Weird, Weird, World of Sports

By Nick Hall

Who saw last weekend when Matt Cain, of the Giants, and Cole Hamels, of the Phillies, both hit homeruns in the game?  Let me rephrase that; Matt Cain, a pitcher for the giants, and Cole Hamels, a pitcher for the Phillies, hit homeruns off of each other.....in the same inning.  Now that is just crazy.

First of all, pitchers don't hit homers very often.  Matt Cain is no slouch, he has 6 HR in his 8 year career.  Hamels on the other hand made that his first big league homer in now his 7th MLB season.  To top it off, this is not the first time this has happened.  Kevin Millwood and Denny Stark traded long-balls in 2002, but not in the same inning.  Kevin Gross and Fernando Valenzuela were the last two to accomplish the same feat as Cain and Hamels.  Gross and Valenzuela did it in 1990, coincidentally in the 3rd inning and both were solo HR's, same as Cain and Hamels.

This got me thinking and searching the World Wide Web.  Here are some of the craziest sports records and achievements I could find.  Keep in mind I narrowed my search to baseball, football and basketball.  No offense to hockey and racing, I just didn't feel like searching for those.  It's my column.

MLB

1999 Fernando Tatis - Two Grand Slams in one inning.  Only one to ever do it, and also the record holder for having 8 RBI in one inning.

1982 Ricky Henderson - Everyone knows he set the record with 130 Stolen Bases, but he also set the record that year for most times caught stealing with 42.  So that would also give him the record for most stolen base attempts in a season with 172.  He had 143 hits and 116 walks that year which totals 259 times on base (probably a few more times than that on errors and fielders choice plays).  Assuming he was on base more than 259 times, let's say 300 times, thats still attempting a steal more than 50% of the time he got on base, and more than 1 attempt per game.  Pretty incredible when you think about it.

2006 Kevin Kouzmanoff - On the first pitch Kevin ever saw in the major leagues, he blasted a Grand Slam for the Cleveland Indians.  "Glad we called that guy up" was probably the coach's thought immediately following.

1990 Minnesota Twins - In a game against the Red Sox, they turned two triple plays.......and lost 1-0.

1993 Jim Abbott - Who can forget this guy?  Only one arm, his left arm.  His right arm was handicapped, and he would use it to hang his glove on while he pitched. As soon as he released the ball, he would slide his pitching hand into the glove and be ready to field.  Let's talk about this for a minute, I really did some research here, because he was truly amazing.  First of all, he had one arm.  He made it to the big leagues and pitched for 10 seasons, notching 87 wins.  Sure that is impressive, let's up it a little.  I told you how he pitched and fielded, well in 10 seasons he made only 9 errors, posting a career .976 fielding percentage.  That means almost 98% percent of the time a ball was hit to him, only 60 feet away from the plate, he was able to make the play...with one arm. That is also impressive, but how about this.  In his final year 1999, he pitched in the NL for the first time, no DH.  No big deal, he got two hits and and had 3RBI.  That might sound miniscule, but I'd like to see you go hit a Major League pitch with two hands.  After you fail at that, try swinging the bat one handed at a 90 MPH fastball and let me know how you do.  So why 1993?  Well in 1993, Mr. Abbott tossed a no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians.  If this guy doesn't inspire you, check your pulse.

NBA

1995 Dikembe Mutumbo - Took home Defensive Player of the Year Honors.  Landed a spot on the All-Defensive 2nd Team?  More reason to laugh at the NBA and David Stern.  Dumb.

1997 Bubba Wells - Wells played for the Mavs.  In a game against the Bulls that year, Mavs coach Don Nelson invented the "hack-a-shaq" before anyone else, only his target wasn't Shaq, it was Dennis Rodman.  Rodman was a terrible free throw shooter, so Neslon sent Wells into the game with only one mission: foul Rodman and limit their points.  It took Wells only 3 minutes of action to record 6 fouls and foul out of the game.  Incredible.  I'm not sure if I've ever beat that record on a video game, but I'll bet Mr. Dant has.

1990 Charles Barkley - Another "award malfunction" by the great NBA wizards.  Charles Barkley posted the most first place votes for MVP of the 89-90 season.  In fact he tallied 11 more first place votes than Magic Johnson, who happened to win the award that year?

2002 Qyntel Woods - Remember him?  Me either.  Although, this really isn't a record or achievement, nor did it happen on the court, I'm going to tell you anyway.  Woods was stopped by police in 2002, and his car smelled of reefer.  The police searched his car and found the dope.  They asked him for his license and registration, he had neither. Instead, he handed the officer his basketball card and asked if it could be used as ID.  The secondary charge of driving without ID and proof of insurance would lead me to believe that it does not pass.  I don't know why I find this so hilarious, but I do. This is precisely why I am not a cop.  If I were, he would have been let go.  In my world, good comedy trumps all.  I pull Mark Lemke over and ask for ID, and he hands me an Upper Deck card of him fielding a groundball....no ticket.

NFL

1979 Walter Payton - In a game against against the Vikings, Bears star RB Payton ran for a TD, caught a TD and threw a TD pass.  Amazingly this happened again in 2001.  It was probably due to cheating though.  David Patten of the terrible Patriots accomplished this against the great Colts.

1997 Brad Johnson - In 1997 Brad Johnson made Bugs Bunny proud by throwing a TD pass....to himself.

1950 Jim Hardy - It was opening day in 1950 and Jim Hardy went into the game holding the record at the time for most passes thrown without an interception; 114.  He ended his streak by throwing 8 INT's in the game.

2002 Houston Texans - In a game against the Steelers, the Texans gained only 47 yards from scrimmage the whole game......and won 24-6.  They scored all three of their TD's on INT's and fumbles.  Good work Steelers.


If you've gathered anything from this article, it may be this: 1.) I am very biased towards baseball.  2.) I have great disdain for the NBA. 3.) I share that type of disdain for the Patriots.

Hope you enjoyed.  I would recommend Googling "weird sports records".  There are thousands more just like these, some are pretty hilarious and some are downright incredible.