Kentucky.

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Ben Gordon is the 9th best 3pt shooter in NBA shooter in NBA history if you go by 3pt FG%, 2nd only among active players to Steve Nash.


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Jason Kapono doesn't qualify because he has too few scored/attempted or something? He's ahead of both.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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This thread is cool. Nice going OP.

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Sporting Events forum has been a lot of fun for me lately.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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Why is this surprising? Is it earlier or later than you expected?

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From my own anecdotal experiences, several people think Art Shell was the first black coach, so it is a somewhat surprising fact for some.

Especially considered other major sports didn't even integrate until almost 30 years later.

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yeah along with that one, there's never been a no-hitter thrown at shea stadium.

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Wrong.

Jim Bunning threw a perfect game at Shea in 1964.

The true fact is that the Mets have never thrown a no-hitter in their 45 years.

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I posted this one already awhile back, but the pitcher with the best win/loss percentage against the Yankees with more than 20 decisions is Babe Ruth.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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yeah along with that one, there's never been a no-hitter thrown at shea stadium.

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Wrong.

Jim Bunning threw a perfect game at Shea in 1964.

The true fact is that the Mets have never thrown a no-hitter in their 45 years.

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ah yes - oops

there's never been a no hitter thrown at forbes field - i think that one will stick

and yeah with all the pitching the mets have had that one's just shocking.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

This one used to get mentioned a lot in trivia quizzes and such, but just in case it's new to some of you. The only batter with at least 10 plate appearances vs. Nolan Ryan who never struck out against him was........(answer in white below):

<font color="white">Fernando Valenzuela</font>

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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mebbe a baseball stat geek could explain this, but why ISNT bert blyven a HoFer?

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Because the voters aren't baseball stat geeks.

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Specifically, he played on a bunch of [censored] teams so his W-L record isn't very good.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

Blyleven never DOMINATED.


Wow, that Nolan Ryan fact is amazing, by the way!

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Ben Gordon is the 9th best 3pt shooter in NBA shooter in NBA history if you go by 3pt FG%, 2nd only among active players to Steve Nash.


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Jason Kapono doesn't qualify because he has too few scored/attempted or something? He's ahead of both.

[/ QUOTE ]yeah, this doesn' t make sense. ben gordon is only 9th after you require that they shoot more than 250 3P in their career, in which cause kapono is #1 with 501 attempts.

if you require 502+, then gordon is 8th.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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Blyleven never DOMINATED.


Wow, that Nolan Ryan fact is amazing, by the way!

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He had 60 career shutouts!

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The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.

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I'm fairly sure this is incorrect and that there is one other day around the new year. Maybe it's Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, I can't remember but I think there's another one. Or at least there was 10+ years ago.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.

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I'm fairly sure this is incorrect and that there is one other day around the new year. Maybe it's Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, I can't remember but I think there's another one. Or at least there was 10+ years ago.

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If football falls on those days, it gets played. Last year there were games on both New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve (I think).

The NHL shuts down for Christmas and Christmas Eve - I know the NBA plays on Christmas (ldo), but I don't know about Christmas Eve.

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What about New Year's Day, with all the college bowl games, are there NBA/NHL games?

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What about New Year's Day, with all the college bowl games, are there NBA/NHL games?

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There was last year:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/schedule?date=20070101

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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If football falls on those days, it gets played. Last year there were games on both New Year's Eve and Christmas Eve (I think).


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For the 2005 season, games were played on Christmas Eve and Day and New Year's Eve and Day.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/schedule?year=2005

For 2006, there were no games on New Year's Day, but there were games on the other days you mentioned.

For 2007, Xmas Eve has a Monday Night game, but there are no games on New Year's Day or Eve or XMas Day.

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Wow, that Nolan Ryan fact is amazing, by the way!

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Myabe even more amazing is Frank Thomas's career stats vs. Nolan Ryan: 0 for 12, with 11 strikeouts.

(That's going from memory and I can't find confirmation, but I'm pretty sure it's correct.)

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

I had to look it up, and you are correct; 0-12, 11 K, 2 BB. So at least he got to clog up the bases a couple of times against him.

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I don't know where to verify this and even if I did, I'm too lazy to do so, but I remember hearing that no American League baseball team won more games during the 1980's than the KC Royals.

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I don't know where to verify this and even if I did, I'm too lazy to do so, but I remember hearing that no American League baseball team won more games during the 1980's than the KC Royals.

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I think it was actually the Yankees, because Steinbrenner used to cite it constantly when asked about the team's drought of championships during that decade.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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Wow, that Nolan Ryan fact is amazing, by the way!

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Myabe even more amazing is Frank Thomas's career stats vs. Nolan Ryan: 0 for 12, with 11 strikeouts.

(That's going from memory and I can't find confirmation, but I'm pretty sure it's correct.)

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This reminded me of:

Jhonny Peralta is 3-28 w/ 22k vs. Johan Santana.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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Wow, that Nolan Ryan fact is amazing, by the way!

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Myabe even more amazing is Frank Thomas's career stats vs. Nolan Ryan: 0 for 12, with 11 strikeouts.

(That's going from memory and I can't find confirmation, but I'm pretty sure it's correct.)

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This reminded me of:

Everyone with at least 28 AB's is 3-28 w/ 22k vs. Johan Santana.

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In the past 25 years no team had outscored their opponents by a 2-1 margin. Under Dilfer, the Ravens outscored their opponents by a 3-1 margin.

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'00 Ravens outscored opponents by 2.02-to-1 margin. (not 3-1)

First other team I checked in the last 25 years....

'85 Bears outscored opponents by 2.30-to-1

And there could be more, but didn't bother after that...

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Look at the games only after Dilfer took over.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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I don't know where to verify this and even if I did, I'm too lazy to do so, but I remember hearing that no American League baseball team won more games during the 1980's than the KC Royals.

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I think it was actually the Yankees, because Steinbrenner used to cite it constantly when asked about the team's drought of championships during that decade.

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Wow, you are right. I must have heard wrong.

1980's NYY: 854-708
1980's KCR: 826-734

Still, the fact that the Royals had a 52.95% winning percentage for a 10-year stretch should be pretty surprising to most people! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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I thought everyone knew the thing about the #1 seeds and the FF?

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Everyone probably does. The thread title was to post a "random sports stat/fact that surprise(d) you when you first heard it".

That stat surprised me when I first heard it. It's also random.

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Agreed. Like 10 people have posted "Thats not surprising at all because I've heard so and so mention it a ton"....well that doesn't matter! Just because you've heard it a ton doesn't mean it wasn't surprising when you first heard it.

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You are using the whole season, not after Dilfer took over.

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And yet comparing it to entire seasons of all other teams for the past 25 years?

Seems like someone is trying real hard to contrive an interesting stat about the Ravens offense.

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If any other team changed their most important position mid season then feel free to do the same for them. My point is simply that everyone remembers the Ravens early season offensive struggles under Banks and penalizes them for that. But under Dilfer they are one of the best teams ever.

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In the past 25 years no team had outscored their opponents by a 2-1 margin. Under Dilfer, the Ravens outscored their opponents by a 3-1 margin.

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would u rather win 9-3 or 35-20?

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Here were the 2000 Ravens point totals after Dilfer took over:

6
27
24
27
44
24
13
34
21
24
16
34


They lost that first game in which they only scored 6. They won every other game. In the playoffs, their closest win was by 13 points: 16-3 over the Raiders in a game in which they just went into a shell offensively during the 2nd half because the Raiders couldn't move the ball at all against them.

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In the past 25 years no team had outscored their opponents by a 2-1 margin. Under Dilfer, the Ravens outscored their opponents by a 3-1 margin.

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'00 Ravens outscored opponents by 2.02-to-1 margin. (not 3-1)

First other team I checked in the last 25 years....

'85 Bears outscored opponents by 2.30-to-1

And there could be more, but didn't bother after that...

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The 1991 Super Bowl champion Redskins outscored opponents by 2.16 to 1.

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Maybe the stat was 2.5-1 then....sorry for the mistake.

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In the past 25 years no team had outscored their opponents by a 2-1 margin. Under Dilfer, the Ravens outscored their opponents by a 3-1 margin.

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'00 Ravens outscored opponents by 2.02-to-1 margin. (not 3-1)

First other team I checked in the last 25 years....

'85 Bears outscored opponents by 2.30-to-1

And there could be more, but didn't bother after that...

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Look at the games only after Dilfer took over.

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I think the point is the claim that "no other team in the last 25 years has outscored their opponents by a 2-1 margin" is patently false.

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Ben Gordon is the 9th best 3pt shooter in NBA shooter in NBA history if you go by 3pt FG%, 2nd only among active players to Steve Nash.


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Jason Kapono doesn't qualify because he has too few scored/attempted or something? He's ahead of both.

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No, he does qualify and hes 10th.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

Another one.

The only pitcher to throw two consecutive no-hitters has a career losing record.

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But Dilfer was and is terrible. His stats for that year are bad(12/11 TD/INT), like they are every year, because he's a bad quarterback who somehow managed to luck into a great situation.


I don't have a nifty stat, but Greg Maddux is a headhunter. He hits a ton of batters for a guy with good control.

Re: random sports stats/facts that surprise you when you first hear th
 

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But Dilfer was and is terrible. His stats for that year are bad(12/11 TD/INT), like they are every year, because he's a bad quarterback who somehow managed to luck into a great situation.


I don't have a nifty stat, but Greg Maddux is a headhunter. He hits a ton of batters for a guy with good control.

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You should get nifty stats then. He's hit 130 batters over his 22 year career; that's about 6 per season. Given that he makes 30+ starts every year, that's a hit batsmen every 5 or 6 starts. That doesn't seem particularly headhunterish, especially since Maddux was not afraid to pitch inside to setup that change and sinker away in his prime.