Random sports knowledge to make you smarter

One of my goals with Bacon Sports is to make you a smarter sports fan. I’m a sports and stat degenerate so I’m going to impart some wisdom on you that you can hopefully take to the bars on Saturday/Sunday while watching football and impress your friends.

• Last night’s Game 1 of the World Series featured three players that had won a Cy Young award and pitched in the same game (Justin Verlander, Barry Zito, Tim Lincecum). Keeping with the Cy Young theme, since Barry Zito won with the Oakland A’s back in 2002 the pitcher with the highest ERA to win a Cy Young was Bartolo Colon. In 2005 with the Los Angeles Angels he went 21-8 with a 3.48 ERA and only 157 strikeouts. To put that into perspective, when Justin Verlander won the Cy Young award last year he went 24-5 with a 2.40 ERA and 250 strikeouts. Talk about vastly different seasons.
• If you are an NBA fan you probably know that Steve Nash went to college at Santa Clara University. You know who also went to Santa Clara? Kurt Rambis. Put that one in your trivia bank.
• “The Shaq of the MAC” Gary Trent was drafted 11th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks. He was selected over such players as Cherokee Parks (12), Theo Ratliff and his expiring contract (18), Michael Finley (21), and Greg Ostertag (28). He was involved in a trade along with a first round pick for Shawn Respert. It’s good to know that Gary Trent’s Six Degrees Back to Bacon involves Shawn Respert. Also, any time you can mention Gary Trent and Shawn Respert in the same paragraph is a good day.
• Can you believe that Michael Jordan only won five regular season MVP’s in his 13 year career? Seems pretty low considering he’s the greatest basketball player ever. For his career MJ made over $90 million in NBA salary. Despite that large number only twice did he make more than $4 million in a season. That was in 96′ and 97′ when he made $30+ million each year (those were his last two years with the Chicago Bulls). To put the $90 million career earnings into perspective, Theo Ratliff made over $102 million, Brian Grant made over $109 million, Vin Baker made over $97 million, and Kevin Garnett has made over $291 million for their careers. You’ve gotta love the economics of the NBA.
• Barry Sanders career high for rushing touchdowns in a season is 16. His lowest amount in any season in which he played all 16 games was 4. That was in 1998 which was coincidently his last season in the NFL. That year he was 4th in the NFL in rushing yards with 1,491. The three players who finished ahead of him were Terrell Davis (his 2000 yard season), Jamal Anderson, and Garrison Hearst. That same season Denver Broncos QB Jake Plummer lead the NFL in game winning drives with seven. Plummer also lead the NFL in comebacks with five. That year was also Peyton Manning’s rookie season where he threw a career high 28 interceptions.

What stands out most about this video is not the stellar escapability of Plummer but instead how inaccurate the yellow first down line is.Take a look at what I’m talking about.

Really CBS, that’s the first down line? I know that the announcers are always saying “the yellow line is not 100% accurate” but I didn’t know that the yellow line was 0% accurate and on a slant. This marker is off by a good 1.25 yards.

As if the yellow first down line couldn’t be more inconsistent it now makes a first down 11 yards instead of the previous 8.75. I can’t believe that we as fans used to put up with this garbage.

If you dig random and vintage sports stuff like this then don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or Like Us on Facebook. We are running a contest where if you like us on Facebook by Oct 31 then you’ll be entered to win a sweet 8×10 photo of Larry Bird rocking some 80s nut huggers, Converse shoes, and showing some sweet shooting form.